A study aimed to discover a correspondence between the thinking processes and textual structures of six eleventh graders. In a predominantly White, middle class rural high school, six students were selected to think aloud as they read two essays written as part of two assignments for their advanced English classes. The six were selected based on…

This guide, with 1,039 annotated listings, covers the reference literature on linguistics beginning with the year 1957 and extending coverage through 1998. A few works published early in 1999 have also been added, and most of the Web sites cited were last checked in early 1999. This new edition has about 500 new entries added since the last…

Discusses the radical dramatism of language and the implications for writing instruction. (MM)

Reviews theories regarding school knowledge, cognitive processes, and curriculum development. Contends that students are not taught theoretical concepts because of a misapplication of Piagetian Theory. Concludes that students should be encouraged to explore several perspectives of reality to understand knowledge and thinking. (CFR)

Disciplinary didactics describes and designs the actualized/virtual learning and teaching relationships among disciplinary content, learner(s), and teacher. This article adopts a semiotic perspective to outline eight shared features of the various disciplinary didactics. The goal is to situate them within an integrated vision that helps shape a…

Studies by Unsworth and Williams (1988, 1990) compared the textual variation of purpose-written big books with literary texts. Purpose-written big books help children to predict repetitive clauses that realize explicit and simplistic meanings. (Contains six references.) (JP)

Describes an introductory exercise from an undergraduate class taught at the Pratt Institute (New York). Students are asked to move away from their desks to stand in the middle of the classroom. Addresses the students' reactions to moving beyond their normal space in the classroom. (CMK)

Fourth-grade students who participated in a yearlong, whole-class teaching experiment not only reconceptualized natural numbers but also generated flexible solution strategies to perform numerical computations mentally and in writing. Students' reconceptualization of number was mediated by their perceived resemblance between the physical action of…

In this interview, Gunther Kress proposes how English needs to expand beyond its traditional linguistic frame into a semiotic frame which recognizes not only the visual but other modes. He argues also for a shift to forms of production in which the acts of reflection and meaning-making are fused, rather than separating the production of new…

Purpose: The paper seeks to show the contextualisation of call centres as a work-specific ethnographically and culturally based community, which, in turn, influences pedagogical practices through the encoding and decoding of cultural texts in relation to two logics: cost-efficiency and customer-orientation. Design/methodology/approach: The paper…

A semiotic perspective on mathematical activity provides a way of conceptualizing the teaching and learning of mathematics that transcends and encompasses both psychological perspectives focussing exclusively on mental structures and functions, and performance-focussed perspectives concerned only with student's behaviours. Instead it considers the…

Classroom communication has been recognized as a process in which ideas become objects of reflection, discussion, and amendments affording the construction of private mathematical meanings that in the process become public and exposed to justification and validation. This paper describes an explanatory model named "interpreting games", based on…

College second language instruction can no longer afford to apply uniform methods and curricula to an increasingly diverse student population. To be realistic, it must be integrated with individual interests, attitudes, personality, and values. The best approach is for students to go individually to the countries of their target languages. The…

Although television is highly dependent on language and semiotic analysis, its form can best be analyzed through the structural notion of transformation. The critic's task becomes the articulation of structural laws intrinsic to television. One such law has to do with how television structures time. Television programming transforms action into…

This investigation of cognitive effort begins with a review of cognitive principles relating to memory and graphic encoding of information. The cognitive framework described allows explanation of improved memory due to reparsing of graphic representations. It also provides the basis for optimizing graphical material design to insure best retention…