Describes a study in which 24 subjects received 1 of 4 prose excerpts, each labeled as fiction or nonfiction and manipulated to refer to a familiar or unfamiliar social group. Concludes that the impact on readers' beliefs of fiction messages about unfamiliar peoples may equal or exceed that of nonfiction messages. (SG)

Presents an open letter addressed to Morton B. Zuckerman of "U.S. News & World Report" concerning the magazine's survey/article "America's Best Colleges" which received a great deal of public attention. Criticizes the survey for failing to help families make better choices among institutions and failing to encourage colleges to do a better job for…

Responds to view expressed by Wittmer in previous article concerning doctoral programs in counselor education seeking accreditation review by the Council for the Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) rather than by the American Psychological Association. Discusses differences between counselors and psychologists and…

Presents the text of an account of the author's research. Notes that the text's four layers (scientific report, reflective analysis, personal history, and deliberative appeal) are each indispensable yet individually inadequate to the task. Considers the tensions among possible accounts of the research and what these tensions say about the reading…

Argues that literature classes will grow more interesting and more effective if educators coordinate two kinds of emphases: allowing for discovery and moving toward productivity. Offers four principles for developing assignments: respect the process; nourish the participants; aim for a variety of products; and reflect together on process,…

Discusses 10 works of children's literature that inspired powerful responses and conversations among students in children's literature classes. Notes a myriad of responses (not only as to content but to levels of meaning as well) among the students. (RS)

Relates how a children's literature university instructor teaches her students about books, authors, and illustrators. Discusses the work of Mitsumasa Anno, a prolific author and illustrator from Japan. Evokes taking a journey through Anno's works. Cites "travelers' landmarks" in his books. (PA)

Summarizes the scholarly discussion about negative messages and reports the results of two pretests and two experiments using negative letters. Shows that buffers did not significantly affect college students' responses to simulated letters refusing credit and denying admission to graduate school and that strong "resale" was…

Investigates readers' perceptions of bias in a Colorado ballot booklet intended to explain a tax cut proposal. Finds that readers were more likely to perceive the ballot booklet to be biased in favor of the proposed tax measure than against it. (SC)

Defines components of activity systems shaping readers' responses to literature. Applies a framework to responses of "advanced" and "regular" high school students to a story about a regular student going on a field trip with advanced students. Applies the framework to responses of teachers in a graduate writing methods course…

Much has been written about evaluating student writing in the composition classroom, but there is still a tendency, in the creative writing classroom, to enact unanswered assumptions about what makes a story or a poem "good." If experimental or postmodern fictional writing is not inherently apolitical, neither is it inherently political,…

The stasis, stock, kinetic, spectator, and dialectic responses to literature all serve to deny the popular misconception that literary analysis invariably deals a death blow to the vitally engaged, spontaneous, and thus authentic response. Stasis is a response in which an intuited imaginative identity between subject and object develops in an…

Examines Louise Rosenblatt's theory of the reading transaction to aid teachers in the dilemma of either encouraging individual responses to literature or expecting literal comprehension of the material. Encourages teachers to look at their teaching purposes for any given text and to match questions and activities to those purposes. (SR)

Summarizes the history of, and theory and research in, reader response approaches to teaching literature. Proposes an instructional process employing response-based teaching. (MM)

Describes a meditation assignment as a way for students to find connections between two levels of experience, the reader's level of transaction with the text and the level of the reader's own life. Leads students from close analysis to holistic consideration, and finally to philosophical implications. (MS)