The purpose of this study was to consider the issue of "authentic engagement" with texts in the context of KS3 and KS4 classroom English teaching. This article describes an exemplar session on the poem "A Fine Romance" by Roger McGough designed to elicit authentic engagement and provoke personal responses, and reports on the…

This paper explores the application of texture and textual attractors within a cognitive stylistic pedagogy for English teachers. Texture, defined as the feeling of building and experiencing a fictional world, is here taken up as a facilitative way of thinking about how reading, language, experience and cognition operate in the classroom. On the…

This article draws on research into using reader-response theory as a way of thinking about teaching grammar and poetry in the English classroom. Framing my discussion around world-based models of reader-response such as Transactional Theory (Rosenblatt 1938, 1978) and Text World Theory (Gavins 2007; Werth 1999), I argue that this approach is…

The proposals for the revised National Curriculum in English suggest limiting the pre-twentieth century poetry that GCSE pupils read to "representative Romantic poetry" (Department for Education [DFE], 2013, p. 4). This paper argues that poetry of the early modern period is challenging and enriching study for adolescent pupils and that…

Describes two "found poetry" projects that provide a bridge between verse and prose, and which help students focus on a particular poet or literary character. (MM)

Provides a theoretical framework by which traditional prosody might be reformulated according to reader response insight. Advocates prosody taking the form of a "story of reading." Advocates a narrative style of prosodic criticism. (HB)

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 a teaching method that provides students with the necessary tools to analyze college-level poetry. Suggests that because reader response has greatly overplayed its corrective to "New Criticism," the HEI (Hypothesis-Experiment-Instruction) method of teaching literature could serve as a third choice among teachers interested in avoiding the…

Discusses ways to teach modern plays and poetry, using a reader response approach that makes the works more accessible to students. (HTH)

States that psychological models help shape students' responses to literature. Explains how a Freudian model can be used to explore the meanings inherent in Emily Dickinson's "A Narrow Fellow in the Grass." (MM)

Considers the arguments for seeing work rather than response as key to the poetic experience. Explains the development of such experience in the classroom. Notes that this is worth exploring not only in terms of literacy curriculum, but with respect to curriculum as a whole, since poetry is often invoked as an important resource for the…

To encourage creative thinking, high school teacher Kelly Courtney-Smith asked her students for creative responses to Hesse's novel, using a technique she learned from coauthor Michael Angelotti. Students painted or wrote poems interpreting their reading, then responded to the creations of their classmates. The students found that these…

Although many teachers force-feed the "meaning" of poetry to puzzled students or teach poetry by way of dissecting poetic techniques, more productive approaches to the study of poetry exist, as reflected in the literature in the ERIC database. Units of study can be organized around particular kinds of inquiry instead of around a literary…

Examines the issues of how one makes sense of a poem and how to characterize groups of learners, their responses, their attitudes, and their stance in their social constructions of reality. (DF)

Describes an action research investigation into overcoming a tension felt in a particular approach to teaching literature. Wishes to make studying literature a meaningful experience for students and have them pass exams. Uses the idea of the forum, as described by J. Bruner, as a way of holding these two thrusts together. Evaluates effectiveness…