In this article, Boldt considers decisions teachers must make about the value of children's writing as a form of play in primary classrooms. She offers a brief history of the framing of this question at 1966 Dartmouth Conference on English, focusing particularly on the perspective of Jimmy Britton. She highlights the relationship between Britton's…

Praises librarians who, with skill and affection, bring readers to books that help them shape and understand their lives. Quotes excerpts from poetry and prose with sometimes surprising images of librarians. (SR)

Uses Virginia Woolf's "To the Lighthouse" and other novels to dramatize and highlight the conversations, conflicts, and multiple voices within and around the reader. Challenges readers to listen to all the voices in their minds for the sake of achieving a more communicative form of life. (MG)

Describes a theory of readers, reading, and text based on an interpretation of one incident involving the author and his daughter. Regards current understandings about readers, reading, and texts not as firm propositions but as fragile potentials. (RS)

Discusses potential dangers in the current move toward literature-based instruction across the curriculum. Calls for educators to help students understand that there are different stances one can take in reading a text and not to mislead them by treating literary works as if they were intended to be read "efferently." (MG)

Investigates how multiple stances in reading can reveal new insights into texts. Demonstrates three ways that a single text can be read from the perspectives of a pleasurable reading, a postcolonial reading, and a critical multicultural reading. Argues that readers will confirm existing meanings determined by others' ideologies unless they are…

Provides a theoretical framework for thinking about how students read literature through the notions of envisionment-building and stories. Discusses possibilities for instruction. (MG)

Reconsiders the nature of literature as a school subject. Discusses the notion that school literature is different from reading literature outside school. Discusses three anomalies: the text and the textbook; educators' idolatry of "naive readers" whose heads are to be stuffed; and the roles of the reader and writer in school programs.…

Looks critically at the theoretical and ideological underpinnings of the practice of story mapping. Discovers a deep contradiction between the author's definition of reading as a constructive process and the reductionist nature of story mapping, which inhibits students' potential to explore a diverse range of personal responses by promoting…

Considers how textual and digital visual worlds come together to create new ways of thinking about text and the nature of representation. Compares the graphic space of the printed page and the digital space of screen displays. Argues that each of these two mediums supports a distinctive yet vital way of thinking and that neither can be dispensed…

Records the attempts of a very young child to construct his own understanding of what it means to die and of the social impact of death within his own culture. Includes transcripts in which the child uses narrative to frame his first, tentative ideas about death and responds to literature to further extend his understanding. (JD)

Offers guidelines for using literature in the primary classroom. Shares the experiences of first graders with the book "Owl Moon." Notes that it is important to retain the essence of the story--to demonstrate for young readers how readers connect with books. (MG)

Presents an interview with distinguished educator Louise Rosenblatt. Discusses teaching methods, reading processes, application of theory to practice, literature-based curriculum, and what she is working on now. (SR)

Expresses the viewpoints of six teachers concerning the importance of considering a child's individual needs in reading or writing instruction. (DF)