Since pairing the classics with young adult literature can increase reading comprehension and spark interest amongst our students, this essay explores a unit plan for connecting Will Hobbs's "Downriver" (1991) with William Golding's "Lord of the Flies" (1954). Both works espouse significant and timely themes: the importance of…

The paper presents findings from a reader response study conducted in February 2013 with 150 children aged 7-11 in which they discussed extracts and clips from Roald Dahl's "Matilda" (1988) and its cinematic adaptation (1996). Dahl and "Matilda" were chosen because they provoke emphatic responses from adults, often commenting…

In this study, we investigated the degree to which the cognitive processes in which students engage during reading comprehension could be examined through dynamical analyses of their natural language responses to texts. High school students (n = 142) generated typed self-explanations while reading a science text. They then completed a…

Based on a 1-year interview-based case study of a preservice English teacher, this article considers the limitations of both intersectional literacies and reader-based responses to texts. In an effort to address students' problematic discussions of female sexuality, the participant implemented a queer pedagogy that emphasized alterity, or the…

Background: The gender gap in reading literacy is repeatedly found in large-scale assessments. This study compared girls' and boys' text responses in a reading test applying natural language processing. For this, a theoretical framework was compiled that allows mapping of response features to the preceding cognitive components such as micro- and…

This article begins by reflecting on the present refugee crisis and its relevance to children in the UK. It identifies the need for teaching about the refugee experience to young children and argues that literature can provide a conduit for this. Since the millennium there has been a rapid increase in the number of books published for children…

If interactions contribute to identity formation, (Swain, et. al., 2011, p. 87) then there is a socio-cultural component to identity. While it is impossible to label identity because of its ever-evolving nature, attempts can be made to gain insight into a person's perceived actions and use those actions as data for exploring possible identity…

Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity (SCALE) provided a commentary on the manuscripts in the first part of this special issue, which highlighted the benefits of edTPA and the necessity for such assessment programs to improve teacher education and strengthen teaching practices. In turn, the authors responded to the SCALE commentary.…

This study examines the reader-response journals of an English learner (EL) who read two works of historical fiction in his English Language Development class at a public high school in California. Locating this study within the tradition of research on reader response, it investigates how the EL constructs his own individualized meaning by…

This article documents my 2-year sojourn from voicelessness -- in the face of normalizing discourses about race, privilege, and difference in teacher education scholarship -- to an authentic voice capable of addressing normalizing discourses from a position of inclusivity. This journey has involved my face-to-face and even mediated engagement with…

This article describes a mixed-methods study that examines the effects of literature circles (peer-led small group discussion of an assigned reading) on the reading achievement of college students taking developmental reading courses. The researcher-developed intervention was comprised of three connected activities (collaborative oral re-tell,…

Introduction: Students usually answer comprehension questions from texts as part of their academic activities. Elaborated Feedback (EF) has been found to be relatively effective to improve comprehension and learning from texts. However, there is little research on how computer-based feedback influences the question-answering process. This study…

Caregivers of children with autism spectrum disorder are vulnerable to overstated benefits of interventions, and such overstatements are common with interventions involving animals. This response to Wright, Hall, Hames, Hardmin, Mills, the Paws Team, and Mills' (2015) article, "Acquiring a Pet Dog Significantly Reduces Stress of Primary…

E. A. Hanushek points out in this commentary that applied researchers in education have only recently begun to appreciate the value of international assessments, even though there are now 50 years of experience with these. Until recently, these assessments have been stand-alone surveys that have not been linked, and analysis has largely focused on…

Anita Vangelisti writes in this response that although the recommendations set forward in this "Forum" are well thought out and important additions to the discussion, teacher-scholars in the field of communication can, and should, do more. She agrees that there is a need to identify and describe learning outcomes in communication, and…