Historians use a range of genres in presenting their subjects, yet educators have increasingly privileged argumentation to help novices to reason with historical content. However, the influence genre and content knowledge are relatively unmeasured in this discipline. To learn more, the authors asked 101 eleventh-grade students to compose an…

Every Child a Writer is a genre-based model of writing instruction promoted by the National Literacy Coalition. This paper reports on Colorado schools implementing the model. Statistical analyses of achievement patterns in implementing schools were compared to statewide achievement results. A student cohort design across multiple years was…

In this study of Jill Paton Walsh's one time-slip novel, I attempt to show how she reinvents the genre by giving as much prominence to the dislocated present as she does to the sufferings of children caught up in the horrors of the Industrial Revolution. Where previous time-slip authors had concentrated on the past, she addresses clearly unwelcome…

Coupling Royster's (2000) conceptual framework of "zamani" with Rosenblatt's (1978) reader response theory, the researcher explores the ways African American women's writings supported, nurtured, and "mentored" the writings of adolescent girls. Findings show that the mentor texts helped in generating ideas for writing, thinking…

Background: This study examined the use of student-teacher interactions through dynamic assessment (DA) to diagnose and promote the learner's comprehension on Chinese writing patterns. Debates over the uses of standardized tests to assess language learners' performance have been ongoing in the field of second language acquisition for many years.…

This study proposes a model for integrating multicultural children's short stories as an extension activity or as a supplement to in-class instruction to develop college students' reading and speaking skills in English as a foreign language (EFL), together with cultural awareness. It gives the advantages of using multicultural children's short…

Survey methods were employed to learn more about teachers' attitudes toward graphic novels and how graphic novels are used in their classrooms. Questions explored participants' attitudes and actual classroom use. The survey research sought to determine if teachers are open to using graphic novels and the extent of their willingness to do so.…

Fictional materials are commonly used in the classroom to teach course content. Both laboratory experiments and classroom demonstrations illustrate the benefits of using fiction to help students learn accurate information about the world. However, fictional sources often contain factually inaccurate content, making them a potent vehicle for…

In this essay Tyson Lewis reevaluates Jean-Jacques Rousseau's assessment of the pedagogical value of fables in Emile's education using Giorgio Agamben's theory of poetic production and Thomas Keenan's theory of the inherent ambiguity of the fable. From this perspective, the "unreadable" nature of the fable that Rousseau exposed is not simply the…

"Poetic Voices: Writing, Reading, and Responding to Poetry" was the title of the 2011 Master Class in Children's Literature. Woven into this session were the insights of poets Joyce Sidman and Pat Mora who shared their creative processes and the voices that inspire their poetry. In addition, Barbara Kiefer provided advice regarding how to connect…

Writing in the Disciplines curricula can both challenge and reinforce assumptions that writing is a general skill that students will already have learned prior to doing the specialized writing in their chosen field of study. Rhetorical genre studies, however, tends to emphasize the situated nature of writing expertise, and thus supports the…

This paper reports a diary-based qualitative study on college students' reading habits with regard to print and electronic media. Students used a form to record information about their reading practices for twelve days, including length of reading event, location, format used, and the purpose of reading. Students tended to use print for academic…

Developing silent fluent reading is an important goal to be achieved in elementary literacy instruction. This article reviews characteristics of effective silent reading fluency instruction and practice. Next, the authors make the case for four components of effective silent reading fluency practice routines. Finally, the authors describe two…

The term "genre" first came into the field of second-language (L2) writing and, in turn, the field of English for specific purposes (ESP) in the 1980s, with the research of John Swales, first carried out in the UK, into the introduction section of research articles. Other important figures in this area are Tony Dudley-Evans, Ann Johns…

Development of skills for the critical analysis of media texts--an important task of media education. However, media literacy practice shows that students have the problems with the discussion/analysis of entertainment genres in the early stages of media studies, for example, the difficulties in the process of understanding and interpreting the…