Within the endless stream of information available on the news media market, news headline language is characterised by several linguistic, pragmatic, rhetorical and functional features that distinguish it from other varieties of language that are not specialised. In the present study, the rhetorical features of English news headlines, through…

There has been no research reported about if or how well primary grade teachers can identify information text structures in children's authentic informational texts. The ability to do so accurately and reliably is a prerequisite for teachers to be able to teach students how to recognize and use text structures to assist them in comprehending…

Is digital fiction worthy of serious consideration as a literary text and does it have a place in the English classroom, particularly in light of the establishment of a stand-alone Literature subject as part of the Years 11-12 English program in the Australian Curriculum? To answer these questions this paper briefly looks at the development and…

The learning goals of a well-designed course in the liberal arts include not only the imparting of knowledge but also the development of critical thinking and disciplinary expertise. A class on Luther can help students acquire those intellectual skills associated with the discipline of history and the liberal arts more generally as they consider…

English writing is one of the four indispensable skills that English learners need to master, but unfortunately, many Chinese college students have much difficulty composing clear, concise and coherent essays although they have studied English for at least over six years. To address the problem, the researchers and teachers in China have tried…

The authors examined naturally occurring reading comprehension strategies instruction (RCSI) across four consecutive lessons in 47 Norwegian language arts classrooms at the lower secondary level via video observations (n = 178). Although numerous studies have examined the effectiveness of RCSI for improving reading outcomes, few studies have…

Graduate students usually lack sufficient ability to read academic papers effectively and efficiently. For facilitating their reading comprehension, this study adopts summarization as a main reading strategy under the scaffold of keyword evaluation. Furthermore, this study attempts to transform summarization into a group-based educational game by…

Research to guide text structure interventions for the primary grades is very limited, yet as early as in kindergarten, many state standards increasingly emphasize exposure to challenging expository texts. The purpose of the present study was to provide preliminary evidence of the feasibility and promise (or the effects) of three brief text…

Writing is an ever-creative artifice, elaborated in many different ways and used for many different purposes in different situations throughout history. From this perspective, each writer, embedded within a perceived sociohistoric moment, poses problems to solve, makes choices, and creates solutions from locally available resources and practices…

This seminar took place on 19 April, 2013 at the Centre for Language and Communication, Faculty of Language and Education Studies, The Open University. The seminar was coordinated by Janet Maybin and Theresa Lillis and there were 28 participants, including four postgraduate students, from universities in Britain, Belgium and South Africa.

Comprehending expository reading material is a challenge for many students. Research has shown that students' expository reading comprehension can improve with the help of text structure instruction. The purpose of this article is to present teachers with a framework for effectively implementing text structure instruction in their classrooms.…

In this article, Victoria Risko discusses the power of professional learning that is supported by knowledgeable others and recommends a multi-talented approach that draws on the expertise of reading specialists, literacy coaches, and classroom teachers. Next, she discusses the challenges one faces when implementing professional learning…

The ultimate communicative purpose of literature reviews is to convince the reader of the worthiness of the writer's research, which is realized stage by stage and evaluation plays an important role in achieving this end. However, concerns about evaluation demonstration in novice academic writers' literature reviews have been repeatedly voiced in…

Students often have difficulty comprehending informational text. Results from a meta-analysis by Hebert, Bohaty, Nelson and Brown (2016) indicated that text structure instruction is effective for improving reading comprehension of expository text. This article presents evidence-based practices for teaching informational text structures to improve…

There is a growing awareness that reading and writing informational texts are important skills for functioning successfully in our current society. Informational texts provide purposeful and authentic reasons for reading and writing while enhancing children's vocabulary knowledge and content understanding. This article describes The Tools…