How might historians of education bring joy to their work and make our scholarship of use to the world? This article suggests returning to Welland Hendrick's 1909 "A Joysome History of Education." This minor but well-circulated text uses humour and irony to poke fun at some of the more obtuse, sacrosanct, and self-righteous aspects of…

Students in the English Language Arts classroom have access to more author commentary than ever. While following authors on social media may deepen students' engagement with their assigned reading, it also threatens to subdue students' own interpretations of the authors' texts. This essay explains how educators can introduce basic aspects of…

In this article, Anders Öhman discusses Gert J. J. Biesta's concept of the risk of education and what it could mean for the study of literature in the classroom. The article's point of departure is Bakhtin's theory of the utterance. The utterance, for Bakhtin, has to be embodied, that is, it has to be governed by a purpose: it must be uttered by…

This paper shares some insights into the notion of having EFL students collectively respond to literature. Understanding and appreciating a piece of literature is determined by how one can convey the concepts and words to new situations. During this process, several types of interaction happen: interaction between experience and the text,…

Although secondary school teachers have long been aware of the pedagogical possibilities of Louise Rosenblatt's Reader Response (articulated first in "Literature as Exploration," 1938) and I. A. Richards' Close Reading (first broached in "The Meaning of Meaning: A Study of the Influence of Language upon Thought and of the Science of…

This paper addresses the subject of textual creativity by drawing on work done in classical literary theory and criticism, specifically new criticism, structuralism and early poststructuralism. The question of how readers and writers engage creatively with the text is closely related to educational concerns, though they are often thought of as…

Reading comprehension requires thoughtful interactions between the reader, the text, and the author. The author may assist the reader in building meaning by creating purposefully crafted conversations that are organized into predictable patterns also known as patterned books. In this article, three predictable patterns found within children's text…

Textbooks and grammar worksheets do not adequately convey to students how readers or listeners are shaped by the language of the writer. The best way to help students understand the emphasis of a dash or another device is to see one used during a suspenseful moment in a dramatic selection. It is up to the teacher to select dramatic works that…

Every adult who reads to a child has seen what happens when a book speaks. For a time, the book becomes the child's beloved friend. It is asked for repeatedly and learned by heart. But books do more than speak to a child. Children use books to speak to adults. If one wants to understand a child's deepest emotions, take a look at the books they…

Divakaruni reflects on her path to becoming an author for children, including her formative encounters with stories told by her grandfather in her native India, and experiences as a mother and as an Indian woman in the post-9/11 context of the United States.

Recent research has emphasized the close connections between writing and the construction of an author's identity. While academic contexts privilege certain ways of making meanings and so restrict what resources participants can bring from their past experiences, we can also see these writing conventions as a repertoire of options that allow…

The article sketches the outlines of a theoretical framework for the analysis of translation of literary texts, viewed as psycho-semiotic phenomenon and based on evaluation of earlier attempts in this direction, and on the results of a psycholinguistic empirical study of translations. Central to this framework is the recent insight that the human…

An idea to bring ethnically diverse authors to Southeast Idaho to promote reading and cultural understandings was conceived 24 years ago. The Visiting Author Series resulted from a committee's dream and resulted in new understandings of the literacy process as well as bringing the world to this region.

"The Invention of Hugo Cabret" is a story about Georges Melies that the author began thinking about over 15 years ago and took about two-and-a-half years to complete. The book is about a boy named Hugo Cabret, an orphan living secretly in the walls of a train station in Paris who becomes involved in a mystery that ties him together with a mean old…

This author has been a "reader girl" since the third grade, when she first read "Trumpet of the Swan" on her own. Fourth grade brought C. S. Lewis, Lloyd Alexander, and Joan Aiken. Fifth grade was Cynthia Voigt, Anne McCaffrey, and Robin McKinley. And so it continued with Ellen Raskin, Patricia McKillip, and L. M. Montgomery, a veritable battalion…