Finds that detection of flaws in a list provides an opportunity to widen perspective on list content, and further opportunity exists when list headings have two meanings. Argues that the list may be represented better by a two-dimensional array. Considers the term "function" used in a list heading, splitting it into its most common…

Critical thinking skills are crucial for both academic and everyday life. This paper presents the author's Text Analysis Matrix (TAM), a model for developing skills for the critical examination of texts. The TAM guidelines involve finding and clarifying the main claims of a text, discovering and assessing arguments, uncovering the implications for…

This study was conducted to determine the relative efficacy of text-structure strategy instruction compared to traditional instruction on the reading comprehension of 40 postsecondary students with learning disabilities (LD). Participants were randomly assigned to either a text-structure strategy condition or a traditional instruction condition.…

The aim of this paper is to provide a brief critical analysis of the adult literacy curriculum as one element of the Skills for Life Strategy and to consider how it has been used to legitimise a dominant adult literacy policy based on economic and political rationales. The term critical has many meanings. Here it is used to explore how the adult…

Unlike the vocabulary used in language arts and social studies, knowledge of expository text (text written to inform) and the language of science are required for reading and writing in science (Carrier 2005). This vocabulary, along with expository text structures, often is not taught in middle and high school classrooms, thus hindering students,…

Comprehensive, authoritative, and designed for practical utility, this handbook presents evidence-based approaches for helping struggling readers and those at risk for literacy difficulties or delays. Leading experts explain how current research on all aspects of literacy translates into innovative classroom practices. Chapters include clear…

Provides information and discussion of the NCTE Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children. Explains what makes a good nonfiction book for children and discusses several books that have been honored in the first two years of the award. (MG)

Offers some thoughts on the structure of the choices presented in the hypertext read-only file called "WOE" (included on a disk with this journal). (SR)

Offers a monomeric narrative intended as a side-chain narrative to "WOE," a hypertext read-only narrative computer file included on disk with this journal. (SR)

Argues that arrangement (the second canon of rhetoric) can be productively rethought as the canon that both implies and produces the relationship between discourse and space. Suggests that electronic writing (hypertext) can make important contributions to a discussion of arrangement and that arrangement must be an active consideration in…

Argues that technical communication editing is most effective if it deals with structure first, and that structure deficiencies can be detected by applying a range of logical analysis criteria to each text part. Concludes that lists, headings, classifications, and organograms must comply with the laws of categorization and relevant logical…

Discussion of models that have been developed to structure text documents for information retrieval focuses on XML and its proposed query language XQL. Considers efficiency of the query engine and shows that an already existing model, Proximal Nodes, can be used as an efficient query engine behind an XQL front-end. (Author/LRW)

Presents a technique for dividing text into field-coherent passages based upon extracting field-associated words or phrases from the text by determining how topics grow, shrink and shift from sentence to sentence. Proposes measures of topic continuity and transition and suggests how those may be used to find the passage boundaries. (Author/LRW)

The purpose of this paper, drawing data from a large research base, was to investigate how and why Taiwanese EFL (English as a Foreign Language) male and female university students responded to feminist texts differently. These participants were taking an elective course titled Gender and Reading while this research was conducted. Weekly reading…

The present paper aims at investigating the structure and the content of the written explanations produced by primary school pupils' aged 11-12) during teaching sequences focused on the didactic elaboration of obstacles regarding temperature and heat. At first, teaching sequences targeted at the pupils' destabilising, restructuring, and…