The seeming remoteness of material studied in a British literature survey course can be frustrating for the teacher. Students may find little relevance in the story of Beowulf or the descriptions of Gulliver's voyages. However, instructors can highlight the contemporaneity of British literary texts by drawing parallels to modern times. For…

According to Wolfgang Iser's "The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response," the meaning of a literary text is created by each individual reader in response to gaps, or indeterminacies, in the text. With the application of this theory to the two-year college classroom, teachers can show inexperienced readers how to discover the meaning of…

Articles in this journal issue explore the relationship between the reader and the literature text, and discuss ways that instruction can enhance reader response to that literature. Following an introduction summarizing the nine articles, the titles and their authors are as follows: (1) "It Is the Poem That I Remake: Using Kenneth Burke's…

Enumerates the benefits for young children of interactive reading--that which involves the reader and the listener in an active, shared experience. Furnishes the titles of several children's books appropriate for the practice of interactive reading in the classroom. (NKA)

Draws a parallel between the resistance experienced by a patient in psychoanalysis and the resistance expressed by students in composition or literature courses. (JC)

Criticizes contemporary approaches to literature instruction that inculcate passivity. Proposes a system of teaching literature that promotes cultural literacy and active, rather than passive, reading by encouraging students to discover cultural messages and make their own interpretations of the cultural infrastructure and culture-specific values…

Three holistic approaches to reading comprehension instruction for learning-disabled children are described: text-based instruction, explicit comprehension instruction, and a combined model. Following discussion of each model's strengths, weaknesses, and teaching techniques, the combined model is recommended. (Author/JDD)

Demonstrates the significance of intertextuality theory to rhetoric by explaining intertextuality, its connection to the notion of "discourse community," and its pedagogical implications for composition. (FL)

Discusses the importance of improving students' visual perception as a way of improving their literary perception. Describes visual perception exercises that can be used in the English classroom. (EL)

Examines the relationship between recent research on metacognition and schema theory. Provides practical teaching suggestions, showing how these concepts can be used as a framework for language instruction and for analyzing tasks students are asked to perform. (RAE)

Offers guidelines for using literature in the primary classroom. Shares the experiences of first graders with the book "Owl Moon." Notes that it is important to retain the essence of the story--to demonstrate for young readers how readers connect with books. (MG)

Puts forth Louise Rosenblatt's 1938 Reader-Response Theory as a dominant teaching approach in English education, with Rosenblatt's influence readily apparent in contemporary research. Asserts that English professors today can work the magic of the literary experience through the use of the Reader-Response Theory in the teaching of literature.…

A multiple case study of literacy acquisition in three preschoolers with deafness is presented. The study involved the introduction of story book reading by numerous adults in the preschool and demonstrated the improvements that children made when simple changes were made to the nature of the interactions around books. (Contains references.) (CR)

Social studies is an information-laden subject, with much of the required information in textbooks. Although text-books are only one medium for learning social studies content, it is the dominant resource in most classrooms. Years ago, Goodlad (1984) found that textbook reading assignments were one of the most common instructional approaches used…

This paper reviews recent experimental findings that inform our understanding of the development of reading comprehension. Studies investigating children who have specific difficulties with reading comprehension provide considerable information concerning the process involved in successful reading comprehension. This literature highlights aspects…