This article introduces an approach that middle-school teachers can follow to help their students carry out linguistic-based literary analyses. As an example, it draws on Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) to show how J.K. Rowling used language to characterize Hermione as an intelligent female in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows."…

This teaching tip highlights a strategy that assists teachers in structuring classroom discussions about texts. Specifically, this conversational technique helps students think and talk about a text beyond its literal meaning. During classroom conversations that employ this strategy, teachers help students extend their overall understanding of a…

This Teaching Tip article explores the importance of phrasing while reading. It also presents an instructional intervention strategy for helping students develop greater proficiency in reading with phrases that reflect the meaning of the text.

In contemporary contexts, young people are accustomed to life story; indeed, their lives are saturated with constructions of their stories and those of others, whether created by themselves or their "friends" on social networks. Multimedia outlets convey often detailed stories of more-famous others, whether celebrities or those experiencing…

Teachers need a deeper understanding of the texts being discussed, in particular the various textual and visual aspects of picturebooks themselves, including the images, written text and design elements, to support how readers made sense of these texts. As teachers become familiar with aspects of literary criticism, art history, visual grammar,…

There are many different kinds of words in the English language. Instruction in grammar and syntax helps young writers sort out when to use a plural or singular noun, or when to use an apostrophe. Silly Stories, a variation of a popular party game, reinforces the importance of word choice and conventions in writing. This article describes a…

One way of understanding the impact of the (re)emergence of a performance approach to teaching Shakespeare's plays that was, in part, initiated by the "Shakespeare Set Free" program and the books its creators composed is to say that for many teachers their work initiated the process of making performance activities central in English classrooms.…

Social skill deficits and learning disabilities often coexist. Academic work is negatively impacted by students' lack of social skills. Remediation of these deficits in pull-out programs has not generally resulted in transfer to real-world settings. Embedding social skills instruction within literature during a read-aloud session taught in the…

The importance of emergent literacy skills as a foundation for proficient reading has led to the development of interventions to teach these skills. These interventions are particularly important for children from disadvantaged homes because they often lack the home literacy experiences necessary for building foundational literacy skills prior to…

Semantic mapping is effective with expository prose but not as effective with narrative prose. To achieve a better understanding of narrative prose, yet still keep the benefits of semantic mapping, the traditional approach can be modified into a technique called "episodic mapping." Episodic mapping is based on the idea that most stories…

A three-stage lesson sequence that used story grammars to teach plot development has been proved successful with a group of eight above average third grade students reading Deborah and James Howe's "Bunnicula." The first stage was a training unit designed to familiarize children with a typical story grammar's parts: a theme and plot…

Twenty learning-disabled students (grades 5 and 6) who received procedural facilitation for narrative composition, including story grammar cue cards and a metacognitive check-off procedure, produced better quality stories than a control group of 10 students. Including verbal reminders to develop characters did not affect story quality. (Author/JDD)

This paper discusses the benefits of storytelling, especially for the classroom teacher. The paper provides 12 activities for students (Kindergarten-12) to demonstrate how storytelling can help develop communication competencies. The activities included in the paper are: folktale cinquain, The Wicked Stepmother Gets Her Day in Court, storytelling…

An instructional strategy for teaching comprehension of literature was tested with seven high school students with learning disabilities. The strategy taught story grammar through use of short stories and the paradigm of modeling/guided practice/independent practice. Students showed improved story comprehension. (Author/JDD)

The article describes how to use a word processing program and add-on story starters for different genres to enhance elementary students' creative writing skills. Teachers input story starters, then students select a genre and add on a story version in that genre. Students can also develop their own story starters. (SM)