Discusses reader-based and text-based approaches to teaching literature to high school students and then offers suggestions for questions and activities for the teaching of Robert Cormier's "The Chocolate War." (TB)

Describes methods of approaching Toni Morrison's novel, "The Bluest Eye," for the secondary classroom. Suggests that it was the students' responses to the novel that showed to the teacher the importance of this controversial work. Provides numerous examples of students' written responses to the novel. (HB)

Provides four practicing teachers' written responses to Carolyn Henly's article entitled "Reader Response Theory as Antidote to Controversy: Teaching "The Bluest Eye," which appears in the same issue. (HB)

Considers what factors and circumstances empower readers to give a text life, value, and validity. Argues that empowered readers are situated readers, are focused on their concerns, and strive to be self-aware and other-aware. (HB)

Considers the benefits and impact that come from reading texts aloud with other persons. Provides a plan by which partners can read books together aloud. Claims that this is a vital and habit-forming activity. (HB)

Describes a method ("buddy book journals") of encouraging independent reading among students. Outlines the activity, in which students select partners with whom they read and study a particular book. Argues that this method is an excellent means of generating thoughtful response to literature. (HB)

Describes teaching literature to non-English majors (primarily working adults) at Golden Gate University. Discusses how the authors create a classroom environment in which students are given permission to engage in literary works in the context of their own lives as well as to consider texts historically and stylistically. (RS)

Shows the need for teachers to acknowledge to themselves the extent of self censorship in their reviewing and purchasing decisions. Discusses teachers' and students' responses to the novel "I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This." Offers strategies that encourage and support the use of Social Issues Realism, and strategies that support a…

Making connections for teachers between Shakespeare and his historical context on the one hand and secondary students on the other, this book presents background information, commentary, resources, and classroom ideas to enliven students' encounters with Shakespeare. The book concentrates on "Romeo and Juliet,""Julius…

Discusses ways to teach modern plays and poetry, using a reader response approach that makes the works more accessible to students. (HTH)

Describes Kids of Survival, a changing group of minority students in New York City, who create art in response to their study of literature. Details how this response reflects the social, political, and ideological factors that affect their daily lives. (MM)

Presents three strategies for teaching the personal, operational, and cultural dimensions of literary response. (MM)

States that psychological models help shape students' responses to literature. Explains how a Freudian model can be used to explore the meanings inherent in Emily Dickinson's "A Narrow Fellow in the Grass." (MM)

Generalizes about the use of literature in classrooms in South Australia, Victoria, A.C.T., Tasmania, New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia, and Northern Territory. (DF)

Discusses using reader response instead of standard literature interpretation teaching methods for the study of adolescent literature in high schools. Asserts that this method gives authority to the students as reader because they must assume responsibility for understanding the text, themselves, and the world. (SRT)