Because playwrights are limited to textual elements that an audience can hear and see--dialogue and movement--much of a drama's tension and interest lie in the subtext, the characters' emotions and motives implied but not directly expressed by the text itself. The teacher must help students construct what in a novel the author may have made more…

Noting that elementary-school students often fail to understand many of the ideas presented in school textbooks, this book presents the Questioning the Author (QtA) strategy, which is designed to establish student interactions with text and build greater understanding by teaching students to question the ideas presented in the text while they are…

A theory of literary interpretation that treats the reader's interaction with text as a form of conversation is discussed, and related teaching techniques are described. The approach uses four steps: (1) articulating initial responses; (2) pursuing deeper understanding of the text; (3) interaction with the text; and (4) identifying possibilities…

Offering practical, classroom-based strategies teachers can use to promote literacy development, this book presents many examples of children engaging in discussion activities about narrative and informational text that emphasize collaborating, constructing meaning, and using these different types of texts to arrive at new understandings. Chapters…

Intended as a guide for teachers of grades 3-6, this book presents ideas for the use of literature groups in the classroom. In chapter 1, the author talks about her own reading background and her discovery of teaching methods for literature, and presents ideas for forming literature groups. Chapter 2 offers advice on selecting and collecting good…

Intended for elementary teachers, reading specialists, curriculum directors, and teacher trainers, this book provides readers with conceptual and theoretical insights and compelling accounts of classroom practice. The book argues that teaching and learning work best when they occur within a community of learners. The book provides interpretations…

Ways that a secondary English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) teacher can put into practice the principles of the whole-language approach were investigated as part of a larger ethnographic case study of ESL classrooms of Southeast Asian students. The case illustrates the potential of whole language and indicates the need for appropriate reading/writing…

This book presents findings of a cross-section of teachers, elementary through college, who have developed ways to enable students to make connections between their lives and the literature they read. The 28 articles are grouped into: (1) a section on the collaborating and creating connection with literature; and (2) a section on the reading and…

The literary theorist Terry Eagleton believes that literary study is the study of human discourse. To build on his idea for use in the classroom, it must first be assumed that literature constitutes a dialogue between the work (and its author) and the reader. The dialogue process can be introduced in a 2- to 4-week unit through a cluster of…

Originally developed for the Department of Defense Schools (DoDDS) system, this learning package on reader response theory and related instructional strategies is designed for teachers who wish to upgrade or expand their teaching skills on their own. The package includes a comprehensive search of the ERIC database; a lecture giving an overview on…

In this collection of essays, a group of innovative teachers and writers describe the approaches and techniques they have incorporated into their own language teaching. The articles are designed to help classroom teachers make language classes more participatory and communication oriented. The book is divided into three sections: (1) What Is…