A detailed teaching model designed to develop effective reading skills in content areas (ERICA) is presented in this document. The paper begins with a discussion of the four stages of the ERICA model: (1) preparing for reading, (2) thinking through information, (3) extracting and organizing information, and (4) translating information. The paper…

Articles in this journal issue explore the relationship between the reader and the literature text, and discuss ways that instruction can enhance reader response to that literature. Following an introduction summarizing the nine articles, the titles and their authors are as follows: (1) "It Is the Poem That I Remake: Using Kenneth Burke's…

A study was conducted to test the findings of two earlier studies (Peeck l974 and Pressley l983) on the effects of occasional mismatches between verbal and pictorial content in children's retention of illustrated prose. While the Peeck study indicated a considerable impact of mismatched pictures, the Pressley study indicated that with some…

Discusses how the authors' review of literature on ability grouping prompted them to look closer at the objectivity of research in general. Concludes that predispositions to specific topics of research, prompted by preexisting values and characteristics of the particular reader, affects the objectivity of the reader in interpreting research…

Discusses teaching junior high students Ann Sexton's poem about remembrances of childhood. Notes the strong personal connections students make with the action and feelings of the poem, and that the poem helps thirteen- and fourteen-year olds understand their own developmental transformations. Suggests related writing assignments based on multiple…

Explicates D. Trudell's poem about two men, unknown to each other and both approaching middle age, who shoot baskets in a moment of camaraderie. Describes use in the classroom of the poem's evocative potential to introduce students to aesthetic experience and the idea of a controlling metaphor. Quotes student responses to questions about the poem.…

Criticizes contemporary approaches to literature instruction that inculcate passivity. Proposes a system of teaching literature that promotes cultural literacy and active, rather than passive, reading by encouraging students to discover cultural messages and make their own interpretations of the cultural infrastructure and culture-specific values…

Extends constructive theories of reading to argue for an advanced composition course that has two implications: (1) writing is a value-free technology; thus, (2) learning to write is learning to manage a technology, not training to be a moral person. (MS)

Asserts that students engage--successfully or unsuccessfully--in dialogues with the curriculum as well as with their texts. Discusses the nature of that dialogue, and the relationship between a reader and the written text. Concludes that the reading dialogue is a vital aspect in the child-curriculum encounter. (MM)

Presents results of a study of how readers fill in information "gaps" in a text to make meaning, using adolescents' response to a story by Brecht. Concludes that such gaps bore children uninterested in making meaning, and that those who make meaning from a mechanical stance may be limited in their comprehension unless deeper ways of…

Discusses a young adult novel with an unusual theme: a neglected boy roams the New York City subways by day and makes his home in a cave. (NKA)

Suggests that, because English teachers are often more knowledgeable about composition theory and pedagogy, English departments should house writing-across-the-curriculum programs. (ARH)

Claims that literacy and literature become interrelated in classrooms where there are many opportunities to engage in the narrative mode of thought. Discusses how the potential of literacy/literature experiences is enriched when students draw from the narrative reservoirs of the community and school. (JD)

Examines the use of the repertory grid technique to describe student responses to the poem "Frost at Midnight" by Coleridge. (HOD)

Explains how a writing course with lyric poetry as its subject matter, when designed according to cognitivist principles, provides an environment in which students can grow as writers and also mature in their ability to respond to literature. (HOD)