Programs aimed at analyzing the propaganda techniques of television commercials need to be developed by the schools. (JH)

When asked to teach a newly-created course entitled "Women and Creativity," a woman who loved teaching was eager for the opportunity to share stories about women with a class made up primarily of women. The course proposal, course objectives, and suggested texts initially seemed so outlined in scholarly language that the concept of…

Intended to increase reading motivation in students, this book features tales of ghosts and poltergeists. The tales range from the legendary to the contemporary. These accounts of ghost stories in the book provide subject matter for thoughtful interpretation and discussion, while challenging students in four critical reading categories: main idea,…

The central argument of this paper is that the contemporary teacher's task is to bring students into the most fertile intellectual and moral companionship that can be provided. To begin this process, Plato's "Apology" should be introduced to students as early as junior high school. To illustrate this procedure, the educational background…

Although many teachers force-feed the "meaning" of poetry to puzzled students or teach poetry by way of dissecting poetic techniques, more productive approaches to the study of poetry exist, as reflected in the literature in the ERIC database. Units of study can be organized around particular kinds of inquiry instead of around a literary…

Based on the experiences of writing lab instructors working with college students whose writing was affected by poor comprehension of difficult texts, this book explores the use of writing about reading to help students become more aware or analytical of their reading processes. The first chapter provides a theoretical context for teaching…

Informal inventories offer an alternative to discredited standardized tests of reading achievement. (JH)

Describes a program for individualizing directed reading-thinking activities. (RB)

Before teachers can effectively use television technology in the classroom, many of their fears and uncertainties regarding the medium must be eliminated. For example, there are no studies indicating that television is nurturing a generation of dependent, passive watchers. Nevertheless, because children do spend one-sixth of their time between…

A technique sometimes known as patterned prose or case book exposition is an effective way to improve student writing while also holding their interest. It may also help solve a problem pointed to by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP): students' inability to think about what they read. The technique is simple. The teacher…

This kit contains two components which will help teachers and librarians become aware of the problems of ageism in literature and examine materials currently in use. The first component, entitled "Problems of Ageism in Literature," is a brief, but comprehensive, position paper on the particular ways in which literature may adversely…

Teachers at all grade levels need to recognize the importance of instruction in consumer reading and decision making skills. The definitions and prerequisites of a literate consumer underscore the importance of reading and reasoning skills development for making effective decisions. Consumer educators must also recognize that economic…

The schema theory of comprehension as it relates to understanding while reading is reviewed in this report. Several techniques for the study of on-line measurement of comprehension are described that are based on a series of ten stories, each with two versions. The report notes that when subjects were asked to generate interpretations of stories…

This paper reports an investigation on the educational impact of warning labels on cigarette packages on adolescents. Subjects were asked to identify the locations of warning labels on cigarette packages and advertising and to restate the warning label. Results indicated that official warnings may be well known in general terms but poorly known in…