This paper reflects upon Plato's "Phaedrus" from a background in education and experience teaching written business communications. The interpretation and development presented are guided by the Platonic method of collection and division, which is introduced in "Phaedrus." The paper begins with an evaluative overview, followed…

Delineates the main functions of illustrations in relation to text in picture books. Examines the significance of illustrations to readers. Focuses on picture storybooks because they are most common among young children. Notes that illustrations in picture books are meant to delight, capture attention, amplify or tell a story, teach a concept, and…

Presents a "conversation" (only slightly redrafted versions of first-and-final electronic communications) on the concept of "compellingness" in reading research (the conditions under which readers come to believe what an author writes). Draws on the authors' reading in logic, literary theory, mathematics, and the philosophy of…

Discusses Eric Lomax's autobiographical book "The Railway Man." Notes how it chronicles his boyhood obsession with train-spotting and the subsequent ways in which his life has been freaked by railway co-incidences. Describes how the author invited Eric Lomax to come and discuss this work with his students. (SG)

Presents a survey that asks three educators to comment on the positive and negative results of the writing workshop tradition in America. Considers the ways in which the workshop has come to reflect contemporary notions of education, the relationship between the writer and the audience, and the nature of the imagination. (SG)

Examines direct mailing included in a nationally publicized court case. Articulates how the use of particular genre-based, rhetorical and linguistic strategies in these mailing construct reader identity. Argues that the documents use you-attitude to construct the identity of the reader as winner and to establish the reader's identity as the…

Attempts to clarify an essential difference between the ways in which pictures and words convey meaning. Examines one attempt to differentiate and characterize various types of picture books and concludes by showing how Anthony Browne exploits the distinction between showing and telling to create the atmosphere of uncertainty and mystery in his…

Considers how words and image convey multiple meanings, lending themselves to postmodern readings, in the sense that they encourage readings that reject a single interpretation and instead hold in suspense the possibility of multiple readings co-existing. Explores how these texts allow the consumer/reader the opportunity to actively engage the…

Uses the author's poems to illustrate the interrelationships among a poem's rhythm, lineation, and syntax. (MM)

Discusses Robert Patlock's 1750 novel "The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins." Argues that the novel is more than just a late contribution to the tradition of the imaginary voyage, but a novel in which the voyage being traced is both the hero's and the reader's. (MG)

Discusses Janice A. Radway's "Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy and Popular Literature." Argues that reading educators should consider a more general premise embodied in the book: in order to understand the appeal (or lack of it) of certain books, then educators first need to understand what the books are for the students who read them. (RS)

Discusses interactive fiction (IF), a computer-based form of literature in which the reader plays the part of an important character and makes decisions affecting story outcomes. Finds that IF, with its orientation toward problem solving, encourages systematic, consciously planned metathinking, and engages students' interest. (SR)

Examines characteristics of quality children's literature by analyzing both children and adult responses to Ezra Keats' story, "The Snowy Day." Concludes that good literature calls forth a strong narrative voice from readers exploring their own realities as they read. (MM)

Argues against using fiction in an introductory technical communication class. Discusses how the two genres are written and read for different purposes, require different methods of writing, and establish different kinds of relationships between the writer and the reader. (MG)

Provides a brief glossary of key terminology used in this special issue that addresses the ethical position of educational technology in society, including author-text-reader; connotation; critical theoretic orientation; criticism; deconstruction; discourse; ends-means orientation; metaphor; and postmodern. (Contains seven references.) (LRW)