The institutional view of literature in the National Curriculum of Great Britain shows a dramatic belittlement in its revised version. It lacks a coherent literary or pedagogical rationale and substitutes a functional one in which over-simplification purports to be clarification. The institution is primarily concerned to define English literary…

This book is about teaching and learning the English language and about using children's literature to support that teaching and learning in K-8 classrooms. The book is organized to help preservice teachers first develop a knowledge of language, and then examine the ways in which teachers can teach and children can learn about language. Chapters…

Teachers should be making every effort to use approaches for teaching literature that encourage students to discover the meaning of a text for themselves, using the language of the text and without unnecessary teacher intervention. Therefore, rather than having the students be led by the teacher/interpreter through a work they encounter the first…

This book takes up the question of what shape high school English studies should take in the coming years. It describes an English program that blends philosophical depth with classroom practicality. Drawing examples from commonly taught texts such as "Macbeth,""To Kill a Mockingbird," and "Lord of the Flies," the…

This collection represents the record of a summer institute held in 1989 at the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth (Minnesota) in which 40 elementary school teachers and 4 college instructors read and discussed American fiction centering on the theme of initiation/challenge/change. After a beginning section which presents background information,…

No matter what pains translators take to produce a target-language text "identical" to the source-language text, criticism and/or translation of an original literary work cannot be the same in different language communities. That translation may change potentialities in the textual experience is particularly obvious in literature with a…

Describes a project that involved an eighth-grade advanced English class in learning about banned books and censorship with the hope that students would learn enough about a highly controversial subject to be able to form intelligent options. (EL)

This document represents one section of the Delaware Teachers' Desk Reference to Standards and Performance Indicators for Curriculum Planning and Unit Development produced by the Delaware Department of Education. The Desk Reference is part of the Delaware Department of Education's ongoing efforts to provide assistance and support to local school…

This paper focuses on how social studies content and concepts can be explored through literature in which grandparents and grandchildren interact. The paper emphasizes that, through the intergenerational relationship, children can encounter and explore life in general, increasing their understanding of their own portion of the world and of…

Intended to help teachers explore the instructional use of computers meant for books and literature, this book describes how to organize classrooms for an online project, how to create a community of readers in the classroom, and how to teach children to talk about books. It also discusses such practical needs as computer equipment, staff…

Taking a consistent student- and response-centered approach to literature-based teaching in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms, this book is designed for use as a main text in undergraduate and graduate language arts methods courses. The book is firmly grounded in current social constructivist learning theory combined with a…

Social studies and language arts teachers can enliven and enrich history studies through personalization. This approach can empower children to see history itself as having a spirit as well as a body. Reading and writing activities should allow students to see history as the kind of study that opens the individual up to different visions. Children…

Discusses a children's literature project involving a letter-writing exchange between eighth graders and second graders, and the students' collaboration composing short stories. Reports that the eighth graders' reading aloud to the second graders, and receiving suggestions for revisions, had significant audience awareness impact on the eighth…

This updated second edition reflects developments in educational research and new information within the areas of language learning and instruction since the publication of the first edition in 1991. Its 75 essays assess the significance of research, evaluates new developments, and examines current conflicts, controversies, and issues, while…

A comparative study examined student performance attributed to the mode of literature instruction to determine the validity of increasing auditory-based learning activities in the middle school language arts classroom. Two classes of identified low-achieving students in a middle school reading program participated and were alternately assigned to…