In this article, the authors examined readers' sensitivity to the match between characters' goals and characters' actions. In Experiment 1, readers integrated actions consistent with characters' goals more easily when there was a match between the extremeness of the actions and the urgency of the goals. In Experiments 2 and 3, characters'…

The purpose of this article is to describe an action research study on the discourse patterns that seemed to best promote "developed" discussions of literature with fifth-grade struggling readers in an urban school. Developed discussions are those in which a substantial topic is maintained and the teacher-student talk included interpretations of…

The authors report the results of a study in which they sought to determine the effect of the race of a book's primary characters on the reading motivation of 3rd-grade students in Mississippi. Students (N = 35) from 2 3rd-grade classrooms chose books with covers that depicted main characters who were either Black or White. The authors sought to…

The persistent gap between the performance of mainstream students and racially and linguistically diverse students--for example, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans--on standardized tests may well signal problems with procedures for the development and use of standardized tests in general, and for their use with culturally…

Teacher educators can use active engagement strategies to help teacher candidates interact meaningfully with assigned readings for literacy methods courses. This approach to active engagement with required readings helps teacher candidates learn the content, concepts, and processes from text, and enables them to experience as learners the…

Research-based instructional priorities for text organization and curriculum design are reviewed, with special attention to the needs of diverse learners. Research indicates that the physical presentation of text and text structure help students learn information in textbooks and reading materials. Students can apply their awareness of…

This article analyzes the function of deixis in the poetry of the 20th century Italian, Eugenio Montale, in particular, his "In limine." The main objective is to show how deixis is involved in the dynamic relationship between text and reader. A constant problem in Montale's texts is that of a disharmony felt by the poetic voice with the…

For much of this century, text linguists have recognized that various tokens called "metadiscourse" may help explain how texts function. In linguistics, metadiscourse has a more concrete meaning than it typically does in composition: it refers to specific words, phrases, and clauses which are primarily intended to help the reader…

A study established the logical validity of instructional activities for teaching reading evaluatively. These activities operationalized a theory of literacy and a model of reading comprehension developed by L. Dagostino and J. Carifio that specify 20 general characteristics of literate students who read evaluatively. Nineteen secondary classroom…

A study examined the effects of aesthetic, efferent, and aesthetic/efferent teaching approaches on 38 English secondary preservice teachers' responses to literature. Three classes received intensive instruction on L. M. Rosenblatt's concept of aesthetic and efferent stances through one semester. However, one class was introduced and responded to…

Spotlighting a variety of venerable poets, as well as some rising stars, this book is the second series of conversations about the lives and works of poets who write mainly for children and young people. The book presents informal interviews with the writers about their childhoods, the influences upon their work, their writing processes, how they…

This paper briefly reviews the state of the art in reader response research with special reference to the Danish studies in reader responses. The paper then proceeds to a discussion of a number of methodological problems inherent in setting up questions for cross-cultural (and international) studies in general, and for reader response studies in…

An exploratory study used stimulated recall to elicit a retrospective account from two alternative school students who choreographed a dance to depict their understanding of the relationship between the two central characters in a short story. Their account indicates that in composing their text they: (1) initiated their interpretation by…

This paper reconsiders the nature of literature as a school subject. Musing on three anomalies that occur when language arts teachers consider their professions about school literature and what occurs in literature classrooms: (1) the anomaly of the text and the textbook; (2) the anomaly of the idolatry of naive readers whose heads have been…

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…