Argues that Christa Wolf's novel "Patterns of Childhood" provides opportunities for students to consider the adolescent dilemmas of the protagonist Nelly and to reflect on how they themselves are coming to terms with the world. Notes that the novel forces students to see Nazi Germany with new eyes. (RS)

Presents three assignment sequences--covering both canonical and noncanonical stories, mini-anthologies, and novels--that encourage secondary school students to think critically about the concept of literature. Notes that students can learn to analyze literature critically by comparing both canonical and noncanonical texts. (MM)

Describes how a high school English teacher's belief that text contains a single, unchanging meaning evolved to an understanding that students create their own meanings through their own experiences. Discusses ways he tried (with mixed success) to provide students with the opportunity to bring their own experience to their reading. (SR)

Uses stimulated recall to elicit a retrospective account from a student following his production of an artistic text representing his view of the relationship of two central characters in a short story. Analyzes the student's process of composition. Suggests that nonlinguistic texts can help students construct meanings. (HB)

Develops strategies for encouraging students to read a variety of genres and authors. Shows how a program was organized with this end in mind. Discusses what students chose to read and their attitudes and perceptions of their reading and themselves as readers. (HB)

Describes the powerful connections an English teacher and his students made with Sandra Cisneros'"The House on Mango Street." Discusses how the book invites the reader to experience racism, shares the mainstream of the American experience, and deals with growing up. Notes that the book had a powerful impact on students' writing and their desire to…

Fifteen poets have created this guide to teaching the work of Walt Whitman from kindergarten to college level. In essays based on the personal experience of these imaginative writers, the guide presents practical ideas for fresh ways to read Whitman and to write poetry and prose inspired by him. The guide also includes three pieces on education by…

Observing that basal readers and standardized testing lead teachers to focus on facts when dealing with novels or poetry in class, this monograph discusses research on response to literature. The monograph also presents classroom activities designed to allow students to explore the forms, the language, and the imagery of fiction, poetry, and…

A study explored differences in attitudes and values that two groups of eleventh graders derived from literature. One group was comprised of 25 students from a basic skills class. The second group of 20 students was selected at random from an American literature class. All of the students were enrolled in a New Jersey urban high school. A pretest…

During the past 15 years, a fundamental change has taken place in literary criticism, with a decline in New Criticism (literature viewed as a public object) and an increase in reader response criticism (literature viewed as a private experience). New Critics considered the meaning of a literary text to exist within the text as an independent and…

Elaborated by a group of teacher educators and reading researchers, this monograph serves as a forum for responses to the federally sponsored 1985 report, "Becoming a Nation of Readers." It consists of the following essays, listed here with their authors: (1) "Reading Instruction and Underlying Metaphors in 'Becoming a Nation of…

Suggests three levels of reading. The first is exemplified by E. D. Hirsch's prescriptive "cultural literacy." The second is interpretive, typified by the "strong reader." The third is critical and is best suited to dealing with the complexities of poetry. (ARH)

Presents some personal experimental work relating to world metaphors together with that of others working in the areas of logic, psychology, and philosophy. (NKA)

Suggests that the best method of understanding a poem is to experiment with reading it aloud rather than simply discussing the poem. (DF)

Discusses an explicit method for applying deconstruction--a philosophical approach to literary criticism originated by Derrida--in the introductory literature course and shows how to maintain the system's challenging and intellectual rigor, while avoiding much of its potentially offputting terminology and its tendency toward subjective word play.…