A study of stories written by 10-12 year-olds attempted to interpret the authors' meaning and intention by using three modes: primary reading, speculative questioning, and reflective reading. The modes led to multiple layers of meaning, revealing subtlety and complexity and overturning the reader's position. (SK)

Probes into some issues arising from the use of transactional theory as a guide for literacy and literature education. Formulates these issues in terms of theoretical distinctions between five pairs of concepts: basic and enhanced literacy; literal comprehension and literary understanding; literary texts and informational texts; aesthetic and…

It has been argued that schools are trapped in a print-based past, while their students inhabit a nonprint-based age, and that this has accompanied a shift from traditional mass media to media driven by computer technology. This article draws on the work of Stuart Allan to examine some of the history of this shift in term of news and asks what…

In this article, we explore the models of literacy conveyed by contemporary secondary career education policies, programs, and imperatives in the province of Ontario. The Ontario career education policies we reviewed uniformly advance a functional and socially reproductive model of literacy that undermines the democratic agency of learners. In…

The children's novel "Out of the Dust" (Hesse, 1997) is an evocative portrayal of the drought and dust storms that devastated Midwestern farms in the 1930s. Through the voice of her 13-year-old narrator, Karen Hesse intertwines history and free verse poetry to create what many readers find to be a moving depiction of the Oklahoma…

This paper explores issues of critical literacy, gender justice and masculinity through "Mr A's" story. Mr A is head of English at "Grange College"--an all boys' school in a large urban centre in Queensland (Australia). The paper highlights how the privileging of rationality, control and "the masculine" within Mr A's…

This classroom ethnography documents the developing critical literacy pedagogy of an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) instructor over the course of several terms. My research, which involved extensive collaboration with the EAP instructor, explores how specific classroom practices and discourses are enacted and mediated through dialogic…

This study emanates from an assumption that the skill of evaluating sources is placed in a complicated field, where an old academic tradition is paired with a contemporary emphasis on the possibilities and risks with modern sources. The aims of the study is to contribute with a description and analysis of these views as they are expressed in…

Critical literacy has been a particular focus in literacy education in the past two decades. Literacy models such as the "four resources" model provide a significant framework for a critical understanding of texts and the social and cultural practices that inform them. In this paper, I draw on the "four resources" model to argue that the success…

Using the assumption that texts actively work to position readers and readers actively work to position texts, the authors argue that moral lessons emerge from the interactions between texts, readers, and the ideological narratives that inspire both. After differentiating versions of Anne Frank's diary and explicating motives behind their…

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the work of Hungarian literary critic and philosopher Georg Lukacs to teachers of children's literature. The first half of the paper explores the key ideas in Lukacs's literary theory, including "speciality"--an aspect of reality that falls between the extremes of individuality and universality;…

IN ORDER TO TEACH READING AS A THINKING PROCESS, TEACHERS SHOULD BELIEVE THAT CHILDREN CAN THINK AND CAN BE TAUGHT TO READ CRITICALLY, EVEN AT A VERY YOUNG AGE. THREE ASPECTS OF THE READING-THINKING PROCESS INCLUDE DECLARATION OF PURPOSES, REASONING, AND JUDGMENT. THE NATURE OF THE PURPOSES DETERMINES WHAT IS TO BE READ AND HOW IT IS TO BE READ.…