A study examined whether the higher-order thinking patterns elicited by a reader response approach would carry over and become part of students' ways of thinking about literature, even in the absence of reader response prompts. Subjects were fourth-grade students (48 in all) in two intact, heterogeneously grouped classrooms in the same elementary…

Written in the same spirit as the earlier edition but thoroughly revised and updated, this book is designed to make teachers aware of reader-response theory and its implications for literature instruction and curriculum. The book demonstrates how a response-centered curriculum brings students to a greater understanding of all forms of literature…

Viewing language as both presentational and representational, or as having both manifest and latent content, can help writing instructors and student writers appreciate its full function and better understand the nature of writing errors. This essential duality of language usage is seen by its functions consisting of unconscious (primary process)…

In the interest of applying reader response theory to journalism this paper posits that readers of newspapers, like readers of literature, take an active role in making meaning from the articles they read, rather than passively accepting news as a finished, static product. Additionally, it proposes that journalism textbooks pay little attention to…

Intended for literature instructors, this digest explains the relationship of transactional theory (a reciprocal, mutually defining relationship between the reader and the literary text) to the teaching of literature. The importance of the reader's part in literature is first demonstrated, noting that attention must be paid to who the readers are,…

To learn more about how people read literary texts, with a view to improving the way literature is taught in schools, a study examined the extent to which the reading of literature is affected by variations in readers, texts, and situations. Subjects, 12 skilled (faculty) readers and 96 novice (undergraduate) readers, read a short story, either in…

A selection of romances from medieval literature can be used successfully in undergraduate literature classes to trace the appearance and relevance of medieval themes, motifs, and characters in works of modern poetry, fiction, and film. New scholarly editions, historiographies, translations, and modernizations give both teachers and students more…

A "special themes in literature" course about illness and disability was designed to help future nurses to understand the human, rather than the clinical, dimensions of impairment and its effects on the sufferer as well as the sufferer's family, associates, and community. The objectives of the course were to look at such matters as…

An honors seminar at Bloomsburg University (Pennsylvania) investigated the story of Jesus as it has evolved in different media over nearly two millennia. Initially the students studied two gospels with contrasting versions of the life of Jesus, in order to explore the process whereby oral material is transcribed into written form by different…

Focusing on the impact of advertisers' persuasive selling messages on consumers, this paper discusses topics relating to the theory of psychological type congruence. Based on an examination of persuasion theory and relevant psychological concepts, including recent cognitive stability and personality and needs theory and the older concept of…

This paper provides a creative approach to developing literary understanding and writing ability in students in a college introduction to literature course. Eight assignments are described which pair literary works having some feature in common. A sample suggestion from the first group of exercises, concerned with characterization, is as follows:…

A study examined an approach to assisting students in increasing their awareness of the organization and demands of text during the survey process of SQ3R (Survey, Question, Read, Review, Recite). Twenty-seven college freshmen in a developmental reading course, were (1) introduced to the concept of SQ3R, (2) given instruction on types and uses of…

To investigate how Mexican-American students constructed meaning from English texts when engaged in reading and writing activities, a study examined 12 fifth grade Mexican-American students who lived in a "barrio" with literacy in both Spanish and English. The aim was to tap the envisionments (text interpretations or understandings, and…

A study of reader response to newspaper articles in a defamatory context tested: (1) the judicial assumption that the macro-environment in which statements appear is important to a reader's distinguishing between fact and opinion; (2) the possibility that a byline may influence a reader's characterization of statements; and (3) the idea that…

A study examined basic writers' written responses to literature and looked for the effects of practice and personality on the development of these students' responses. Subjects, 24 students enrolled in a 4-week summer enrichment program for high risk students at a large Southeastern university. Students were asked to read and respond in writing…