Re-reading James Moffett's work in the light of more recent scholarship in the humanities and social sciences, this paper presents a "deconstructive" account of Moffett's key texts. Understanding them as instances in themselves of rhetoric and textuality, and reading them at once "with" and "against" the grain, the…

Ayn Rand's novel "The Fountainhead" can be a useful text in an undergraduate English class, helping students think through issues of individualism. Rand's own concept of the self, however, ignores its social dimensions. (Contains 7 notes.)

Using examples from college and high school students, the author describes how asking students to respond to literature using a variety of graphic media can enhance their interpretive skills. Some students who don't like to write essays or who seemingly aren't good at writing essays enjoy making graphic response to literature and are good at it.…

This rejoinder provides responses to the conceptual concerns expressed in the nine critiques published in this issue of "Educational Researcher" of the 2008 National Early Literacy Panel report. It explains the necessity of adhering to clearly established study selection parameters in conducting trustworthy meta-analyses and the need to be…

As part of its proposal to the U.S. Department of Education, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) committed to developing Kindergarten through Grade 2 Model Content Frameworks for English language arts (ELA)/literacy (K-2 Model Content Frameworks) to serve as a bridge between the Common Core State Standards…

Through their study of classroom talk about and around literary text, the authors discovered that their application of Rosenblatt's (1938/1995, 1978) "aesthetic" stance to elementary (primarily Grades 4-6) students' affective responses to literary text uniformly lacked the simultaneous articulation of "the real impact between the…

Ken Donelson looks back on two classes that taught him that students are willing to share ideas when teachers are honest and reveal their biases and when classroom experiences are based on trust. Additionally, he recalls how important free reading and thematic units became to inciting authentic student responses to literature.

This article provides a review of research on African American children's literature by synthesizing the growing body of textual and reader response research conducted across the past several decades. The literature presented in this article cuts across the disciplines of education as well as English and library science. Using the selective…

In this review essay, Jeanne Connell examines the influence of pragmatic philosophy on the scholarly works of twentieth-century literary theorist and English educator Louise Rosenblatt through the lens of a recent collection of her essays originally published between 1936 and 1999. Rosenblatt grounded her transactional theory of literature in…

This article presents an annotated bibliography of research works about digital/technology tools for literacy instruction, discourse/cultural analysis, literacy, literary response/literature/narrative, media-information literacy/media use, professional development/teacher education related to English/language arts, reading, second language…

Although, by the time of her death, Louise Rosenblatt was highly respected in the fields of composition and reading theory, she did not enjoy the same status among literary theorists. In this article, the author argues that Rosenblatt should be taken seriously as a literary theorist. The author shares her views on Rosenblatt's "Literature as…

Describes two "found poetry" projects that provide a bridge between verse and prose, and which help students focus on a particular poet or literary character. (MM)

Discusses a class activity in which students engage in a mock trial based on a hypothetical charge that could have developed from the plot of a novel. Discusses the six-step process, and the five procedures and requirements. Suggests that students win more than just the case--they win the knowledge of process. (RS)

Provides a theoretical framework by which traditional prosody might be reformulated according to reader response insight. Advocates prosody taking the form of a "story of reading." Advocates a narrative style of prosodic criticism. (HB)

Describes an approach to teaching George Orwell's "1984," emphasizing the main characters' struggles through the themes of innocence and experience, conformity and rebellion, love and hate, discovery and creation, and death. Notes that this reader-response approach forces students into the process of self-examination. (MM)