Framed as the "transaction" between readers and texts, this article examines the scripture reading practices of three Methodist youth. Data were generated through verbal protocols in which youth verbalized their thinking as they read self-selected passages from the Bible. Multiple rounds of inductive thematic analyses identified how the…

To address inequitable literacy attainment and achieve equitable opportunity in literacy education, every teacher must be knowledgeable about reading practices and processes. This study examines the knowledge about reader-text interactions articulated by 21 middle school teachers, and explores the ways teachers convert that knowledge into…

Literature classrooms hold great potential to educate students for critical global citizenship through serious engagement with marginalized stories that test or subvert mainstream knowledges and structures, including the familiar humanitarian framework that dominates Western thinking about the Global South. Unfortunately, much existing literary…

This study proposes a method for implementing trained peer response within the multiliteracies framework and then qualitatively examines its effectiveness. Three factors are considered: (1) the extent to which peer response training engaged learners in all four knowledge processes; (2) the quality of peer-to-peer feedback; and (3) students'…

This study reports the outcomes of research investigating the relationship between two variables; percentage of word knowledge in an academic English text and reading comprehension scores the participants got for the same text. The study was conducted at Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Preparatory Year Deanship, during the first semester…

While important work has been done on assessing classroom texts and investigating classroom discourse, there is little research on teachers doing systemic functional linguistics (SFL) with students for critical ends, especially in the high school arena. This article discusses how instructional use of SFL analytic resources in subject English…

What better place for young little minds who are full of energy and eager to soak up as much information as possible than a notebook for them to collect their new learning and thoughts? What is it about notebooks that makes writing and learning fun? I wanted to experience the magical feeling that notebooks create with my students--hence, the…

This article brings recent debates in literary studies regarding the practice of close reading into conversation with Derek Attridge's idea of "readerly hospitality" (2004) to diagnose the problem of students in undergraduate literary studies programme not completing set reading. We argue that the method of close reading depends on…

Nowhere is the need for handling complexity more pertinent than in addressing environmental issues. Our study explores students' situated constructs of complexity in unfolding discourses on socio-scientific issues. Students' dialogues in two group-work episodes are analysed in detail, with tools from Systemic Functional Linguistics. We identify…

The present paper is supposed to compare and contrast three of these masterpieces written the Renaissance period. The epyllions under study are Christopher Marlowe's "Hero and Leander," Thomas Lodge's "Scylla's Metamorphosis" and Francis Beaumont's "Salmacis and Hermaphroditus." Bush believes that "the influence…

Recent literary practices such as surface reading or the digital humanities have challenged the centrality of close reading in literary studies. Nonetheless, reading literature still involves sustained and productive attentiveness to texts. Fostering this skill, however, can seem increasingly difficult. From paper mills, to SparkNotes, to blogs…

Michael Swan and Catherine Walter (see EJ1142765) take issue with the current emphasis in the teaching of listening and reading on higher-order skills-and-strategies training. They argue that L2 learners typically already possess the relevant skills and strategies necessary for listening and reading in L2, and, by implication, can and do deploy…

This study raises the question what makes school texts comprehensible by analyzing whether students' genre expectations about literary or expository texts moderate the impact of different forms of text cohesion on reading comprehension, even when the texts are similar regarding their genre. 754 students (Grade 9) from comprehensive schools read…

One of the most efficient ways of learning essential content in the curriculum is through reading; however, accessing content through reading even some of the most basic texts for many students with disabilities is a challenge (C. Lee & Spratley, 2010). As a student enters secondary settings, text complexity, vocabulary demands, and curricular…

For the promotion and optimization of teaching foreign languages, new methods and strategies are always considered that include literary texts. The aim of the present paper is to provide arguments for the use of literature in the classroom. Learning target areas and selection criteria for the use of literary texts in the classroom are presented. A…