Many freshmen come to English courses thinking that they generally dislike poetry and that in particular they dislike writing critical essays about poetry. Two strategies which are effective in helping students overcome their own negative perceptions are to allow students to: (1) engage in transactional reader response; and (2) explore poetry…

Working from case studies of teachers and from the actual language used by teachers and students, this book provides a rationale for and a description of a response-centered approach to the teaching of literature in the secondary school. Embedded throughout the book are student activities. Each chapter gives suggested readings of related articles…

Part of a larger ethnographic study, this investigation focused on the literacy development of a college student as he participated in the virtual culture of a computer-networked writing classroom where all instruction and communication occurred through the computer. The student was a member of one of two classes of adult students, ranging in age…

In an effort to effect significant change in teachers' knowledge understanding, and choice of instructional strategies for guiding the study of literature as art, a study explored the teaching and learning of critical/aesthetic response to literature among elementary school children. Subjects, 25 first graders and 39 fifth graders, were evaluated…

Noting that teaching the research paper seldom gets below surface conventions, this book surveys the work of key theorists in rhetoric, past and present, and seeks to change the way teachers and students think about the relationship between writers and readers. Focusing on theorists who see the creation of knowledge as a social process, the book…

This paper presents a brief survey of interdisciplinary Danish studies in experimental reader response since 1965. The paper describes nine projects or studies, including information on their purposes and methods, stages, persons responsible, supporters, funding institutions, internal reports, and publications. Project titles include…

Demonstrating that gender perceptions and expectations can influence assessment decisions that seem neutral on the surface, this book examines the responses of 31 freshman composition teachers to student writing. The book shows the negative effects of gender biases on assessment. For writing instructors to increase their sensitivity to gender…

Originally developed as part of a project for the Department of Defense Schools (DoDDS) system, this learning package on appreciating literature is designed for teachers who wish to upgrade or expand their teaching skills on their own. The package includes an overview of the project; a comprehensive search of the ERIC database; a lecture giving an…

To determine the influence of the health care provider's gender and profession on readers' memory for health information, 48 university students were asked to read a three page article on heart attacks that was attributed to either (1) a female nurse, (2) a male nurse, (3) a female physician, or (4) a male physician. After reading the article, the…

The current literary tradition observes a canon of hierarchies, a ranking of great writers and genres, that tends to exclude or downgrade women and lower caste males. The response of feminist scholars to this state of affairs falls into two general categories: the first is to find great women authors to fit into the canon on its own terms; the…

To examine the effect of structural factors on the development of story appreciation, a developmental model of story liking for suspense stories was tested by having second, fourth, and sixth grade children rate suspense stories on 10 affective scales. Specifically, the model predicted that (1) reader identification would increase with greater…

The authors of this essay regularly require students to engage in informal writing as a means to promote learning. One form of informal writing is the summary/reaction journal. In summary/reaction journals, students read a chapter or article, write a summary of that reading, and then react by offering their own insights and responses to the…

A qualitative study examined the ways in which middle school and high school students create meanings when they are reading literary and non-literary texts. Subjects, 18 seventh-grade and 18 eleventh-grade students attending schools in an inner city or a suburban school district and judged by their teachers to be either above, at, or below average…

Reader-response journals were successfully employed in a "Reading Shakespeare" course for non-majors, making literary tradition accessible to students untrained in classical rhetoric. Students were encouraged to employ any combination of four approaches. First, students were invited to ask questions about the language, sequence of…

Offering activities for secondary school students and amateur creative writers, this book demonstrates how teachers can break out of "high culture" stereotypes that make students think poetry has no connection with real life. Part one discusses the essentials of poetry and the roles of poets from ancient oral cultures to the present. The…