With faculty changing instructional practices to take advantage of customizable, focused content (and digital delivery of that content), many people assume that digital distribution is the answer to bringing the costs of course content delivery in line. But the picture just isn't that simple. A wide continuum of options is available to faculty and…

Shouldn't reading be aesthetically, emotionally, and intellectually enjoyable? Yet, as literature becomes complex in middle and high school with multiple characters, points of view, or difficult language, many adolescents forgo the idea of discovering enjoyment in literature. Based on the author's experience as an educator, researcher, and…

Faculty members take pride in the great diversity of students attending LaGuardia Community College. Their students self-identify with various nationalities, races, religions, ethnicities, and sexual orientations. Not only do students adopt diverse identity markers, but they also come to their classroom with variant skill levels. It is difficult…

Not so many years ago, comic books in school were considered the enemy. Students caught sneaking comics between the pages of bulky--and less engaging--textbooks were likely sent to the principal. Today, however, comics, including classics such as "Superman" but also their generally more complex, nuanced cousins, graphic novels, are not only…

This exploratory study describes the instructional strategies and related activities a Grade 1 teacher and I used to promote engagements with informational texts in one rural Jamaican primary school. Some of the instructional strategies and activities were bridging connections from the known to the unknown, reading aloud to increase content…

This article presents a framework for analyzing verbal report data, attempting to integrate Fillmore's levels of envisionment and Galda's differentiation between reader and text-centered responses. It examines the extent to which readers rely on text based, reader-based, or interactive processes to understand text. Case study data is presented.…

This paper considers one researcher's challenge of marking his progress in reading/studying Jacques Derrida's "Aporias" (1993) by what he calls the continual hermeneutic of making meaning. The paper places the "Aporias" reading in the setting of a weekly research group whose research cycle was creating meaning in and out of the…

Examines the relationship of concrete poetry to "abstract" poetry (so labeled because its circular semantic play interferes with the image-forming aspect of representation). Analyzes the interrelations of these two types of poetry in the context of a poetic tradition centered in France. Asserts that both types aim to eradicate differences between…

Suggests that educators will not only fully know how children interpret all kinds of writing about the world by looking carefully at the books children should learn from and by finding as many other ways as possible to convey what they should know. (RS)

Responds to comments on a previous article on metaphysics and educational technology that also included a visual parable. The nature of meaning is discussed; the relationship between author, text, and reader is examined; and the binary opposition inherent in technology are considered. (LRW)

Describes the process of reading the hypertext read-only file "WOE" (included on a disk with this journal) in which voices, memories, influences, and the process of text production all converge, rejecting the objective model of reality as the great "either/or" and embracing, instead, the "and/and/and." (SR)

Examines two ways that graphics and graphic techniques can help communicate technical topics visually: by helping readers navigate through a manual; and by helping readers better understand the material in the manual. (SR)

Analyzes shareholder reports of equity mutual funds whose total returns were high in absolute terms, but low in relative terms. Reveals that mixed-return shareholder reports use a nonlinear hyperstructure, dramatize ideas through contrasting narrators, embed a variety of subgenres, and complement verbal with visual discourse in order to make…

Investigates specific effects of one particularly influential presentation type of journalistic exemplification--the direct quotation. Finds that issue perception by undergraduate student subjects was greatly influenced by citation, with respondents adopting the cited position more than the paraphrased position. Finds this effect most pronounced…

Presents a system to refine typographic fit in digitally composed documents. Describes strategies for paragraph-fit, page-fit, chapter-fit, and one-page-fit. Concludes that these new uses of microtypography increase speed and quality of document production and make reading easier. (PA)