Finds that student perceptions of readability and interest levels in two upper-level college composition texts varied from the Flesch and the Fry readability and human interest formulas. (SR)

Presents results of a content analysis of 46 postsecondary reading textbooks to assess the texts' incorporation of features that enhance learning. Describes the use of a modified version of Singer's Friendly Text Inventory to analyze the texts in terms of organization, explication, conceptual density, metadiscourse, and instructional devices. (DMM)

Reviews two lines of thinking about textbooks in the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK): one considering their role in the life of the scientist and the other considering their role in the life of fact. A brief textual analysis is provided to show how these sociological perspectives can provide guidance to relevant linguistic features. (37…

Reports on the evaluation of readability levels of 16 public speaking textbooks and 7 skills-oriented interpersonal communication textbooks. Finds sizable differences among public speaking textbooks. Advocates using readability data in the process of textbook selection and suggests how to do so. (SR)

Focuses on books, booklets, and position papers that would be useful reading for educators involved in making decisions about selecting materials for schools. Discusses guidelines for judging and selecting textbooks and studies and readings on textbooks. (PRA)

Examines a range of writing textbooks. Finds that many composition textbooks trivialize or misrepresent writing as process and process pedagogy. Outlines how composition theory becomes commodified. Calls for a radical revision of textbooks, including teachers helping students create their own texts. (HB)

Investigates how interest and importance interact to affect the strategy use and recall of skilled readers. Finds that readers acted strategically, except when they encountered seductive details: subjects spent a great deal of time on seductive details, even though they considered them highly memorable and unimportant. (RS)

Finds that experienced high school teachers become freer in the ways they use their content area textbooks, and that they are more likely to teach students how to use the text. Shows that in schools where teachers choose the textbooks, teachers make the most use of the textbook for assigned reading. (SR)

Reviews three geometry textbooks in order to examine both the quantity and content of algebra review. Concludes that although the books incorporate a great deal of algebra, much of it is noncontextual review. (ASK)

Provides a brief introduction to ways functional grammatical concepts can be used to understand the distinctive literacy demands of school science and history texts. Distinguishes this grammar from that of everyday language; examines the characteristic grammatical and discourse forms of content area learning; and discusses developing functional…

Surveys college students' perceptions of their textbooks. Finds that students consider textbooks an important part of their courses; believe that the quality of writing accounts for half of the helpful learning and 60% of non-helpful learning, with organization elements next in importance; and that mass-communication students' views differ from…

This study examines the national division of history teaching in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the war and post-war period. The process of division of schooling into three curricula (Bosnian Serb, Bosnian Croat, and Bosniak) is presented. Representations of other national groups are central in 8th-grade history textbooks used by the three national…

In 1993, E. Perrigo and D. Gaut surveyed 222 business communication professors and received the names of textbooks that there instructors used. From the list, 10 were chosen and examined to discover what the authors deemed important knowledge for business students. Areas identified were: (1) the role or importance of communication in business…

Given the results of experience and research, it is no longer possible to treat school textbooks as something incidental or accessory to the educational process. In the last few years, funding agencies have gradually but systematically initiated reflection on textbooks. It is now accepted that pupil access to school textbooks is one criterion for…

Until the end of the last century the school textbook served only one purpose, which was to educate; today, faced with competition from the media, it also must be attractive. The development of the textbook over the last century has been characterized, on one hand, by greater diversity, and hence greater complexity, in the typographical methods…