Intended to provide supplementary material for existing courses in the various content areas, the activities in this book are designed to help high school students approach the act of reading in a more critical fashion. The book is divided into three sections, each of which contains approximately one term's work. The first section deals with…

The three articles in this journal issue focus on the real meaning of competency in reading and writing. The first article, "Minimums and Optimums," argues against the establishment of minimum competency tests and for an increase in instructional time. "Placement Testing: The Objective Irrelevant," the second article, maintains that the…

A student project was designed to promote the development of critical reading, critical thinking, and study skills in seventh grade honors students in a developmental reading program. Inherent within the design of the project was the notion that the students would select a topic of interest to research, thereby enhancing student motivation and…

Increased militancy of teachers and instructional improvement leading to a more individualized selection of reading material may have spurred censors into increased activity. To prepare teachers to counteract censorship, further studies, such as the one by the Wisconsin Council of Teachers of English, and interdisciplinary cooperation are needed.…

The central activity of literary criticism, the understanding of literature, is related to the process of establishing a context for the works of literature being studied. Choosing not to discuss the factual elements of literary criticism, the author clarifies and concentrates on the "lower" and "upper" limits of criticism. While the "lower" limit…

A description of the development of the print materials to improve the ability of learners to appraise critically educational research is provided in this report. The completed materials consist of the following: an introductory statement about the nature of criticism, a statement about the contents of the materials and suggestions for use, and…

This syllabus outlines a two semester course to accompany the basic textbook: THE EPIC OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE by Marc Slonim. An introduction to the guide gives a brief summary of the history of Russian literature and objectives of the course are stated, defining concepts and understandings to be developed. In addition, teaching techniques are…

Behind every myth are many possible truths allowing us to discover who we were as peoples and who we are today. By exploring myths surrounding the Wampanoag, the pilgrims, and the "First Thanksgiving," this lesson asks students to think critically about commonly believed myths regarding the Wampanoag Indians in colonial America. During…

This chapter examines how the study of popular romantic fiction was used to transform students' understandings of the ways in which gendered identities are constructed and their perception of the way textual meanings are determined.

Presented at the Annual National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) in New York in March 2008. This presentation explores how different item weighting can affect the effective weights, validity coefficents and test reliability of composite scores among test takers.

Originally developed for the Department of Defense Schools (DoDDS) system, this learning package on developing thinking skills through literature is designed for teachers who wish to upgrade or expand their teaching skills on their own. The package includes a comprehensive search of the ERIC database; a lecture giving an overview on the topic; the…

Originally developed as part of a project for the Department of Defense Schools (DoDDS) system, this learning package on reading programs for gifted readers is designed for teachers who wish to upgrade or expand their teaching skills on their own. The package includes an overview of the project; a comprehensive search of the ERIC database; a…

A study investigated the effects of using topic-related pictures to build and activate readers' schemata as a means of increasing background knowledge and, consequently, reading comprehension. Subjects, two special education middle school students with low scores on standardized reading comprehension and vocabulary tests, were taught to interpret…

Because junior high school literature anthologies contain few expository offerings and English texts seldom involve students in critical reading as background for writing, it is up to the teacher to fill the gap. One approach for providing students with critical reading practice is the cloze procedure, which (1) encourages close reading and…

This paper reports research into the linguistic and extra-linguistic or social-cognitive structure of problem presentation contexts. The effects of textual and social syntax were investigated, including the specific structure of the problem text by which situations, processes, actions, and number relations are implicitly or explicitly expressed,…