This paper is written in response to Angela Chapman and Allan Feldman's research study, "Cultivation of science identity through authentic science in an urban high school [classroom]". I utilize this forum piece to extend the call for "awakening a dialogue" that critically assesses the effectiveness of current K-12 science…

This study examined how graduate students in humanities disciplines guide students' reading during their work as teaching assistants (TAs) in first-year (FYC) composition courses. Situated within an independent writing program, the "genre studies" approach to this FYC course is informed by the threshold concepts of the composition…

Responding to David Stoesz's invited article criticizing the Children's Bureau and the National Child Welfare Workforce Institute (NCWWI), the author's inaccurate assertions are challenged, and new information is provided about the significant work underway to support the child welfare workforce. The Children's Bureau has made historic investments…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS; National Governors Association [NGA] Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers [CCSSO], 2010) are "hot," and authors Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey think that is the way they should be. In this article they explain why they think that it is worth the time to focus on the…

Examining largely unknown revisions of the New Criticisms reading pedagogy, the author argues that these revisions should serve as a model of how the Common Core ELA Standards might be revised to reconnect readers to the process of reading.

This paper details the visual responses created by a group of preservice teachers reading a series of contemporary graphic novels about adolescence. Visual response is here understood as an interpretive methodology of transmediation, informed by theorists of multimodal literacies as well as particular forms of psychoanalytic inquiry related to…

A fresh look at the reader response theory to enhance student comprehension through meaningful interactions with literature, this paper explores the instructional implications of a reader response approach in secondary classrooms and examines its role in fostering students' critical reading and thinking skills. The approach promotes transaction…

The notion of language as a homogenous, stable and bounded system of communication has waned partly because of increased understanding of the language behaviour of bi/multi-linguals whose language use in different domains is now more appropriately described as translanguaging. The thrust of most definitions is that translanguaging involves the…

Although the aims of literary study have often been spelled out in ethical terms, scholars have tended to discuss the how of literary interpretation in more ethically neutral terms. Reading pedagogical enactments of two predominant theories of literary interpretation--New Criticism and reader response--through the lens of Rancièrean ethics, I…

Stuart McLean refers in this commentary to Jeffrey Huffman's article "Reading Rate Gains during a One-Semester Extensive Reading Course" (v26 n2 p17-33 Oct 2014) [See: EJ1044344], in which Huffman reports that extensive reading (ER) was an effective way to provide large amounts of comprehensible input to foreign language learners, but…

Required first-year English courses present instructors with a challenge common in the humanities: How do we motivate students to engage in active reading rather than passively scroll down online guides? Introductory literature courses aim to develop students' critical thinking through close reading, analysis, and argumentation--skills demanding…

Recent research shows that reading comprehension relies heavily on prior knowledge. Far more than generic "reading skills" like drawing inferences, making predictions, and knowing the function of subheads, how well students learn from a nonfiction text depends on their background knowledge of the text's subject matter. And in a cyclical…

This article explores how a reading group of pre-service teachers responded to the endings of three contemporary young adult texts and what such responses may imply about the interpretive preferences of teacher education. Set in the context of a Faculty of Education at a Canadian university, and using the lens of psychoanalytic theory, this…

In this essay, Ebony Elizabeth Thomas and Amy Stornaiuolo explore new trends in reader response for a digital age, particularly the phenomenon of bending texts using social media. They argue that bending is one form of "restorying," a process by which people reshape narratives to represent a diversity of perspectives and experiences that…

This article is a response to Kevin Donnelly's article, "The Australian Education Union: A History of Opposing School Choice and School Autonomy Down-Under," and aims to correct specific errors and misrepresentations as found by Susan Hopgood, Federal Secretary of the Australian Education Union. She argues that the article is misleading…