Describes a teaching technique that capitalizes on the individual meanings a piece of literature can have for different students. Explains how it encourages students to concentrate first on facts that they notice in a text and in the inferences they make based on those facts. (FL)

Although reading and writing exist only in relation to each other, writing plays little or no role in the usual instructional approaches to reading. Mostly, reading is taught as a sequence of discrete skills, which is ineffective since it accommodates the analytic reading style to the exclusion of global, kinesthetic, and auditory styles. Reading…

After students' interest in literature has been stirred by journal writing, it is time for them to turn their private journal writing into writing for an audience. Instead of having students write the usual responses to literature, vary their assignments by offering them creative responses, either occasionally or as an individual alternative to…

Noting that too many children leave elementary school without developing the ability to use words imaginatively, this paper presents a teaching approach that uses literature to foster invention in children's writing. The approach described is part of a total composition program that structures writing experiences in which children observe…

The paper presents and demonstrates a heuristic for helping students learn how to read and understand figuration in literature. The heuristic contains elements from linguistics, New Criticism, and rhetorical analysis in a recursive process which enables students to see how features of words combine into figurative patterns. Beginning at the level…

Proposes ways of blending the study of literature and the teaching of writing. Suggests assignments that involve writing or rewriting literature, writing about literature, and writing in response to literature. (MM)

The lead of a story is the beginning, and yet it can be the end if the reader is not entranced immediately. This lesson examines types of leads in prominent children's literature and asks grade 3 to 5 students to try their own hand at writing leads. During the two 40-minute lessons, students will: discuss their reactions to the leads from the…

Describes how "Gulliver's Travels" was used with 11- and 12-year-olds to stimulate writing activities. (SRT)

Argues that paragraph form congruent with the patterns and habits of thinking develops from the writer's sensitivity to the impact of visual images on the reader's mind. (MM)

Notes that syllabus requirements for British secondary school literature courses tacitly create a course in writing as well. Presents ways in which this writing component can be implemented, without isolating it from the literature component. (HTH)

Demonstrates how peer interaction during writing helps children experience connections between reading and writing. Describes children's responses to unfinished pieces, a peer's "published" piece, other students' published books (read aloud by a student other than the author), and to books written by professional authors. (HTH)

This book's purpose is to assist school library media specialists in incorporating specific learning objectives into a storytime format, thus extending the storytime experience into standards-based reading and writing lessons. The book is intended for veteran and beginning school library media specialists and teachers who collaborate with them.…

Fifteen poets have created this guide to teaching the work of Walt Whitman from kindergarten to college level. In essays based on the personal experience of these imaginative writers, the guide presents practical ideas for fresh ways to read Whitman and to write poetry and prose inspired by him. The guide also includes three pieces on education by…

Teachers need not drop entirely the nonliterary aspects of classroom talk and response to put students back in touch with the aesthetic role of classroom reading. Affect is the "gut reaction" a reader experiences when his or her raw emotions are touched. This first level of response must be acknowledged, even encouraged, before moving on…

To shift the focus away from the writing instructor as the primary audience for written compositions, these writing assignments address the issue of audience directly. The assignments include the following: (1) select a magazine and analyze its audience; (2) compose a letter to the editor; (3) write an article for the selected magazine about an…