"Acts of Reading" is an enchanting and scholarly review of the history of reading and texts for children, from the 18th century to the digital age and beyond. They are examined through the eyes of their various audiences: the children, writers, teachers and parents, so as to explore the act of reading itself, whether oral, silent or performative,…

Two high school teachers of Deaf students and two teacher educators present this article about the use of graphic novels as an important genre for teaching literacy and academic skills in the high school classroom. During a summer session for failing Deaf students at a state-sponsored school, two English teachers taught and documented their…

Mary Elizabeth Braddon's novels and stories exemplify some of the main issues surrounding women's texts and their place in literature: aesthetic value, intellectual challenge, universality, and contemporary popularity. Her work, it may be argued, betrays occasional aesthetic imperfections; however, she produced a tremendous amount of published…

This book is based on the belief that deep subject knowledge of language and literature provides a foundation for effective teaching and learning. It provides a guide to the range of genres and characteristic features of English language fiction written for children. It is designed to help readers to develop their understanding of literature…

To teach students how to write for the workplace and other professional contexts, technical writing teachers often assign writing tasks that reflect real-life communication contexts, a teaching approach that is grounded in the field's contextualized understanding of genre. This article argues to fully embrace contextualized literacy and better…

The aim of the research project was to explore new ways in which we might evaluate boys' and girls' engagement and "performance" in English at Key Stage 3. This paper draws on recent theories regarding literacy, identity and gender and includes an analysis of short stories written by boys and girls aged 12- to 13-years-old. An…

From Scooby Doo and Nancy Drew to the countless other detectives that fill children's bookshelves and television programs, it is clear that children are fascinated with solving crimes. As a result, a chemistry professor who performs outreach activities at local elementary schools exploited this interest in mysteries as a method to spark curiosity…

Within the past 20 years, the arts have gained increasing prominence in educational discourses as well as public arenas. At the same time that traditional genres of art (e.g., music, visual art, and performance) are being taught as part of school curricula, the study of the arts in education has taken on new venues in supporting learning and…

The study of systemic functional linguistics has been particularly relevant to the development of an educational linguistics. Recent theory has viewed language as a tool for mapping experience, with semantics and grammar treated as interrelated, not distinct. To the systemicist, one of the greatest theoretical challenges has been how to account…

Heads of special collections of pulp magazines, the medium for popular fiction prior to the introduction of mass market paperbacks in 1939, were surveyed to help analyze and address the problems facing these collections. A survey mailed to special collections administrators gathered background information from the four largest collections…

Explains unique aspects of native American autobiography. (MKM)

Research results show that (1) poems possess certain, mainly linguistic, properties, i.e., there is a poetic language, and (2) that readers respond to poems by means of their knowledge of poetic language, i.e., they possess a poetic competence. (RM)

Begins an examination of dragons in literature, particularly in the works of J.R.R. Tolkein, K. Grahame, E. Nesbit, J. Yolen, U. Le Guin, and A. McCaffrey. (CRH)