With the Common Core State Standards, instruction in English language arts will dramatically change. Unlike prior state standards, these new standards place a greater emphasis on reading challenging texts. To that end, teachers will need to support students in paying closer attention to such texts. Instead of focusing on pre-reading activities…

An after-school book club, led by the school librarian, was held to test the efficacy of the peritextual literacy framework (PLF) in teaching skills related to critical thinking, problem solving, information literacy, and media literacy. The PLF is an extension of paratext theory developed by Gérard Genette, which provides a typology of the…

Readers of most literary works usually find themselves in the role of witness, where their very act of reading initiates a process in which students or apprentices and teachers or educators take part in a "narrative" of imparting knowledge. An intertextual reading of literary works on the one hand and of current educational texts (e.g., programs,…

Discusses the evaluation of children's literature and children's responses to literature, examining ideas posed by various writers and scholars, offering an example of a critical reading of one text, and noting several themes that are apparent in the text (e.g., gaining access to cultural institutions, refuting stereotypic images, and creating…

Recommends that children, teachers, and parents critically read children's literature to identify and clarify ideological perspectives. Lists types of books for multicultural collections, presents guidelines for critical discussions about books, and identifies types of biases in books. Suggests that children's books open multiple perspectives…

Shares the responses of seven urban, male, African-American fifth graders to contemporary realistic fiction, discussing how the tying of this literature to the events in the boys' lives had the potential to move them toward social action. The paper examines the following: literature as a catalyst, reader responses to texts, critical literacy, and…

Using a reading lesson designed for advanced university students in Brazil, the author discusses different types of exercises that can help students become more active readers and be more critical about the reading materials. The author distinguishes between passive and active reading tasks and argues that active tasks are more beneficial because…