In this article, I serve as a secretary for the critical policy analysis presented by hundreds of teachers, parents, students, and community members during 19 public hearings on school closures in New York City. In testimony at hearings, community members rejected the narrow, statistical approach they felt the Department of Education was using to…

An adult educator who teachers General Educational Development (GED) test preparation conducted an action research project to determine whether learning activities requiring students to learn about and discuss famous paintings would equip them with critical thinking skills that they could eventually use when completing the reading and writing…

Drawing on interviews and on the actual language that readers (students, teachers, and adults) use to interpret and respond to literary texts, this book examines the conventions that shape talk about literature in large groups, small groups, and adult book clubs. By looking across contexts, the four separate but related studies in the book raise…

Describes the responses of five high school students to a short story. Summarizes other research on student response groups. Proposes ways to use the response process in classroom literature programs. (RL)

Examines the influence of novelty of pose and facial expressions on college students determination of a photograph's artistic merit. Moderate novelty of poses and positive facial expressions received the greatest endorsement. However, some deviation occurred between considerations of artistic and photographic merit. (MJP)

Finding ways to build on the language abilities students of diverse cultures bring to school, this book recounts an experiment in helping urban African American high school students to interpret literature by drawing on their own rich oral tradition of "signifying." The book defines signifying as a contest in which the most imaginative…

Reports results of survey questioning "School Library Journal's" reviewers of children's literature in four main areas: review aspects (relating plot, commenting on literary quality); reviewer roles (reviewer, critic); review practices; and personal and professional background (demographic questions). The survey questionnaire and 38…

This survey of audiovisual productions on the topic of youth suicide identified all available audiovisual productions in the area of adolescent suicides through existing catalogs and reviews, contacts, and specialized database searches; 99 films or videotape productions were then screened and reviewed as part of the development of a catalog by the…

Reports on a computerized statistical study of discourse bias and the specificity of female writing against male writing. Examines the characters in 20 novels written by male and female Francophone African authors. Finds a number of significant differences that characterize the make-up of novels by the two sexes. (CFR)

Presents a study of Atlanta, Georgia, teacher's perceptions of the purposes of education and how those perceptions relate to the reform literature of the 1980s. Concludes that teachers generally agree with reformers and differ over educational purpose, as does the reform literature. Reports some effort among teachers to synthesize disparate views.…

Briefly describes how students use their prior knowledge of conventions in making inferences about literature. Outlines some techniques that could be employed in conducting descriptive research studies to determine what students do or do not know and how that difference affects their response to literature. (RL)

Maintains that young children enjoy talking about art and should be given opportunities to do so. Recommends using Parsons' Aesthetic Development Theory as a flexible framework and guideline for discussion. Includes several transcribed discussions between the teacher and her pupils. (MJP)

This study evaluated a cognitive-process approach used to train three secondary-aged students with moderate mental retardation on a social skill involving response to criticism. The cognitive-process approach teaches a generative process of social behavior rather than specific component behaviors; relies on receptive and expressive language…

A study examined the effects of treatment (guided vs. nonguided prewriting assignments) on the quality of college freshmen's interpretation of the character/setting relationships in two short stories. Subjects, 52 students in two college freshman composition classes, were randomly assigned to an experimental group (required to make inferences…

To determine the extent to which current theories of persuasion are used or advocated by homileticians (i.e., preachers), this study examines 21 frequently used homiletics textbooks for their treatment of persuasion. After describing the characteristics of classical, premodern, humanistic, and rhetorical models, the study suggests that these…