Discusses research studies undertaken during the eight-year existence of the National Research Center on Literature Teaching and Learning--10 researchers worked with 50 teachers and students in a two-strand literature study, seeking to describe the processes involved when people develop their literary understandings, as well as to describe the…

Why is it important to teach literary understanding? It is through reading, thinking, and discussing literature that students find alternative ways to gain knowledge and solve problems. Through sharing of understandings, they learn not only important content but also cognitive, critical, and social strategies needed for success in academic…

A series of studies conducted over an 8-year period by the National Research Center on Literature Teaching and Learning examined the ways people think when they read literature and the ways in which instruction could support those kinds of thinking. The research studies were based on both a constructivist and social/communicative tradition. Some…

Discusses a project and study that focused on literacy acquisition among middle school students from the Dominican Republic attending a school on Manhattan's lower East Side. Describes how a book writing project focusing on "stories from home" engaged students, taught them ways to discuss and ways to think, and fostered their literacy acquisition…

A study examined the language and interactions that occurred in classes where teachers felt they were providing an environment that fostered reasoning about their coursework. The discourse within the diverse classrooms of eight high school teachers (two each in American literature, American history, biology, and physics) was examined. In each…

A study analyzed in detail one 37-minute classroom literature discussion to better understand how to foster students' critical reasoning. It investigated the characteristics of classroom interactions that support students in the process of responding to literature, the roles of the participants, and how the teacher can structure the tasks and use…

Concerned with redefining instructional theory related to the teaching and learning processes in literature, this paper concentrates on articulating principles underlying literature instruction that can be taught in methods courses and that can become the framework that teachers internalize and use to make daily decisions about their teaching and…

A naturalistic case study, involving a 2-year collaboration between 14 classroom teachers and eight university researchers studying 250 middle and high school students, examined the types of principles underlying effective literature instruction that emphasizes the development of students' reasoning abilities in the context of their understanding…