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Two studies explored the relationship between elementary students' creative self-efficacy (CSE) beliefs (i.e., self-judgments of creative ability) and teachers' ratings of students' creativity. In Study 1, elementary students' (N = 595) CSE beliefs in science predicted teachers' ratings of students' creative expression in science, accounting for a significant, but small (3.4%), proportion of variation in teachers' ratings. Results of Study 1 also indicate that students' CSE beliefs tended to decline by grade level and teachers tended to rate females and White students as more creative. In Study 2, elementary students' {N = 306) CSE beliefs in science and math predicted teachers' ratings of creative expression in math and science, again accounting for a significant, but small (2.1% in science; 4.2% in math), proportion of variation in teachers' ratings. Also similar to Study 1, results indicate students' CSE beliefs declined by grade level. Results of Study 2 indicate that students tended to underestimate their creative ability and tended to differentiate between creative ability in science and math (whereas their teachers did not). Implications for creativity research are discussed.

Classroom communication figures prominently in current math reform efforts. In this study, we analyze how one teacher used writing to support communication in a seventh-grade, low-track mathematics class. For one school year, we studied four lowachieving students in the class. Students wrote in journals on a weekly basis. Using classroom observations and interviews with the teacher, we developed profiles of the four students, capturing their participation in class discussions. The profiles highlighted an important similarity among the four students: marginal participation in both small-group and whole-class discussions. However, our analysis of the students' journals identified multiple instances where the students were able to explain their mathematical reasoning, revealing their conceptual understanding, ability to explain, and skill at representing a problem. In this respect, journals potentially facilitate another important form of classroom communication. The promise of writing is that it offers an alternative to the visions of classroom communication that are strictly oral in nature.