Examines gender bias in young adult literature collections and advocates selecting and promoting materials that help youth develop positive views of females and an awareness of the obstacles women face in overcoming sexual stereotypes. A sampling of 9 titles is described, and an annotated bibliography of 19 additional titles is included. (Contains…

Examining the text and context of production of "The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts" (M.H. Kingston, 1976) shows how U.S. reception and rendition of this text by a Chinese-American writer reflects the goals of mainstream literary production in labeling this fictive text an autobiography. (SLD)

Describes a fifth grade teacher's eight-week unit of study on fiction. Notes that fiction had been a part of the teacher's reading workshop but was absent from her writing workshop. Discusses immersion and exploration, characterization, developing plot, and drafting and revision. (RS)

Presents the results of a study of two fifth-grade reading groups, one comprised of all girls and the other of mixed gender. Discusses results in a reflective essay format, suggesting that the group of girls was more emotional in their observations and the mixed group was more action and plot oriented. (TB)

This study explores the role of culturally familiar background knowledge in inferential and literal comprehension in L2 reading. Ninety-eight Turkish EFL (English as a Foreign Language) university students were divided into two groups of equivalent English proficiency. They read either the original of an American short story or a "nativized"…

If educators are to realize the power of the link between cultural studies and composition studies, they must examine the cultural codes that govern their own professional discourse as teachers of writing. They must accept the responsibility for their own acts of literacy in describing pedagogical practices, in reporting their research, and in…

This book is about the genre of school stories, that is, stories that deal with the education and the educational experiences of boys and girls. The book examines specific authors and specific works from the 1840s to the present, focusing on "crossgendering"--men writing about girls and women writing about boys. The chapters are, as…

Calling for a radical reexamination of the traditional foundation of composition instruction--the thesis/support form, this book argues that the essay, with its informality, conversational tone, meditative mood, and integration of form and content, is better suited to developmental, epistemological, ideological, and feminist rhetorical…

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…

Designed to help preschool through ninth-grade teachers and librarians to become knowledgeable and critical consumers of children's books, this book carries throughout an image of a patchwork quilt to represent the varied colors and patterns of books and people who inhabit the world of children's literature. This third edition of the book has been…

By including more of the works written by Native Americans, college composition students benefit from a wealth of literary works, and perhaps they will be able to move beyond preconceptions about the difficulties of comprehending traditional Native American texts. Two speeches (Leslie Marmon Silko's speech "Language and Literature from a…

this study, an analysis of poetry in Tina Sambal, a Philippine language spoken by about 70,000 persons in northern Zambales province, looks at the characteristics of the different poetic genres and poetic conventions followed in writing songs and poems. Primary emphasis is on phonological restrictions, grammatical liberties, and semantic…

Originally developed for the Department of Defense Schools (DoDDS) system, this learning package on using folk 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 full text of several…

Titles of 152 books of Middle Eastern and North African literature are listed in this annotated bibliography. Contents of the bibliography include: (1) 3 anthologies; (2) 24 collections of poetry; (3) 31 contemporary novels; (4) 23 collections of contemporary short stories; (5) 3 collections of plays and 3 single plays; (6) 10 collections of…

An autobiography course for nontraditional students at community colleges can foster appreciation for cultural diversity and integrate discourses that challenge writing genre hierarchies. Students who signed up for such a course developed processes that worked best for them. Selected as texts for the course were autobiographies that reflected…