Despite the value of reading, research documents declining reading rates among American adolescents - a decline that exacerbates student dropout rates and academic performance. As a high school English teacher in a public, regional, suburban school, increasing the number of students who deeply read the assigned texts for class has been a…

Recommends Louis L'Amour's books to adolescents on the basis that the books will motivate them to read more, expose them to a strong advocate of the value of education, and stimulate interest in the classical literature referenced in L'Amour's works. (SRT)

The reading content offered in Hong Kong to advanced learners of English as a second language underestimates their intellectual capabilities. Material presented to second language learners is found to be linguistically correct but containing trivial, dull, and unchallenging cultural and intellectual content. This situation is closely related to…

Employing a body of texts for the reading and study of literature in the English classroom leads to much argumentation, with much disagreement about what is fair game for the writing student. To help determine which texts to select it is necessary to define cultural literacy in a different way from that of E. D. Hirsch. Hirsch would prescribe…

Describes the One-Third Report method for motivating reluctant students to read and write: the teacher reads aloud a portion of a story; the class brainstorms endings; students read one-third of assignments, then write about what they need to know or hypothesize endings, which motivates them to finish the story. Includes sample One-Third Report.…