Offers a narrative of the collaborative creation of a HyperCard hypertext called the E.A.R., and describes how the ideas developed in that project were adapted into a first-year composition course. Hopes to gain insight into both the larger aims of the border crossings central to bell hooks' ongoing project and the more local goals of hypertext…

The studies described here are designed to teach reading comprehension to at-risk students in the second and third grades. The focus is on text structure. First, there is an evaluation of a program that teaches students to identify themes of stories and apply those themes to real life; this instruction goes beyond the plot-level focus of typical…

It is a challenge for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to integrate language, social understanding, and emotional intent of messages to understand their social world. They often have deficits in language and social cognition and difficulty interpreting and labeling emotions and incorporating or integrating each of these aspects of…

There appears to be little research on the standard of post-16 students' writing and how it can be improved. In respect of such students, the focus of teaching professionals seems to be on content rather than on the writing process; arguably this leads to weaknesses in written expression. This article examines some current research and follows one…

Teachers can use comics for reading instruction by capitalizing on their colorful graphic representation. Technology and reading are wed during the use of the Internet, and readers must rely on their visual literacy skills--a group of vision competencies people can hone for comprehension. This article reports on strategies for developing visual…

Reader, writers, and teachers of expository prose should pay closer attention to the question and answer (Q&A) format's theoretical and practical implications. The Q&A format contributes to the seemingly endless succession of questions and answers and is part of that flight from one signifier to another characteristic of postmodern…

Textual meaning is not autonomous--not only do the meanings of texts change as contexts change but also the textual or sentence meanings change as cultural conventions change. A series of preliminary studies have established that children into the early school years believe that the speaker's intentions, especially when the speaker's belief is…

This paper discusses self-reference in the text, in order to examine its rhetorical intentions, and the writing strategies it offers an author. Following a brief introduction, the first section deals with definitions, and classifies self-reference "markers." The second section discusses intentions and self-reference, while the third…

Expands on how a strategic reader uses text structure knowledge as an overarching strategy, a framework within which to incorporate other strategies to gain ideas from text. (MG)

Investigates the ability of 757 children aged 8, 11, 14, and 18 years to judge the importance of intraepisodic and interepisodic story statements on the basis of their causal properties. Children in all groups judged statements with many intraepisodic causal relations as being more important than statements with few such relations. (RJC)

Discusses two ways of organizing writing: "imitative" or "natural" order, which reflects either chronology or spatiality; and "imposed" order, in which topical materials have been restructured in a significant way. Argues that all rhetorical alternatives should be considered when teaching writing. (MM)

Explains how charting cause and effect in expository texts can increase students' knowledge of text structure. Provides a sample effect and cause chart. (MM)

Defines good expository text and reviews studies on two text features--structure and interestingness--that affect readers' comprehension. Discusses implications for further inquiry. (JAD)

Describes global strategies (such as choosing a consistent text paradigm) and local strategies (such as using sentence chains and creating causal networks) that are characteristic of coherent task instructions. (JAD)

Presents the list-structure data model for dealing with sets of objects, which has ordering as its fundamental principle. An extended notion of patterns and several operators of the algebra are presented. Design issues that influenced the development of the language are described. (Contains 30 references.) (KRN)