Problematizes the word "experience" as it is currently being used by researchers and teachers who want to reform literature instruction in schools and colleges. Discusses how a fresh look at Dewey and Rosenblatt can reconstruct the courtroom and marketplace metaphors as sound alternatives to theories that perpetuate dualistic assumptions…

Presents a project where the teacher, rather than teaching the students how to read using a remedial, isolated skills approach, concerned herself with getting them to read by "falling into the literature" and getting involved in the characters' lives. Describes a reader response approach that was designed to motivate the students to engage with…

Attempts to represent the complexity of the web of literary relationships and their transformational space using fragmentary texts that circle around the novel "The English Patient": self as relationship and the dialogic engagement with a book by the patient himself; and the relationship and engagement with this book and with each other of a group…

Examines the nature and influence of interpretive authority (which suggests that participants in literacy events have authority to determine whether responses shared by others are acceptable) on the meaning construction process for six fourth-grade readers. Finds interpretive authority is flexible and shifts among participants depending on how…

Details the planning and the specific assignments involved in teaching "Great Expectations" over a period of nine months. Explains how the novel was coordinated with other reading using the themes of Judgment, Influences, and Control. (NH)

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…

Literature students can benefit by reading drama from an actor's perspective, using selected principles taken from Constantin Stanislavski's approach to acting commonly known as "the method." Susan Glaspell's one-act play "Trifles" accommodates itself well to Stanislavski's approach, which is based upon a play's…

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)

Offers a method of using reader response theory that emphasizes the expectations about a text and how those expectations are fulfilled or deflated. Specifically, students read traditional fables, fairy tales, and parables, and compare them to contemporary works such as Kafka's "Metamorphosis" and Marquez's "The Very Old Man With Enormous Wings."…

States that the teacher's ultimate responsibility is to assist individuals to continue to appreciate Shakespeare's plays in later life. Discusses (1) the play as a live process, (2) methods of play appreciation, and (3) the play experience as an integrated whole. (EL)

Explores the tenets of both the New Criticism and reader response criticism, and concludes that there is a need for a new imperative in criticism that conceives literary understanding in terms of a communication process in which both text and reader are granted importance. (FL)

Discusses the concept that a philosophical approach to reading "Hamlet" is the easiest for students to comprehend. (DF)

Provides examples of using the Directed Reading Activity as a framework for teaching students to comprehend literary text at varying levels of response. (HOD)

Suggests five important but seldom asked questions that can direct a reader's attention to some basic properties of literature. (RBW)

Discusses the role of literature in the secondary school English curriculum, then examines the current state of literary criticism and analysis in the classroom. (FL)