This article describes elaboration in "literary letters" (Atwell, 1984, 1987) written by developmental reading students. Nineteen community college students received instruction in "elaborative thought patterns," or types of elaboration, to improve the quality of their responses to popular fiction. This instruction was part of…

Drawing on discourse analysis and critical literacy, this study calls into question prevailing assumptions about integration by examining talk in English and "Humash" classrooms as windows into the two worlds of a Modern Orthodox high school. The study found that the two subjects presented very different models of teaching and learning. "Humash"…

The most effective pedagogies are those that foster students' metacognition and their learning effectiveness. This paper presents a new model of activity-based learning in which students construct knowledge using practices that include constructs of engagement, motivation, and affect that drive deeper processing and higher levels of metacognitive…

This article draws on a recent research project in New Zealand on teaching literature in the multicultural classroom. Its focus is on how one teacher-researcher used the cultural and linguistic diversity of a junior, secondary English class as a resource in the development of her programme. It details a sequence of activities designed for a unit…

This study aimed to identify the approaches and strategies employed by teachers in teaching the literature component to less proficient students in Forms 1 and 2 in selected secondary schools in Kelantan, Malaysia. The study was conducted in 18 rural schools. Triangulation involving the questionnaire as the primary data and classroom observation…

This study sought to compare the performance of students in the College Board Advanced Placement Program® (AP®) compared to non-AP students on a number of college outcome measures. Ten individual AP Exams were examined in this study of students in four entering classes (1998-2001) at the University of Texas at Austin. The four main groups of…

This article examines the salience of collective "memory" and "remembering" among a group of students in Hip-Hop Lit, a hip-hop centered English literature course that I co-taught at "Howard High School," an urban high school in the Northeastern United States. Specifically, this article examines the memory work that occurred within Hip-Hop Lit in…

In this study, we describe a framework for monitoring rater performance over time. We present several statistical indices to identify raters whose standards drift and explain how to use those indices operationally. To illustrate the use of the framework, we analyzed rating data from the 2002 Advanced Placement English Literature and Composition…

For academics committed to the idea of an all-round aesthetic education, one of the great successes of the last thirty years has been the tremendous expansion of creative writing classes. Despite the dramatic expansion of creative writing as an academic discipline, the methods, ideals, and values of creative writing workshops have very often been…

Blended learning is increasingly introduced in classrooms worldwide. Nonetheless, studies are not unanimous as to its impact on student performance and its benefits to enhancing the learning experience. In this article, it is argued that a focused approach, taking into account the particular requirements of the course and the students'…

A virtual world was created in an effort to supplement the study of the novel "The Natural Daughter". The educational impact of the virtual world experience on college students of English Literature was assessed using concept mapping as a measure of conceptual change. While conceptual change was evident, the origin of the growth was…

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of globalization upon the college-level instruction of English/American literature in Taiwan. The examination will be centered upon the subject of Englishness as demonstrated in the courses of English/American Literature taught in Taiwan. By focusing on the term "Englishness," the paper…

This article aims at identifying the kind of American and British literature tests that can be designed to allow students who enter a bilingual education program at a private university in Colombia to have their previous knowledge in these two subjects accredited through a proficiency test. Students' needs, opinions, beliefs, existing commercial…

Despite considerable research on teaching and learning in higher education, the relationship between university teachers' and students' understandings of the same teaching-learning events has not been a focus. This exploratory qualitative study used individual interviews to investigate the role of conceptions of teaching, learning and knowledge in…

The author examines how problem-based learning (PBL) and technology may be combined in the English literature classroom in order to inspire various types of collaboration, which, in turn, improves critical reading, thinking, and writing skills; hones research skills; encourages interdisciplinary study; energizes discussion; enforces connections…