Intertextuality is a vital component of college reading and writing. In order to write a paper that requires the synthesizing of readings, students must recognize the intertextual connections among all their sources. Instruction that fosters intertextual awareness in basic writers can help them overcome their tendency to compartmentalize what they…

Faculty members take pride in the great diversity of students attending LaGuardia Community College. Their students self-identify with various nationalities, races, religions, ethnicities, and sexual orientations. Not only do students adopt diverse identity markers, but they also come to their classroom with variant skill levels. It is difficult…

There is something very democratic and creative about reader-response criticism. In a reader-response classroom, students progress from passive to active reading, from discovering a text to creating one. Also, students progress from passive to active reading, from discovering a text to creating one. However, a problem emerges when the spirit and…

A dream literature class grew into an artistic and critical garden in which students' and instructor's thinking flowered.

Considers how Frank O'Connor's "My Oedipus Complex" provides a good introduction to the subtleties of narrative voice and control. Concludes by considering the notion of control and its relation to the narrative point of view in O'Connor's story and how it bears directly upon the value of reading literature and the reader's role. (SG)

Discusses how in her 1981 novel "Obasan," Joy Kogawa recounts the saga of the internment and relocation of Japanese Canadians during and after the Second World War by juxtaposing the "factual" historic telling against the personal, "fictional" telling. Asks students to analyze a passage and consider such literary…

Discusses Margaret Atwood's "provocative and funny" short story "Rape Fantasies," and describes how, when teaching this story the author encourages students to sympathize with Estelle (the narrator) before they judge her (instead of rushing to achieve closure and begin interpretation). (SR)

Considers the issue of literary canons, raised in the context of a week-long series of lectures and discussions on "the Victorians" in an Elderhostel program, with participants for whom these texts were the product of their parents' generation and of their own childhood reading. Raises substantive questions about the meaning of a…

Asserts that reading logs actively involve students in the reading/responding process. Describes the way reading logs fit into the course, a list of topics to give students ideas, and how to grade reading logs. (MS)

Describes how a reader-response approach can help students construct a portfolio of readings that reflects their development as poetry readers. Describes using a reader-response journal, communal learning activities, and a portfolio to create a recursive process through which students develop a better understanding of how poetry works. Discusses…

Notes that students can begin to learn that literature is not a dead art with no relevance to them by studying works that provide a wider context that will allow readers a new sense of the cultural milieu in which texts are written and read in conjunction with the ones in their course anthologies. (SC)

Considers how teaching John Updike's short story "A & P" to treat issues of class and gender provides practice in reading for multiple meanings. Discusses students' responses to the character "Sammy" and considers issues from personal response to reading the text. Notes multiple perspectives and ways of teaching "A & P." (SC)

Responding with strategic empathy to the traumatic stories students share with us provides an opportunity to break down an elitist binary between teacher and student. Joyce Carol Oates's novel "them" can serve as a cautionary tale for understanding the dangers of disregarding student trauma. (Contains 2 notes.)

Describes a journal writing activity designed to engage students in the exchange between text and reader. Argues that informal writing in a journal is a means of letting students find out that, if they engage themselves with a text, they will find it interesting. (RS)

Maintains that, when students interpret a poem differently from their teachers, an opportunity opens for a common ground of understanding that can enrich the relationship between text and reader. (RS)