The Assessment Issue of "English in Australia" has prompted Brenton Doecke to ask himself about significant moments in the history of subject English in Australia when truly innovative work was done in the area of assessing English. There are many examples to choose from, including Brian Johnston's "Assessing English: Helping…

As part of its proposal to the U.S. Department of Education, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) committed to developing Kindergarten through Grade 2 Model Content Frameworks for English language arts (ELA)/literacy (K-2 Model Content Frameworks) to serve as a bridge between the Common Core State Standards…

The role of grammatical knowledge in inferencing word meaning has not received proper attention in L2 research. Addressing this issue, the present paper provides research-based and introspective think-aloud data to examine the contribution of grammatical knowledge to inferencing the meaning of unknown words. It addresses (a) the effects of…

Discusses the importance of improving students' visual perception as a way of improving their literary perception. Describes visual perception exercises that can be used in the English classroom. (EL)

Puts forth Louise Rosenblatt's 1938 Reader-Response Theory as a dominant teaching approach in English education, with Rosenblatt's influence readily apparent in contemporary research. Asserts that English professors today can work the magic of the literary experience through the use of the Reader-Response Theory in the teaching of literature.…

Intended for literature instructors, this digest explains the relationship of transactional theory (a reciprocal, mutually defining relationship between the reader and the literary text) to the teaching of literature. The importance of the reader's part in literature is first demonstrated, noting that attention must be paid to who the readers are,…

Explores responses to fiction reading by students who record these responses in journals. (NKA)

Offers an approach to text analysis that discusses what makes good writing good. Argues that good writing involves the presentation of propositions that are not too dense, in a schema that is familiar or explained carefully, requiring not much inference on the part of the reader, and in a pattern that is coherent from beginning to end. (MS)

Analyzes how two groups of eighth graders and their teacher create literary texts during small group discussion, and suggests the importance of talk as a means of constructing meaning. (NKA)

This 1997 annotated bibliography of 244 items updates an earlier 87-item annotated bibliography. The current annotated bibliography focuses on the relationship between reading and writing as it bears upon the teaching of composition. Items looking at writing as a way of teaching reading, and items focused exclusively upon writer-based concerns…

Intended as an introduction to the literature on the reading/writing relationship, this annotated bibliography covers the areas of theory, research, and pedagogy. The citations include journal articles, conference proceedings, conference papers, books, dissertations, and monographs. (SRT)