Examining how teachers help students respond to short fiction, this book presents 25 essays that look closely at "teachable" short stories by a diverse group of classic and contemporary writers. The approaches shared by the contributors move from readers' first personal connections to a story, through a growing facility with the…

Reproduces a poem about an urban landscape by Jayne Cortez and reflects on how students are willing to tackle its complexities and its ideas about beauty. Finds that the poem is effective for a discussion of beauty among students. (PA)

Examines the role of readers' subjectivity or personal responses in story interpretation, specifically in the formation of thematic generalizations. (MG)

Argues that "text rendering"--responding to oral readings by saying back remembered words or phrases--forces students to prolong their initial responses to texts and opens initial response to the influence of other readers. Argues that silence following oral readings allows words to sink into students' minds, creating individual images…

Considers 1 student's responses to literature assigned to a 10th-grade English class in the midwest. Asks if students can be expected to "decontextualize" their personal responses to literary texts. Questions the viability of such decontextualized readings. (HB)

Describes the classrooms of bilingual teachers in an urban Phoenix, Arizona school. Discusses how the teachers struggle with questions surrounding language and literature, race and literature, and class and literature. Notes that the teachers seek books that include the children they teach and connect them to the world outside their neighborhoods.…

Discusses a thinking-writing-organizing technique that Kenneth Burke called the dramatistic method. Suggests that having students ask and answer a series of questions prompted by five words (who, what, where, why, and how) placed at each of the points of a star can help students think and write about works of literature. (RS)

Outlines an elementary school unit on rivers, which drew on a range of reading materials both fiction and nonfiction, among them "The Incredible Journey of Lewis and Clark." Studies the degree of similarity in fourth graders' response to and understanding of fiction and nonfiction books. Observes that children do have unique responses to…

Explores aesthetic responses to literature by examining the responses of fifth graders to a variety of books and films. Finds three main characteristics of students' responses: picturing a story in their minds; extending a story or hypothesize about it while reading; and relating associations and feelings evoked while reading and responding.…

Describes the affinities between reader response theory and the proper objectives of English instruction. Describes students not as potential literary scholars but as curious people needing personal experiences with reading and writing. Outlines a model for teaching literature focused on this conception. (HB)

Describes how literature is used in elementary classrooms, and is a problem in pedagogical practice. Argues for the need to place a greater emphasis on the study of literature as a subject in the reading program and to help students develop "literary literacy." Suggests a holistic approach to teaching literature that combines transactional and…

Reviews the theory of multiple intelligences. Offers suggestions for high-school English instruction. Presents a case study of two female students in an alternative school who choreographed a dance in response to a short story. (RS)

Illustrates the use of drama as a form of literary response. Suggests that drama allows students to develop and exhibit a range of skills and to demonstrate their literary understandings in "unschooled" ways. Suggests that Howard Gardner's work on multiple intelligences demonstrates that students may not be developing understandings because they…

Discusses how connecting students to reading requires more than just an energetic approach. Presents a framework for reading experiences: engagement, exploration, collaboration, and individual celebration. Describes a program that gives students varied opportunities to become engaged in literature, choice in what they read, time to actually read,…

Although reading and writing exist only in relation to each other, writing plays little or no role in the usual instructional approaches to reading. Mostly, reading is taught as a sequence of discrete skills, which is ineffective since it accommodates the analytic reading style to the exclusion of global, kinesthetic, and auditory styles. Reading…