If murder mysteries are to carry an epistemic force, it is important to examine how murder mysteries represent a unique way of knowing, of coming to view the world, for their readers. This can be accomplished by looking at the text of murder mysteries and how the nature of the text influences the reality creating process; by exploring the nature…

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)

Reviews children's literature with multi-dimensional, engaging characters--characters with strengths and weaknesses who grapple with real problems and find real solutions. (MG)

Describes "character maps," an activity that draws upon the reader's prior knowledge of people to understand a book's characters. Includes a brief list of additional activities and extensions to reinforce comprehension through characterization. (RS)

Through the mid-1980s, resistance to contemporary literary theory (especially Jacques Derrida's philosophy of deconstruction) took the form of a bitter debate that enlivened literary journals and Modern Language Association meetings. The debate continues even today, with traditional literary critics rejecting deconstruction as nihilistic and…

Applies the reader response theory of literary critic Wolfgang Iser to the reading of Chris Crutcher's novel "Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes." Examines both the reader's engagement with the novel and Eric Calhoune's engagement with the world of Sarah Byrnes. (RS)

Examines how undergraduate readers monitor and evaluate the concerns of characters over the course of a narrative. Discusses what kinds of evaluation the reader makes, what the reader evaluates, the functions that these evaluative inferences serve in comprehension, and the multiple perspectives (character, narrator, or presenter) taken by the…

Shows that getting involved with a story is the primary dimension of story appreciation, and that different readers interact with the same story in different ways. Indicates that the first-person grammatical device invites readers to identify with the main character, but whether or not they do is a complex function of story properties,…

Notes the ability to imagine is considered the gift of authors and illustrators whose books inspire readers. Highlights 38 works of children's literature that show how imagination can inform and excite both readers and characters. Concludes that through creative envisioning, poets, authors, and llustrators propel readers to relate the familiar to…

Discusses William Beatty Warner's "Reading Clarissa: The Struggles of Interpretation," a study of Samuel Richardson's role as eighteenth-century critic and interpreter of his own novels. Examines the treatment of character by both Richardson and Warner, focusing on Richardson's humanist interpretation and Warner's anti-humanist…

Examines Rosemary Wells's "None of the Above," a young adult novel of despair, whose bitterness arises from the choices young people face in the dreary contemporary world. (NKA)

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)

Explores how undergraduate readers take the protagonist's mental perspective in stories involving conflicting beliefs about a situation. Demonstrates that readers with privileged information build emotional inference corresponding to the protagonist's (wrong) beliefs; inferences related to protagonist's beliefs are backward inferences at the text…

Suggests that, in the author's experience teaching fiction to high school students, the key to their understanding a work lies in their ability to make connections with the characters. Notes the importance of using many activities to enable all of the students to understand character. Describes three such activities, incorporating brainstorming,…

Describes "Character Interviews," a class activity that guides children, especially reluctant readers, to the meaning of a story through a thoughtful understanding of character as they consider a character's emotions and motives, to respond to a question as that character would. Describes the interview process. Offers sample interviews…