Disputes that original data of Minuchin, Rosman and Baker (1978) support their assertions that some diabetic patients' physiological disturbance serves a function in their families. Concludes that their psychosomatic family model decontextualizes families, assigning to them characteristics more appropriately seen as reflections of the disease…

Reviews five composition textbooks, assessing their attempts to integrate the reading and writing processes through literature and composition. Examines the textbooks' theoretical instantiation and notes their lack of success in achieving the reading/writing connection. (MM)

Comments upon the role of teachers in breaking down students' resistance to learning, and suggests that teachers become, not all-knowing givers of knowledge in the classroom, but persons who help students become interpreters themselves by separating themselves from their own interpretations. (JC)

An author recommends that young children read good fiction rather than stories in basal readers. Recounts her dismay when one of her books was adapted for a basal reader and the language was changed and simplified. (NKA)

Explores responses to fiction reading by students who record these responses in journals. (NKA)

Results of two experiments revealed a significant correlation between function-word predictability and reader enjoyment and a strong correlation between content-word unpredictability and reader enjoyment. (FL)

Describes the focus of a freshman literature course: understanding literary meaning, analyzing literary form, and exploring literary value with each of the three one-quarter classes drawing on the resources of a major area within current literary studies, such as hermeneutics (meaning), poetics (form), and criticism (evaluation). (EL)

Explores the role of interpersonal cognitive complexity in the character impressions, story comprehension, response preferences, and literary attitudes of eleventh grade students. Results suggest that interpersonal cognitive complexity predisposes readers toward complex perceptions of literary characters. (HOD)

Discusses the emerging assumptions of literature and its teaching that knowledge is made and must be remade by each person. Considers the relationships between the reader and the text, the reader and the reader, and the relationship between texts. (EL)

Employs a well-developed information-processing task to assess the nature of the representation and activitation of letters and geometrical figures and the changes that occur with reading development. (FL)

This book is divided into four parts, each focusing on an important aspect of evaluating, selecting, or using nonfiction books in the classroom. Under Part I--Choosing Quality Nonfiction Literature: Evaluation and Selection--are the following chapters: (1) "Nonfiction Books for Children: New Directions, New Challenges" (Susan Hepler);…

Chinua Achebe is one of Africa's best-known and most influential contemporary writers. His first novel, "Things Fall Apart," is a narrative about the European colonization of Africa told from the viewpoint of the colonized people. Published in 1958, the novel recounts the life of the warrior and village hero Okonkwo and describes the…

One key issue at the heart of conducting classroom discussions is why teachers are attempting to initiate a discussion and what they can do to initiate effective classroom discussions. This paper considers this issue. The paper first considers two classroom discussions which revolve around a short story, "Only Clowns Passing Through" (Jeanne A.…

The use of literature circles has been discussed in a variety of academic journals, conference papers, and workshops. Teachers at all grade levels use literature circles as a vehicle through which students learn to: think critically about literature; express their thoughts in oral and written forms; and better enjoy their literacy experiences.…

In children's literature not many characters are shown as multidimensional human beings with strengths as well as weaknesses. Instead, both males and females display behavior and traits which reflect stereotypical roles, responsibilities, and expectations. Although there may be segments of society which are redefining gender roles, the female and…