Two studies investigated interactions among position of adjunct questions (inserted before or after sections of instructional prose), reading ability, and direct versus indirect learning outcomes for 74 deaf postsecondary and 100 hearing middle school students. Different effects were observed for deaf and hearing readers and for different levels…

George Orwell, in the essay "Politics and the English Language," criticized pretentious doublespeak and technobabble that numb the consciousness and hide political power plays. Judith Butler defends the "nuanced" prose of her fellow postmodernists as necessary to convey the complexity of their thoughts. Stephen Roney contrasts the two and…

Canada's official residential school policy, functioning between 1879 and 1986, acted as a weapon in a calculated attack on indigenous cultures, seeking--through such now infamous procedures as familial separation, forced speaking of non-Native languages, and propagandist derogation of precontact modes of existence and Native spiritual systems--to…

To help increase the understanding of sources of difficulty in test items, a study was undertaken to evaluate the effects of various aspects of prose complexity on the difficulty of achievement test items. The items of interest were those that presented a verbal stimulus followed by a question about the stimulus and a standard set of…

B. J. F. Meyer's approach to prose analysis is utilized in this paper to examine differences in learning and memory of text by readers across the adult lifespan. The analysis system is described briefly and compared to other approaches. Several studies are then summarized that employ this hierarchical analysis system to study learner…

Research generally indicates that imagery facilitates children's learning on basic memory tasks, such as paired-associate learning. The role of imagery in prose recall is less well defined, however. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of the construction of mental images on eight year old's ability to recall progressively…

The third volume in the NCTE Distinguished Lectures Series, this collection of papers includes (1) William Stafford on poetry and the language of everyday life, (2) Fred Stocking linking Shakespeare to his time and all time by analysing "temperance" in Sonnet 18, (3) Alan Downer discussing the nature of comedy in drama and the universal…

This book reviews changes in the teaching of English in British schools during the past 30 years, surveys current practices, and indicates promising developments. Although the contributors write on separate aspects--the purpose of teaching English, the primary school, poetry, teaching the non-literary pupil, prose reading, drama, language, oral…

This report of PROJECT DESIGN, funded under ESEA Title III, assesses the English language arts of the Fresno City Unified School District, kindergarten through the 12th grade. A linguistic inventory was administered by mail to 75 randomly selected elementary, junior high, and senior high school teachers. A linguistic analysis of student…

Intended as a guide to scholarship on Romantic writers, this selective bibliography attempts to cover the major works and topics, with emphasis on work published in the 20th century. Omitted are unpublished dissertations and most literary histories, bibliographies of bibliography, short notes and explications, and older biographical works that…

Intended as a guide to scholarship on Victorian writers, this selective bibliography covers all of the major figures and a substantial representation of the lesser ones. It excludes writers and works of fiction, except as such writers are essayists or poets. Omitted are unpublished theses and dissertations, most non-English articles and…

Similarities were noted between techniques used in a new curriculum method, "Structural Communication," and research techniques used to study the relationship between "subjective organization" and recall of word lists. To explore these similarities, 8 groups of 24 high school students read instruction units under different…

Three instructional conditions which varied in the extent to which they emphasized direct instruction on word meanings were compared as to their effects on two aspects of reading comprehension: recalling word meanings and recalling facts from a story. The instructional conditions consisted of (1) meanings from context, which required students to…

Reviews study of 30 graduate students that investigated the possible contribution of pictures to the recall and retention of information presented in written prose. The two variables considered were the durability of picture effects, and the effect on recall of information that was not pictured. (LRW)

Use of microcomputers to teach basic prose writing to university students was investigated. The CAI program presented information, responded to answers, and evaluated input. Subjects were 50 University of Victoria freshmen. Few significant differences occured between experimental and control groups. CAI can apparently be used effectively to…