A study examined the relationship between two variable sets: (1) epistemological beliefs (Quick Learning, Simple-Certain Knowledge, and Innate Ability) and performance goals; and (2) conceptual understanding and application reasoning in conceptual change learning. In addition, effects of different kinds of prior knowledge on conceptual change…

A study investigated the writing motivation of 145 third- and fifth-grade students. Because self-perceived competence and task value interact in important ways to influence an individual's motivation, these two constructs were used as the basis for measuring children's motivation to write. Students responded to the Motivation to Write Scale (MWS),…

A study examined 52 stories for grades 1-6, randomly chosen from 10 American and Canadian literature-based reading series containing well-known selections by well-known authors. The study compared the reading series selection to the original story cited in the series acknowledgments, seeking patterns of difference in wording, paragraph structure,…

Noting that children must be provided with the opportunity to read various types of text as early as possible if they are to develop into strategic and self-directed readers, this paper presents research evidence to show that every text type makes unique demands on readers. The first section of the paper discusses reading in the school context,…

A study tested whether an intervention involving collaboration and the integration of reading and writing would build sixth-grade students' schemata for comparison/contrast and cause/effect text. Subjects were 76 students in 7 sixth-grade classes in 2 urban middle schools. Four of the classes were randomly chosen as the treatment group. For the…

The concept of Arithmetic Story Grammar is introduced. Arithmetic Story Grammar maintains that any equation containing a single operand tells, in and of itself, a complete story with a setting, plot, theme, and resolution. Multiple-operand equations differ from their single-operand siblings only in the number of actions undertaken and the number…

A study investigated the roles of particular cultural exemplars and more abstract cultural schemata in the acquisition of genre knowledge. Subjects, 16 kindergarten children, 20 first-grade children, and 18 second-grade children from one intact classroom at each grade level, were interviewed about their knowledge of various textual and structural…

Despite accompanying drawbacks, the Internet information system known as Gopher presents a rich variety of potential benefits to writing pedagogies and to educational administrators. Writing teachers need to overcome tendencies to think of exploration of the Internet information resources as something to be uncritically adopted and as something to…

Included in this paper is an outline for the book "Multiculturalism in the Mainstream: Teacher Researchers Build Multiethnic Literacy Communities in Urban Multicultural English and Social Studies Classrooms." The paper presents full descriptions of the chapters; a draft of the first chapter; a draft of a completed teachers' chapter; and a sample…

A study examined the first grade materials in five new basal programs submitted for the 1993 Texas state adoption. (The programs were those of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich; Houghton Mifflin; Scott Foresman; Macmillan/McGraw-Hill; and Silver Burdett Ginn). These series are compared with program materials currently in use in the state. The analysis…

Two studies examined the validity of a model of procedural document processing, and the relationships among document features, reader characteristics, and successful completion of a button-sewing task. The first study tested three information sources. Subjects were 12 seventh-grade, 12 tenth-grade, and 12 adult students who used 2 commercially…

Academic theory about hypertext indicates that hypertext use makes concrete postmodern and post-structuralist theories of text. When it is said that hypertext offers a new type of freedom and power for readers and writers, what are some of the things that are signaled implicitly? In conservative hypertexts, "choice" means being able to…

A study was conducted to examine the relationships of four areas of textual design factors that are relevant to external students' learning as they use their course study guides: the micro and macro textual features, the linguistics, and the instructional design elements. Twelve external students from two units at the Gippsland Institute were…

Using a recursive network transition model for depicting stories to generate two stories of contrasting structure (successive episodes organized by topic and embedded episodes organized by failed and successful goals), a study examined the understanding of the structures by having children in the third through eleventh grades rate each story…

Examines the nature of early school reading material and its distinct discourse structures, which are used to present possible social worlds and characters to children. Argues that understanding the interpretive challenges and problems that such texts present to children aids teachers in enhancing literacy. (RAE)