The relationship between reading comprehension and the number and complexity of idea units in a text was examined. The results showed that readers using text-entailed recall strategies gained the most insight into the meaning of text and that recall ability is an important encoding strategy for gaining meaning. (JAZ)

Intended for preadolescents, this novel can serve as an antidote to the well-documented sexism girls encounter as they struggle with questions of self-esteem. It tells the story of 11-year-old Lily, harassed by a boy at school, but with a distinct advantage in that her flute teacher is a time traveler. In the novel, Lily travels back 3,500 years…

"The Old Man and the Sea" remains one of Ernest Hemingway's most beloved works. This casebook helps readers interpret and appreciate the thematic concerns of the novel, as well as the contextual issues it explores. Topic chapters provide information on Cuba, including its natural geography, sociopolitical history, and the ethnic…

This paper reports on a research process that evolved as the researchers considered a study they conducted with kindergarten children, in which the process problematized the research construct of participant/observer. The paper is informed by poststructuralist theory as the participant/observers are observed. According to the paper, a…

The Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE) represents a long-term effort by Stanford University to improve international and cross-cultural education in elementary and secondary schools. This volume of the elementary literature series focuses on the primary grades; utilizes primary source literature from Japan;…

Examines how cultural schemata influence American and Palauan students' reported strategies and their reading comprehension. Finds that students predominantly use processing strategies categorized under awareness development and intrasentential ties establishment for culturally unfamiliar passages. Finds that students use intersentential ties and…

Maintains that both traditional and computerized scholars face problems when they attempt empirical research on women writers and women readers using currently available computational tools. Discusses factors that have inhibited empirical research and uses examples from research on 18th century English poetry. (CFR)

Discusses Garth Boomer's 1989 keynote address. Suggests it prefigured debates central to English teachers' professional development, to the pages of his journal, in Australia's classrooms for the next 10 years on the following issues: (1) progressivism/critical literacy divide; (2) variations on the genre debate; (3) reader-response theory vs.…

Examines the challenges facing one group of secondary school English teachers in Australia as they conducted their first online discussions with a group of Year 11 students. Provides a map to help other teachers steer a clear course towards productive use of online discussion for text-response purposes. (SG)

The Radical Change conceptual framework provides theory for understanding, appreciating, and evaluating three types of significant change in contemporary literature for children and youth: changing forms and formats, changing perspectives, and changing boundaries. A paucity of research has explored primary students' literary understandings of and…

This author has become intrigued by a debate, underway for some time, which involves museum and gallery directors and administrators, cultural workers, and the so-called Institute of Ideas. On one side are defenders of wider access and social inclusion policies and practices on the part of art galleries and museums; on the other, representing…

This article provides a response to the previous papers. It sets out a descriptive overview of the National College for School Leadership and then discusses issues of: scale; on-the-job learning; innovation as technological and networking; start-up organizations; leadership effects; international awareness; evaluating leadership and impact. The…

This paper is the last in a series of 14 detailing the procedures involved in setting up an interdisciplinary project that explores the similarities and dissimilarities in the response to literature in readers from different countries. It marks the end of the preparatory work for the "Folktale-project." The first section is an overview of the…

As part of the Folktale project, which explores similarities and dissimilarities in the response to literature from and in different cultures, advanced undergraduate students in classes on literary interpretation or literary history analyzed a Danish, a Greenlandic, and a Turkish folk tale. Two male and two female students in classes on literary…

Judy Harapiak is a teacher who provides her middle years students with many opportunities to respond to stories in different ways, to reflect on their responses, and to link their reading to their own experiences as well as to other areas of the curriculum. She teaches a grade four-five-six class in the Elementary Alternative Education Program…