Discusses how in her 1981 novel "Obasan," Joy Kogawa recounts the saga of the internment and relocation of Japanese Canadians during and after the Second World War by juxtaposing the "factual" historic telling against the personal, "fictional" telling. Asks students to analyze a passage and consider such literary…

Suggests enlarging the sphere of feminist composition by including in it an approach to argument, ways to proceed if one is in conflict with one's audience. Explores the beginning of the feminist theory of composition. (MG)

Summarizes key findings from five studies investigating how features of test questions (question format, testing condition, and question type) affect reading comprehension assessment outcomes. Discusses implications for assessment design and instructional practice. (MM)

Argues that the focus of content area instruction needs to include an emphasis on factors that motivate students to read their textbooks. Presents five strategies to link reader and text: using analogies; relating personal anecdotes; disrupting readers' expectations; challenging readers to resolve a paradox; and introducing novel and conflicting…

The study compared effects of two ways of making text more explicit for learning disabled (LD) children: by adding supportive information or asking inference questions at the ends of episodes. Adding elaborative content enhanced story understanding while asking inference questions was not more effective than the explicit version of the text alone.…

Examines how visual literacy (the ability to interpret the visual images of advertisements, illustrations, television, and other visual media) can promote creative and analytic thinking. Provides several instructional strategies to teach visual literacy through book illustrations. Notes that visual literacy is essential in a world increasingly…

Using the ideas of Paul Ricoeur and Clifford Geertz, this article develops the notion of education as a "text" and analyzes the "hidden curriculum" of that text as it is read by all members of the society. The hypothesis is proposed that education becomes a text about society's myths and sacred beliefs. (TE)

Focuses on guiding readers toward making informed decisions about choosing appropriate paths through and beyond the text. Points out that this type of reading program can work as well for intermediate grade readers as it does for primary readers. (ET)

Looks at implications of children meeting stories and storybook characters not only through books and videos but through anything from toys and games to pajamas. (RS)

Explored the information processing abilities associated with expertise in literature in high school and college students. Found that literary experts were superior to novices in gist-level recall, extraction of interpretations, and breadth of aspects addressed of literary texts but not in comprehension of scientific texts. (AA)

Discusses one seven-year-old girl's responses to three feminist folktales. Finds that for each tale, the girl was drawn to the female protagonist and named her as her favorite character, but the girl did not wish to emulate the female protagonists because of their unconventionality. Suggests that such tales may offer alternative models of female…

Explores the abilities of third graders to interpret literature that serves as an extended metaphor for real life. Finds that using literature to focus children's attention on the similarities that can be drawn across diverse domains provides an avenue for higher-level thinking. (RS)

Studies the ways readers create meaning initially from literary texts. Analyzes the data collected via think-aloud protocols and interviews. Compares reading tactics of first-year college students and graduate students. (HB)

Tells the story of the interaction with text of a teenage reluctant reader, in an attempt to show the value of a case study methodology when exploring the reading patterns of reluctant readers. (SR)

Two experiments with 188 college students investigated the facilitative effect of typographical signals such as underlining, headings, or other devices to help readers identify specific points. Results do not support a general facilitative effect of typographical signals but suggest that use of signals depends on the reader's strategic processing.…