Presents a teacher's method of staying in touch with his students' cognitive development. Offers his outline of four cognitive levels, with definitions, and types of student responses (from sixth- and eighth-grade students). (SR)

Praises librarians who, with skill and affection, bring readers to books that help them shape and understand their lives. Quotes excerpts from poetry and prose with sometimes surprising images of librarians. (SR)

Contends that the ancient Babylonian epic poem "Gilgamesh" makes room for elements that call into question the very nature of heroic. Notes that the opening passage of the poem informs readers that it is going to foster elements contrary to expectations. Provides examples of such surprises. (PM)

Examines change and variation in the design of non-fiction texts which have a junior-age readership. Argues that different forms of presentation of non-fiction offer different ways of reading non-fiction texts, which as yet are neither fully described nor recognized. Suggests that non-fiction texts can be more or less firmly orientated towards…

Considers how scientific texts are resistant to scrutiny by rhetorical critics because of the recalcitrance of nature, the exegetical equality of scientific communication, and the institutionally driven nature of scientific text production. Argues that none of these differences between scientific and public texts bars a rhetorical reading.…

Uses Virginia Woolf's "To the Lighthouse" and other novels to dramatize and highlight the conversations, conflicts, and multiple voices within and around the reader. Challenges readers to listen to all the voices in their minds for the sake of achieving a more communicative form of life. (MG)

Examines how Romantic psychology and subsequent literary theory devalued texts that were ostensibly factual rather than fictional. Argues that nonfiction literature--the literature of fact--is as rich and valuable as fiction. Explores Peter Matthiessen's "The Snow Leopard" to show how a reader can become aesthetically immersed in a…

Reviews children's literature with multi-dimensional, engaging characters--characters with strengths and weaknesses who grapple with real problems and find real solutions. (MG)

Responds to "A Symposium on the Usefulness of Literacy Research" in the same issue of this journal. Maintains that Alan Purves totally misreads the author's theory of reading approaches. Explains that "efferent reading" and "aesthetic reading" are not discrete categories but terms on a continuum. (TB)

Describes aspects of bibliotherapy (the use of books to help children and adolescents cope with emotional problems): its history, what it is, its processes, techniques in administering it, implementation precautions, its limitations, and studies of bibliotherapy. (SR)

Engages in ironic play with the confessional mode to find out how to think and talk after the French feminist confrontation with philosophy. Confesses a desire for philosophic thinking, then seeks from hermeneutics the secret at the heart of its enterprise. (SR)

Traces an encounter with Mikhail Bakhtin during the process of reading and writing a dissertation. Refocuses attention from "Bakhtin" as authoritative text to the reader. Reappropriates Bakhtin in service of a feminist practice of reading. (SR)

Reiterates some of the major tenets of reader-response theory. Describes the "writerly" text as a source of activity rather than of meaning, and examines Gary Paulsen's "The Winter Room" as an example of the active writerly text. (SR)

Finds that the updating of situation models is achieved by accessing both locational and temporal links in the knowledge-based spatial representation. (SR)

Offers a Pyrrhonist reading of "Hamlet." Describes an experiment in teaching that attempts to reconstruct for literature students the prudential-ethical context of human rhetoric, placing "prudentia," or practical wisdom, at the center of their own imaginative involvement. (PRA)