The persona Robert Frost communicated to most of his wide, diverse, and often non-academic audience was that of a rather isolated New England farmer, who--because of his limited experience with city folk and urban living--was untouched and thereby uncorrupted by the ways of the world. In teaching Frost, as in teaching any poet, some sort of…

Examines the relationship between current concepts of reading processes and contemporary theories of literary response. Argues that text-based reading theories are isomorphic with the New Criticism, and that reader-based theories of reading are isomorphic with reader-response criticism. Maintains that literary theory ignores interactive…

Offers an analogy between passing a written driving test and actually driving a vehicle, and evaluating textbooks by the number of syllables in words and by sentence length and the students' ability to actually read the textbook. Provides an open textbook inventory to evaluate how well students interact with the book. (JC)

Discusses a reader-response approach to teaching Nathaniel Hawthorne's RAPPACCINI'S DAUGHTER. (MM)

Suggests that further explication of the notion of "importance" will benefit the reading field, at both practical and theoretical levels. (ARH)

Discusses three facets of reading-writing relationships: (1) the processes underlying reading and writing; (2) the communicative contexts influencing reading and writing; and (3) the learning outcomes derived from reading and writing, including the influence of reading upon writing and writing upon reading. (MM)

Notes the weakness of comprehension assessment as it occurs in standardized tests and exercise books, and reports on a new approach which views reading as a constructive process that results from a complex set of interactions between reader and texts. (NH)

Argues that, in their roles as responding audiences for student writers, teachers need to be clear as to whether they are taking the perspective of writer or reader. (FL)

Discusses the connections between the study of literary texts, language, and composition and the impact of these connections on English instruction and English programs. (SRT)

Examines the nature of listening assessment and recent developments of appropriate tests. Shows listenability to be a function of orality in language and offers a summary of discourse characteristics for selecting materials appropriate to listening instruction. (FL)

Concludes that despite the potential disruption to the flow of understanding, readers' use of lookups is a necessary and appropriate fixup activity when reading only is inadequate for remedying text confusions. (FL)

Examines Rosemary Wells's "None of the Above," a young adult novel of despair, whose bitterness arises from the choices young people face in the dreary contemporary world. (NKA)

Indicates that (1) readers determine topic interrelations as they encounter new topics during reading, (2) better recallers are more consistent about inferring topic interrelations, and (3) better recallers are more flexible in their processing of topic information. (NKA)

Argues that though college examiners seem to desire candidates' personal responses to literature, the examination questions require students to reply to the opinions of others rather than explain their own opinions. (SRT)

Reviews the literature relevant to investigating the effects of textual phrasing on the efforts of children to comprehend and addresses the issue of whether the use of a word processor can have an impact on helping children improve comprehension. (FL)