The "English garden" is a metaphor used to express the historical-geographical-personal knowledge of a language that is approaching 1,550 years of age. This article argues for third-dimensional learning that involves the internal, mysterious, and imaginative part of human life. (two references) (LB)

Reviews 24 books for youthful readers by several authors. Stresses Gary Paulsen's idea that the richness of the "poem" which readers create as they read text is largely a product of the information that they bring to it. (PRA)

Provides a personal narrative of how one Shakespearean teacher-actor was "remade" through specific experiences. Claims that students must perform at least some Shakespeare in order to experience personal and social enrichment. (NH)

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)

Notes how adolescents through young adult literature begin to discover the meaning behind the words and to explore their own emotions. Describes the use of small groups and an introduction of the concept of a literacy community. Discusses a whole-class reading and response to S.E. Hinton's novel "The Outsiders." (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…

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…

Provides a theoretical and practical basis for using reader response theory in the classroom with noncanonical literature. (SRT)

Discusses one of the perennial challenges of teaching English literature--finding ways to relate it to modern problems and issues and thus make the study accessible to students. Includes an example that relates the themes of "Morte D'Arthur" and "Chariots of Fire" and focuses on the sea imagery in both pieces. (JD)

Reports on a study that examined the responses of young people to a new poem. Covers the background, procedures, processes, conclusions, and implications of the study. (EL)

Presents Gregory Corso's poem, "Poets Hitchhiking on the Highway," as an intellectually profitable assignment graphically illustrating the metonymic and metaphoric modes. (MM)

Discusses an English teacher's approaches to introducing English-as-a-second-language students to Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet." Notes that the students responded with more enthusiasm than they had to any other selection they had read, and that the teacher had underestimated her students' ability to understand Shakespeare. (RS)

Asserts that the most important part of the research process occurs before formal research writing begins, when students engage in expressive, genuine communication. Describes several activities that promote meaningful responses to literature as a prelude to researching an American literary work. (MM)

Claims that the insights of reader response theory can be brought into the teaching of poetry in college literature courses. Outlines methods for utilizing reader response techniques to help students enjoy and understand poetry. (HB)

Describes a teacher's unsuccessful attempt to introduce the poetry of Tu Fu, a wayward bureaucrat of the T'ang dynasty, to a class of part-time students. Uses his students' resistance to this poetry as an occasion to discuss the importance of personal responses to poetry, as opposed to "correct" academic responses. (TB)