Provides a theoretical framework for thinking about how students read literature through the notions of envisionment-building and stories. Discusses possibilities for instruction. (MG)

Reviews "How Porcupines Make Love II," the sequel on teaching a response-centered literature curriculum. Finds it to be a lively, engaging, provocative text, one that includes workable hints for classroom practice. (MG)

Examines the role of readers' subjectivity or personal responses in story interpretation, specifically in the formation of thematic generalizations. (MG)

Reviews research on the effects of world knowledge and text structure variables on reading comprehension. Concludes that text structure variables exert influence only when the subject matter is moderately unfamiliar and are redundant in reading familiar or very difficult material. Suggests knowledge and structure variables should be manipulated…

Discusses a textbook annotation strategy. Examines the effectiveness and efficiency of the strategy. Finds that training students to annotate text enables them to perform effectively over time. Presents practical teaching suggestions for working with different types of students. (RS)

Suggests that each type of literature presented to young readers serves two important functions: to develop a schema for that literary genre; and to encourage the application of thinking skills in a variety of literary engagements. Presents four related resources from the ERIC database. (MG)

Focuses on diagrams giving overviews of complex technical information as facilitators for adult subjects using computers to learn about the business activities of a fictitious family. Finds that features of the author's control over the reader's encounter with the diagram influences whether readers will interrupt their reading to study the…

Uses an error detection paradigm to examine the ability of college students of different reading proficiency levels to evaluate their understanding of texts. Finds that good readers were more likely than poor readers to detect inconsistent sentences. Finds that students rated passage understanding high regardless of whether they detected…

Argues that peer writing tutors must have a theory of reading that recognizes the dangers of readers' appropriating the writer's text by projecting or imposing their own ideological programs onto the text. (RS)

Argues that students and teachers of literature should begin the study of literary texts with the emotional immediacies and humanistic sympathies that the texts evoke, rather than with an examination of literary critical theories. (MM)

Examines miscue analysis as a valuable tool for documenting what students already do well, so that instruction can build on areas of strength. (RAE)

Explores the advantages of using whole books in teaching basic English courses at Bergen Community College rather than workbooks and readers, using examples from student journals to illustrate students' reactions to their reading. Argues that longer works provide a context for critical thinking and reading exercises and a familiarity of character…

Reports on a study of the size of text windows, defined as a group of words appearing in contiguous position in text, and the effects of varying the window size on information retrieval performance. The characteristics of windows that best match terms in queries are examined in detail. (Contains 10 references.) (KRN)

Explores sixth graders' perspectives on the contexts of reading and responding to books in school. Finds children respond to books in patterns specific to school contexts; classroom contexts are socially constructed through children's interactions; and children constructed a community of readers by interacting with one another to respond to books…

Examined the different influences of comprehension-skill and domain-knowledge components on learning from text. Found that learning from an expanded text with explicit causal relations was related to reading comprehension skill rather than prior knowledge, whereas learning from an unexpanded text that did not spell out causes was a function of…