Provides examples of using the Directed Reading Activity as a framework for teaching students to comprehend literary text at varying levels of response. (HOD)

Suggests five important but seldom asked questions that can direct a reader's attention to some basic properties of literature. (RBW)

Describes a project in which children were given in-depth experiences with a range of quality stories and then were interviewed using a series of open-ended questions to obtain their responses. The project was intended to gain insight into the process by which children make sense and meaning from stories. (HTH)

Describes some of the discussions and writing that first grade children engaged in as the result of their exposure to literature read aloud. (HTH)

Explores a preschooler's repeated attraction to two books, and what it means in terms of the child's literacy before she learns to read. Describes the child's advancing critical skills. (HTH)

Suggests that teachers and children may have different ideas about how people talk about stories in classrooms. Describes how teachers loosened their attempts to control children's talk and subsequently shared control with them, and collaborated in exploring stories and in teaching/learning to read. (HTH)

Urges that beginning writers be shown that by maintaining a consistent and appropriate rhetorical stance they not only signal their own role but also indicate the proper role for the audience to play. (MM)

Discusses the role of literature in the secondary school English curriculum, then examines the current state of literary criticism and analysis in the classroom. (FL)

Reviews the use of the ERIC index term "Reader Text Relationship" with a view to deriving a tentative definition of the term. (FL)

Attempts to show how each of three influential critical theories--deconstructionism, reader response criticism, and authorial intention--implies a particular view of how literary discourse is or should be processed and indicates that each view is in part justified, but not to the extent claimed by the critics themselves. (CRH)

Examines eight major reader roles and suggests that the role the teacher assumes depends on the situation in which the writing is produced. (MM)

This paper focuses on the "transforming spirit of adolescence." The six novels (all have young female protagonists) explored in the paper show the natural bewilderment (and delight) that accompanies new powers and abilities. The paper focuses on radical young adult transformations in Annette Curtis Klause's "Blood and…

This collection of 14 articles aims to help teachers make the most of student discussion and inquiry in classrooms from middle school to high school to college. Contributors to the collection--secondary and college practitioners--offer theory-grounded, classroom-tested approaches for literature study in which students engage in democratic dialogue…

The distinction between fiction and nonfiction focuses on the aspect of literature teachers usually emphasize when teaching it to students: content. It is equally important, however, for students to understand the "mechanics" of literature, including how a writer crafts his or her material and how the text establishes expectations in a…

Young adult (YA) literature, which is written for readers in grades 6-10, is a relatively new part of the literary spectrum. In the few decades it has been around, YA literature has developed a following among students, teachers, and librarians. This collection of 12 essays explores the reasons YA literature is so popular, and ways it can be used…