In the spring of 2013, the "Harvard Educational Review" ("HER") published a special issue entitled "Expanding Our Vision for the Arts in Education" (Vol. 83, No. 1). Following a variety of forward-looking essays and arts learner reflections concerning the potential of the arts in education, the issue concluded with a…

Harvey Daniels (1994) describes literature circles as small, temporary discussion groups consisting of students who elect to read the same text. As each member assumes specific responsibilities in preparation for the discussion, those members come to the discussion with supporting notes related to his or her role. One elementary teacher refined a…

The peer-group method of composition instruction represents the quintessence of the "environmental" mode of teaching which brings teacher, student, and materials more nearly into balance. Responding to recent criticisms of peer-response groups, a model was developed to establish a middle course, balancing (1) philosophical stances; (2)…

A. Pollatsek, E. D. Reichle, and K. Rayner argue that the critical findings in A. W. Inhoff, B. M. Eiter, and R. Radach are in general agreement with core assumptions of sequential attention shift models if additional assumptions and facts are considered. The current authors critically discuss the hypothesized time line of processing and indicate…

Describes two approaches to introducing a novel to elementary students. Maintains that the second approach, which encourages reader response, is more effective than the first, which mandates the learning of 100 new vocabulary words. Describes a discussion technique based on a "discussion web" or map of possibilities that helps students to explore…

Discusses a teacher's difficulties in using reader response approaches to engage her students at an urban alternative high school. Examines their resistances to discussion and personal response. Offers a few approaches the teacher has been trying, with some success, to overcome these resistances. (TB)

Presents the results of a study of two fifth-grade reading groups, one comprised of all girls and the other of mixed gender. Discusses results in a reflective essay format, suggesting that the group of girls was more emotional in their observations and the mixed group was more action and plot oriented. (TB)

While university researchers cannot agree on a model for teaching literature, or even what literary knowing is, the training for literature that prospective elementary teachers receive is totally that of teaching reading. Such education is unrelated to reading and responding to literature. Even when preservice elementary teachers do receive…

Reflecting the reader-response theory of literature--a theory suggesting that literature is made dynamic through interaction between reader and text--this report presents ways of extending high school students' imaginative grasp of human experience. Using three works--Randall Jarrell's poem, "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner," Ambrose…

Discusses what five teachers learned when they engaged in a literature discussion group to discuss children's books to develop themselves as writing teachers. Highlights the three layers of talk (emotional responses, exploring the meaning of the book, and exploring the writer's craft) and the role these play in the learning process. (SR)

Intended as a guide for teachers of grades 3-6, this book presents ideas for the use of literature groups in the classroom. In chapter 1, the author talks about her own reading background and her discovery of teaching methods for literature, and presents ideas for forming literature groups. Chapter 2 offers advice on selecting and collecting good…

Relates the experience of a teacher who discovered that students enjoy studying literature if they are allowed to experience it rather than analyze it. Contends that the effort to teach books at the secondary level using literary criticism is a misguided response to a national literacy crisis. (SRT)

A study explored how small groups of student readers interacted in a classroom over time to interpret short stories assigned by a teacher who functioned as participant/observer. The study focused on multiple readers in actual classroom situations to consider the relationship between the social and academic elements observable during day-to-day…

Before students are able to write fairly original, successful, critical essays on literature, they need to become experienced members of the audience for whom they will write, sharing fully the social context of critical writing by becoming part of an interactive, interpretive community. This reader-response technique appears to be the best…

Attempts to represent the complexity of the web of literary relationships and their transformational space using fragmentary texts that circle around the novel "The English Patient": self as relationship and the dialogic engagement with a book by the patient himself; and the relationship and engagement with this book and with each other of a group…