Uses Virginia Woolf's "To the Lighthouse" and other novels to dramatize and highlight the conversations, conflicts, and multiple voices within and around the reader. Challenges readers to listen to all the voices in their minds for the sake of achieving a more communicative form of life. (MG)

Reconsiders the nature of literature as a school subject. Discusses the notion that school literature is different from reading literature outside school. Discusses three anomalies: the text and the textbook; educators' idolatry of "naive readers" whose heads are to be stuffed; and the roles of the reader and writer in school programs.…

Illustrates how poems engage readers in heightened experiences of the world and of language itself. Shows some of the strategies that adults and elementary students employed when reading and responding to poems: summarizing the poem, entering in and opening out, entering the world of the poem, opening to the outside world, finding rich…

Looks critically at the theoretical and ideological underpinnings of the practice of story mapping. Discovers a deep contradiction between the author's definition of reading as a constructive process and the reductionist nature of story mapping, which inhibits students' potential to explore a diverse range of personal responses by promoting…

Looks at the characteristics of outstanding historical fiction including its literary qualities and criteria associated with authenticity. Discusses how teachers invite readers to approach their experiences with these novels. Looks at the role of historical fiction in today's classrooms. Presents brief annotations of 25 outstanding works of…

Discusses (1) knowledge teachers are trying to teach when they ask children to read stories about incidences of pain and horror; (2) how preservice elementary teachers experience the dangers and the possibilities involved in using such literature; (3) principles literary practitioners call upon to assist readers in working through the psychic…

Offers guidelines for using literature in the primary classroom. Shares the experiences of first graders with the book "Owl Moon." Notes that it is important to retain the essence of the story--to demonstrate for young readers how readers connect with books. (MG)

Presents an interview with distinguished educator Louise Rosenblatt. Discusses teaching methods, reading processes, application of theory to practice, literature-based curriculum, and what she is working on now. (SR)

Shares how one teacher and her class of seventh graders learned to share and discuss literature through the notions of stances and instructional scaffolding. (MG)