The paper focuses on principles for the design of school activities involving the collective reading of multiple texts. We show that the collective reading of multiple texts has been practiced in rare occasions in Western history. Scrutiny of the reasons for the persistence and the decline of this practice in different societies suggests that it…

In a recently released report, "Poetry in America", the National Opinion Research Center (NORC), at the University of Chicago, presented the results of a study evaluating American attitudes toward poetry. Commissioned by the Poetry Foundation, one of the largest literary organizations in the world, the research finds that the vast…

Scholars have celebrated the spoken word in King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail," but they have overlooked the significance of the Letter's writing. In this essay I closely read King's act of writing the Letter, along with the figures of speech he employs in it, and I show how both--by enacting the mass media's ability to cross contexts--are…

This paper examines the uniqueness of poetry and classroom methodology as found in children's experiences of hearing, enacting, discussing, and making poems. Poetry offers the peculiar use of language, form, and a fresh look. Poems are useful in the classroom as they are read differently from ordinary text, are read with both the eye and the ear,…

A study used Elizabeth Flynn's interpretive strategies to look at high school students' reading responses. Subjects, 30 high school students, 15 males and 15 females (15 freshmen and 15 seniors) were assigned 3 short stories to read and were then asked to write responses to the stories. Results indicated that: (1) males were much more likely to…

Suggesting that the common classroom practice of literature instruction is antitheoretical and counterproductive, this paper elaborates theories of reading processes, discusses children's responses to literature, and proposes suggestions for classroom use. The first section of the paper outlines what literature instruction is expected to…

Combining academic prose, some narrative, a poem, and some literary criticism, this project paper presents a theoretical framework for the literature base of the curriculum the teacher hopes to make operational on various levels over several years. The first section of the paper discusses the goals and various approaches of multicultural…

The fundamental differences between traditional print and hypertext are likely to cause a shift in pedagogy. Hypertext radically alters traditional hierarchical structures both within writing systems and between author and reader. Hypertext engages users in qualitatively different activities than traditional print. Also, hypertext has been called…

The works of French literary theorists Jacques Lacan, Jacques Derrida, and Roland Barthes reflect a view of the text as the primary object of investigation for any discipline in the human sciences. Each of the three has been involved with pedagogical reforms within French cultural institutions: Derrida with the teaching of philosophy, Lacan with…

Schema theorists have advanced the understanding of reading comprehension by describing how prior knowledge can enhance a reader's interaction with the text. Accordingly, comprehension occurs when a reader is able to use prior knowledge and experience to interpret a text's message. Educators and researchers have suggested numerous instructional…

This study investigated the position of illustrations and how they affect the sequential organization of text. The primary purpose was to describe learners' reading sequence and preference for page designs with variations of illustration placement. The 70 subjects were undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in education courses at Memphis…

By applying Kenneth Burke's concepts of Order, the Secret, and the Kill to the newspaper-audience-advertiser relationship, the narrow imagery that depicts that relationship only in economic terms can be counteracted. Burke's maps of hierarchy, mystery, and transcendence in human action allow the depiction of a complex meshing of patterns,…

A study tested the hypothesis that readers continually evaluate the informational content of text in terms of its relevance to processing goals and congruence with existing knowledge, and that they prioritize this information in terms of its strategic importance to the task at hand, integrating it with existing schemata when it is compatible.…

An initial study (Ram 1) in Denmark in 1970 determined whether methods could be developed to assess the effect of textual passages on readers' experiences of a short story. Subjects, 717 Danish secondary students, were given a questionnaire to check on the effect of specific auctorial techniques and to chart readers' attitudes and the way they…

Using a large, preexisting miscue analysis database, a study explored the influence of specific text characteristics on reader/text interaction. Subjects--24 second, 32 fourth, and 32 sixth graders--read three texts. Four specific questions were addressed: What relevant miscue patterns do the readers of each text and of the combined three texts…