Chris Altman stresses the importance of helping English language learners ascertain the medium they best work with in interpreting information presented in class. Altman reminds us that meaning does not come directly from teachers giving students information, but from students productively making meaning and clarifying understanding through a…

The authors elaborate on the experience of creating for high school students effective multisensory, hands-on learning centers that address a full range of elements from the English language arts curriculum. Allison P. Movitz and Kerry P. Holmes detail the centers Movitz designed for a Mostly Medieval unit to show how learning centers can help…

Explains how one teacher abandoned her focus on the content of literature, and shifted to teaching her students how to read literature. Lists many of the reading techniques students learned during the year. (SR)

Appalachian students don't learn to read because reading lacks pragmatic social consequences for them. (DD)

Provides 14 high school teachers' responses the question, "Who is your favorite writer of detective fiction?" Finds that Tony Hillerman is the most popular. Features other favorites such as Ellis Peters, Dorothy Sayers, Janwillem van de Wettering, James Melville, K. C. Constantine, Amanda Cross, Jane Langton, Ross MacDonald, Robert B.…

The opportunity for students to successfully complete the material increases when teachers take time and care about what they are reading. Students can read the contents of a text successfully if they keep their thoughts moving and ideas developing.

Discusses ten basic questions about high school reading instruction and the English teacher. (DD)

Discusses the history of the author's involvement with books for more than 65 years and with the teaching of English for more than 40 years. (DD)

Historically, comics have been viewed as a "debased or simplified word-based literacy," explains Dale Jacobs, who considers comics to be complex, multimodal texts. Examining Ted Naifeh's "Polly and the Pirates," Jacobs shows how comics can engage students in multiple literacies, furthering meaning-making practices in the classroom and beyond.

Dawnene D. Hassett and Melissa B. Schieble contend that literacy instruction must include attention to the multiple ways in which print and visual images work together. They propose ways to update accepted reading strategies "with visual texts and new literacies in mind." Using examples from picture books and graphic novels, they expand our…

Describes the author's success in using a soft sell" approach to stimulate reluctant high school students' interest in reading. (JB)

Reviews a new book on using writing to teach literature in which the author is equally devoted to reader-response criticism and the close reading of texts. Summarizes the three extended sections of the book: "Teaching Connection and Perception,""Teaching Critical Distance," and "Sequencing Critical Inquiry." (KEH)

Explores how asking students to abstract a theme statement from a literary text as a main reading objective can actually disempower students' reading experience. Bases the claims on original research on how 288 readers read a short story. Considers how teachers might more profitably talk about theme. (HB)

Describes one teacher's methods for introducing to secondary English students the concepts of resistant reading and critical thinking. Describes the positive and negative aspects of resistant reading and theoretical frameworks for talking about it. (HB)

The time spent by teachers in summarizing and reviewing material is reduced when students become more capable readers of challenging texts. Four interacting dimensions of classroom life are described.