Describes the author's experiences as a poetry teacher. Compares the world of poetry to a house with thousands of windows. States that poetry from other countries has value for American readers. Chronicles her efforts to gather the poetic anthology "This Same Sky: A Collection of Poems from Around the World," meant for younger readers as…

Describes informational storybooks, literature containing characteristics drawn from both storybooks and information books. Discusses the excellent possibilities for instruction offered because of the instructional storybook's dual nature. (SR)

Discusses why people write and read historical fiction, in particular historical fiction involving war. Uses the author's book "Thunder at Gettysburg" to illustrate how such fiction can illuminate the epiphanies people experience, brought on by the exigencies of battle and of survival. (SR)

Suggests that nature writing as a genre enacts the sort of interdisciplinarity that many in the composition field seek to promote. Explores the tensions inherent in "nature" writing, when it would seem that "nature" is signed as the opposite of "culture," and culture, in turn, takes writing as its quintessence. (RS)

Describes a variety of books that offer fictional and poetic landscapes--five historical novels set in disparate locales, a book set in medieval Denmark, another addressing the landscape of memory, and a novel about a poet-scientist. (SR)

Considers how a modern author succeeds in giving new life to traditional motifs and patterns. Discusses the first book by Carol Hughes, "Toots and the Upside Down House." Discusses the practice of adopting patterns and motifs of literary traditions. Considers features of postmodernism and biographical implications in her work. (SC)

Takes a look at children's literature over time, and its recent emergence as a respected body of literary work. Discusses what is Canadian about Canadian children's literature. Annotates six picture books. Notes that Canadian literature reflects the diversity of the Canadian population, the vast differences in the Canadian landscape, and the…

As a former elementary library media specialist now in a new middle school library media center, it was frustrating for the author to not have enough time to assist students and discouraging to see the apathy that so many of the students displayed toward books and reading. Middle schoolers are busy with social activities, sports, and schoolwork.…

Four experiments examined whether 3-year-olds' comprehension of pronouns was affected by the discourse prominence of the possible antecedents. In each experiment, children listened to short stories. The final (test) sentence of each story differed in whether it continued the grammatical subject (and first-mentioned character) established in prior…

Southern fiction writer Flannery O'Connor once characterized the South as Christ-haunted, and having taught in the South for eight years now, I have come to appreciate O'Connor's evaluation. Most of the students I encounter understand one predominant way to practice Christian faith: assent to propositional theology. Most of them either accept this…

Sentences with non-canonical wh- movement are often difficult for individuals with agrammatic Broca's aphasia to understand (Carramazza & Zurif, 1976, inter alia). However, the explanation of this difficulty remains controversial, and little is known about how individuals with aphasia try to understand such sentences in real time. This study uses…

This study focuses on two high school seniors as they wrote in their British Literature and Psychology classes. We analyse the writing experiences of the two volunteer students as they produced formal academic writing (research, essays, and synopses), personal writing (poems, stories, and personal narratives), and hybrid writing (research written…

High-stakes writing assessments currently exert a strong influence on the writing curriculum and instruction in schools across the United States. Under these circumstances it is important to examine the construct of writing competence on which these assessments are based, as well as the extent to which this construct supports the goals of…

The relative absence of nonfiction in literature for young readers may have serious implications because nonfiction literacy matters. Nonfiction material is the crucible within which readers can gain the knowledge and skills that enable them to reach sound decisions in all arenas of life, avoid gullibility born of ignorance, and participate in an…

The goals of higher education often entail the development of students' character. Rarely, however, are these character development goals connected to the unique design and delivery of distance education programs. Additionally, the research literature that explores the character development aspects of distance education is sparse. Thus the purpose…