This article is a discussion of some aspects of reader response. It attempts to track the development of various theories: from the view of the text as an entity set in stone, through structuralist and phenomenological arguments, to the point where the text becomes a virtual dimension. But not only is the importance of the text within the literary…

This paper explores the application of texture and textual attractors within a cognitive stylistic pedagogy for English teachers. Texture, defined as the feeling of building and experiencing a fictional world, is here taken up as a facilitative way of thinking about how reading, language, experience and cognition operate in the classroom. On the…

The purpose of the study was to investigate differences in writers' abilities to perceive global text organisation in self-, peer- and teacher/researcher-authored essays. Eight student participants were identified as proficient, middle or developing, based on the levels of paragraph subordination, the average number of T-Units and the number of…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to reflect on pedagogical strategies which support the teaching of critical analysis of visual and multimodal texts in a tertiary-level course for Arts students. Design/methodology/approach: The paper describes strategies which focus on developing students' abilities to express interpretive critique, as…

Why do educators teach literature? The author thinks they can hear the answer in the voice of Huckleberry Finn and David Copperfield and Holden Caulfield and the omniscient narrator in "Beloved." It's the wonderful sound of those words, the gorgeous flow of those well-crafted sentences, and the marvelous way Twain and Dickens and Morrison and…

This phenomenological case study attempts to understand the phenomenon of intertextuality of traditional novels and graphic novels, and how it may or may not contribute to transference of one mode of literacy to another. The study's sample was seven Grade 12 Advanced Placement English/language arts students and their teacher. I conducted my…

In contemporary contexts, young people are accustomed to life story; indeed, their lives are saturated with constructions of their stories and those of others, whether created by themselves or their "friends" on social networks. Multimedia outlets convey often detailed stories of more-famous others, whether celebrities or those experiencing…

This resource is part of a series produced by the Center for Standards and Assessment Implementation (CSAI) to assist teachers and those who support teachers to plan teaching and learning from College and Career Ready Standards (CCRS) for all students, including students with disabilities, English learners, academically at-risk students, students…

The author does not really like "Hamlet." He loves the play, the language, and the characters, but always finds it difficult to teach. Part of this is because he prefers to assign students scenes to perform as they read a Shakespeare text, but Hamlet does not divide nicely into manageable scenes, and he usually does not have enough teenage Ken…

This paper analyzes the influence of three different learning paradigms for learning literacy--formalist, cognitive-processing, and literacy practices--on the implementation of the Common Core State Standards. It argues that the Common Core State Standards are based largely on a formalist paradigm as evident in the emphasis on teaching text…

Describes a methodology for teaching the complex prose structures common to nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature. Identifies modifying structures, conditional structures, and periodic sentences as stumbling blocks for students. Argues that students should be taught the effect of these structures on the meaning of both the sentence and the…

Shows how to help students fill in textual "gaps" to interact more fully with contemporary texts, classics, and myths. Presents examples of this approach for studying (1) Shakespeare's "Hamlet" with Tom Stoppard's "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead"; and (2) George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion" with the…

Illustrates techniques to foster transformative learning in computer-assisted literature classes: (1) a lesson plan on John Donne's "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning"; (2) a plan to analyze "Oedipus Rex" using the "Daedalus" Interactive Writing Environment; and (3) a demonstration of how students engage in "meta-reflection" as they explore…