Describes how two teachers have translated scholarship in the fields of ritual and performance studies into classroom practices (for the college literature course) that engage students in ritual enactment of imaginative literature and in communal making of meaning. (SR)

Examining how teachers help students respond to short fiction, this book presents 25 essays that look closely at "teachable" short stories by a diverse group of classic and contemporary writers. The approaches shared by the contributors move from readers' first personal connections to a story, through a growing facility with the…

Studies the students in the author's classroom to search for the personal connections to the stories they read. Hopes to discover how students' connections revealed themselves to show story's importance in their developing lives. Concludes that students do connect with stories. Suggests stories bond students with one another in a way they might…

Presents an in-class literature exercise to help students understand that there may be more than one "right" reading, more than one right answer, more than one right way of understanding literature. (SR)

Describes how a high school English teacher's belief that text contains a single, unchanging meaning evolved to an understanding that students create their own meanings through their own experiences. Discusses ways he tried (with mixed success) to provide students with the opportunity to bring their own experience to their reading. (SR)

Describes an in-class exercise in which students listen to a piece of music (without lyrics), and then write about their responses. Notes that students learn that responding to literature is as natural as responding to music, and that they all have valid and unique reactions and connections to literature. (SR)

Argues that students develop new reading strategies in order to construct meaning from electronic text. Discusses why reading electronic text is different, and argues that there is historical precedence for this shifting role of the reader. Outlines strategies for helping students reflect on the differences between hypertext and traditional text…

Describes using a loose framework of response journal writing and small and large group sharing with two classes of ninth-grade English students. Describes students' deep involvement as they constructed important meanings from a story that went beyond their own experiences. (SR)

Discusses three pedagogical frameworks in which students have used hypermedia authoring tools to generate a practice of critical literacy, including critical inquiry into social worlds, critical response to literature, and knowledge construction in the classroom through hypermedia. Discusses how, in hypermedia authoring for critical literacy,…

Argues that traditional textbook approaches to teaching literature alienate students from literature. Describes effective alternatives in which students learn interpretive strategies as they analyze and discuss their own important values in life, and then those of characters in a story; and learn to deal with irony. Outlines writing activities…

Argues that picture books are a significant resource in learning about literary elements. Discusses using picture books with middle schoolers in "text sets" (5 to 15 texts that relate conceptually in some way). Describes a two-week period during which eighth-grade students read and responded to text sets on themes (prejudice,…

This paper articulates a framework for the development and integration of three instructional strategies--discussion, reading and learning from text guides, and writing--to teach secondary school students how to produce independent and productive responses to literature. An explanation of the need for and rationale behind an integrated approach is…

Describes a unit involving the novel, screenplay, and film of "Sounder" in which students experienced literature as something to be lived through rather than directed by the teachers. Notes that teachers and students abandoned their typical classroom roles in favor of becoming co-explorers and co-creators of texts. (RS)

Discusses ways in which a teacher new to teaching ninth-grade English and new to the school district lured her "reluctant" readers into a true community of readers. Describes a trip to a local bookstore, building the reading community, writing in response to reading, graphic responses to reading, and oral responses to reading. (RS)

Based on Mary Shelley's novel "Frankenstein," this lesson plan presents activities designed to help students understand that active readers interpret a novel (its characters, plot, setting, and theme) in different ways; and the great literature can be and has been adapted in many ways over time. The main activity of the lesson involves students…