Researchers and educators have long argued for the importance of providing time and space for rich conversations around literature. This column draws on research to consider how teachers make room for these discussions inside their classrooms. Particularly, the authors consider different dimensions along which teachers might examine and grow…

Schools bring people together. Yet for many children there are major discontinuities between their lives in and out of school and such differences impact on literacy teaching and learning in both predictable and unpredictable ways. However if schools were reconceptualised as meeting places, where different people are thrown together (Massey, 2005)…

This article describes a project that studied 15 preservice teachers' perceptions of and reactions to responding to children's and young adult literature using a Ning blog. These perceptions and reactions provided insight into various practical aspects of using a social networking blog to facilitate literature response in a teacher education…

Recently, transactional reader response theory has been criticized for providing an inadequate theoretical guide for the study of multicultural literature. Some scholars argue that Rosenblatt assumes the reader and her response to literature are ideologically innocent and the continuum of aesthetic and efferent stance does not encompass critical…

The way in which the culture of ethnography has been developed in classrooms that encourages teachers and students to question, doubt, reflect, revise and remain open to new possibilities, is discussed. Through the documentation of interactions and talks between teachers and students, a critical examination of the teachers and capabilities and…

Drama and movement bring delight, happiness, increased learning into every aspect of the English program. (JH)

Examines the ways Bruno Bettelheim's "The Uses of Enchantment" may be used to teach children's literature and the effectiveness of Bettelheim's method of psychoanalytical criticism as a means of understanding fairy tales. (DD)

Urges teachers to let students read without quizzing them about every sentence or every book they read. (DD)

A teacher encourages her students to develop a language of critique through their study of candidates' platforms in a presidential election. It is concluded that the critical literacy/social justice curriculum in elementary classrooms is an effective learning experiences for students.

Presents an interview with literary critic Northrop Frye in which Frye comments on the purposes and importance of literature in education; goals, growth, and development in literary study; the literature curriculum in elementary schools; and strategies for teaching literature. (GT)

Describes a number of nonnarrative films and suggests ways to use them to integrate media into subject areas, to teach production techniques, to critique films and other visual productions, and to develop good visual taste. (DD)

Discusses the theoretical considerations of readers' response to literature. Explores procedures for monitoring and evaluating children's responses to literature. (HTH)