Briefly reviews two South Australian Education Department curriculum documents that justify the teaching of literature and then argues that newly arrived immigrants and many Australian ethnic minority students are denied the experiences of literature as established in the rationale of the documents. (HOD)

Describes action research through which systematic improvement in both practice and understanding occurs through planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. Then, applies this research to the Kewdale project, focusing particularly upon the kinds of knowledge that were generated by the participants and the sorts of actions that took place in their…

The reviews of instructional materials in this focused journal are arranged into the following sections: extended reviews, writing and reading, source books and course books, fiction, poetry, drama, computers and media, and reference books. (HOD)

Suggests that children need instruction in reading to produce readers who are capable of seeing deeper layers of meaning in a text and "shifting gears" to see stories in a new way in order to appreciate their complexity. (JC)

Suggests that while teachers may wish to guide students in their reading of literature--to give them only "good" literature and to help them see the "right" interpretations of it--such guidance leaves students' understanding to chance, and does not help them choose to think and construct values of their own. (JC)

Offers a plan for teaching the poetry of Wilfred Owen by having students develop meaning with a dramatic reading of a poem, interpretive music or dance, or artwork. Notes that the method seems to have fostered better understanding and student "ownership" of Owen's poetry in the class that first used this method. (JC)