It is presumed that readers of Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" enjoy the sexual tension between Bella and Edward; a tension that remains unresolved until the couple are married. This very traditional solution to the couple's carnal desires is just one of many ways in which the novels adhere to the conventions of romance writing for young people.…

In a highly competitive higher education environment where resources are limited, educators are increasingly concerned with providing evidence for the effectiveness of teaching interventions including one-to-one writing support. This article offers a model for analysing the changes in student writing as a result of individualised writing…

After teaching in rural North Carolina for about six years, the author was on the verge of giving up on teaching Shakespeare to her students. Although they seemed to enjoy the action and the drama of Shakespeare's plays, the lack of connection between the students and the language and culture of the plays interfered with her ability to generate a…

The purpose of this study was to investigate why some individuals who read refutational text demonstrate conceptual change learning, whereas others do not. Middle school students were asked to complete a pretest, read a refutational text while thinking aloud, complete a posttest, and participate in an interview. The data were analyzed in two…

We conducted a mixed methods study to evaluate motivation among 20 fourth-grade students who struggle with reading and writing prior to and after receiving either self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) instruction for expository reading comprehension or SRSD instruction for expository reading comprehension plus informative writing. We…

An after-school book club, led by the school librarian, was held to test the efficacy of the peritextual literacy framework (PLF) in teaching skills related to critical thinking, problem solving, information literacy, and media literacy. The PLF is an extension of paratext theory developed by Gérard Genette, which provides a typology of the…

The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of text genre on student learning from science text, using science-related traditional informational and poetic informational texts, with fifth-graders. Four texts were used: a traditional informational text about caves, a poetic informational text about caves, a traditional informational text…

Every adult who reads to a child has seen what happens when a book speaks. For a time, the book becomes the child's beloved friend. It is asked for repeatedly and learned by heart. But books do more than speak to a child. Children use books to speak to adults. If one wants to understand a child's deepest emotions, take a look at the books they…

Two experiments were conducted to examine whether students use arguments with refutation in one text for evaluating the opposite arguments without refutation in another text. Undergraduate students read two conflicting texts in either of the two orders: pro arguments text first and con arguments text first. After reading each text, they evaluated…

Meaningful conversations are a powerful tool to help students understand what they read and make text-to-self connections. This simple lesson, which is designed for repeated use with both fiction and nonfiction, provides students with strategies to support conversations about texts. Students will learn how to determine which ideas work best to…

Images of childhood are ideas and expectations of childhood and children, and are reflections of individual perception and cultural ideologies. In writing children's books, authors draw on their conscious and unconscious thoughts of childhood to create an implied reader. In this paper I investigate images of childhood through examination of the…

Current theories of text processing say little about how authors' narrative choices, including the introduction of small mysteries, can affect readers' narrative experiences. Gerrig, Love, and McKoon (2009) provided evidence that 1 type of small mystery--a character introduced without information linking him or her to the story--affects readers'…

Divakaruni reflects on her path to becoming an author for children, including her formative encounters with stories told by her grandfather in her native India, and experiences as a mother and as an Indian woman in the post-9/11 context of the United States.

Advanced multimedia techniques offer significant learning potential for students. Dale (1946, 1954, 1969) developed a Cone of Experience (CoE) which is a hierarchy of learning experiences ranging from direct participation to abstract symbolic expression. This paper updates the CoE for today's technology and learning context, specifically focused…

This study examines how critical literacy read-alouds can be facilitated in an early childhood setting. More specifically, it describes how books allow young children to connect with experiences that help them identify and challenge inequality and envision social change. A classroom teacher and two university-based researchers collaborated to…