Literature has been repeatedly recognized as an effective source of authentic materials in EFL classrooms. Literature exposes learners to coherent and expert writing which can enable them to write better and facilitates students' creative writing skills. The purpose of this study was to investigate the teaching procedures of using short fiction in…

Author Toni Morrison used fictional narratives to make readers uncomfortably aware of their collective role in perpetuating the culture of poverty and pitying its victims. In her first novel, "The Bluest Eye," she focused on the most vulnerable member of society -- a child -- to depict the consequences of extreme social isolation and…

Administrators, librarians, parents, teachers, and teacher educators need to be familiar with quality multicultural children's literature as a means of helping children develop an understanding of others as well as affirming their own diverse backgrounds. In this study, 31 fictional picture books identified as containing representations of ethnic…

There has, to date, been little discussion of how autism may affect the experience of the reading of fiction for pupils in the classroom, other than through a deficit model. One of the researchers in this study ("Celia") is training to be a secondary school English teacher and identifies as autistic. Her experience provides an enriched…

Digital storytelling (DS) has increasingly been incorporated as a pedagogical tool to engage EFL learners for active language learning. However, little is known about how EFL learners make self-initiated use of multifarious resources available to them for engaging in the DS practice behaviourally, cognitively, affectively and socially. This…

In this essay John Fantuzzo critiques civic education's current focus on power and turns to James Baldwin's conception of love as offering an alternative approach. Fantuzzo's argument is that Baldwin's understanding of love can contribute to civic education by disclosing the significance of interpersonal solidarity between citizens, a significance…

This research explores upper elementary students' motivation to read fiction and nonfiction. Using expectancy-value theory, the researchers developed separate surveys to measure motivation to read fiction and nonfiction. Researchers administered surveys to 1,104 upper elementary students (grades 3-6) in multiple locations across the United States…

This essay considers 12 books of contemporary young adult fiction, published in the United States between 2000 and 2016, with plots directly related to rampage school shootings. It compares the shooters' psychological types, ages, races, genders, roles, motives and the narrative points of view in the books with dominant cultural scripts for…

For decades, "societal reaction theory" or "labelling theory" has provided the most significant explanation for deviant behaviour, particularly in the case of juveniles. The theory argues that once a stigma is attached to an individual, an irreversible process occurs whereby the labelled individual begins to identify as deviant…

What happens if we think of children's play as a form of great art that we turn to and return to for inspiration, for education? If we can see play as art, then what and how can we learn from children's play or from playing with them? What can philosophy, or philosophers, learn from children's play? In this essay Viktor Johansson gives examples of…

This article turns to Shane Meadow's film "This is England" (2006) to describe the impact that losing a parent can have on a child's development. In doing so it also, more broadly, makes a case for creative fiction as a resource for teaching about children's mourning. The film's protagonist is a boy named Shaun Fields whose father has…

This paper describes a four-month reading program that was implemented at a state prison and outlines how fictional stories, both read and told, can develop psychological insights such as mentalization and emotional literacy. How activities such as this can have therapeutic benefits without actually being therapy is discussed.

The present study proposes the integration of mobile fiction Apps (MFAs) in reading instruction to help EFL college students understand the form and content of literary works. It will give examples of fiction Apps that can be downloaded from the Google Play and iPhone App Stores, give the advantages of using MFAs, literary appreciation skills that…

Imagine you were an independent school educator in the years just before World War II. When the first "Independent School Bulletin" arrived, almost simultaneously with the attack on Pearl Harbor, what books would have been on your shelves? Are there any books your children and grandchildren might be reading now? According to best-seller…

This article describes how preservice teachers (and one inservice teacher) gained content knowledge and pedagogical skills through reading a documentary novel, a genre that combines fictional storytelling with historical primary sources. Preservice teachers read the novel as a required text in a site-based undergraduate course focused on…