This study applies reader-response criticism to investigate subject positions of gender, age, ethnicity, and profession through the poststructural analysis of an art work entitled "A Book from the Sky," and examines the relationship among viewer, text (the art work), and artist. A description of the art work is provided as an…

Sharing concerns and interests of New York State educators in the improvement of literacy, this annual journal raises educational issues such as appropriate, effective instruction and assessment for all of New York's children. A central thread found in many of the articles is the importance of authenticity and inclusion. A second strand reflects…

In 1990, a study was conducted at Rio Hondo College (Whittier, California) to determine if readers exhibited any bias in scoring test papers that were composed on a word processor as opposed to being written by hand. The study began with the formulation of tentative pilot study questions and the development of procedures to address them. Three…

A study described the experience, or thoughts, feelings, and motivation of young adolescents reading a novel, with special attention focused on how and when students experience reading positively. Subjects, 24 eighth-grade students of above average reading ability, completed 13 log entries while reading "Good-Night, Mr. Tom," a novel…

A study examined the effect of an alternative language arts program designed to encourage children to take up reading and writing in ways that they find personally, socially, and politically relevant. Throughout a school year, the development of the alternative language arts program in a third/fourth grade classroom in an urban school was…

A study investigated the development of theme as five fifth-grade students read children's literature, recorded their responses in logs, and discussed their ideas in small, student-led peer groups. The five students met together as one group over the course of 5 weeks as they read historical fiction focused on Japan during World War II. Data…

Yale's Cooke Teaching Program is designed to diminish the sense of imperviousness and immobility that the university often conveys to its surrounding community. During the academic year, one Yale graduate student attended a high school senior honors English class twice weekly. It was an advanced class (mostly minorities), many were college-bound,…

A study outlined the processes through which two beginning elementary teachers in the San Francisco Bay area learned to overcome institutional constraints which tended to standardize ethnically diverse students' responses to literature. The study focused specifically on the changes in one teacher's instruction which freed her third/fourth grade…

Given critical theory's current focus on the interaction between writers and readers over the surface of a text, it seems appropriate to examine the semantic component concerned with how writers anticipate that interaction--the interpersonal component. The relevance of the interpersonal component is apparent in traditional instruction on point of…

Drawn fron a conference attended by more than 150 educators from England, the United States, Canada, South Africa, India, China, New Zealand, and Australia, the papers in this compilation deal with a variety of aspects of literature instruction. Papers in the first section of the compilation provide reports on seminars held during the week-long…

A survey of professional publications concerned with curriculum and instruction in the learning and teaching of literature at the elementary and secondary levels, this annotated bibliography derives principally from the ERIC database. The 207-item bibliography includes titles dating from 1980 through 1988. The selections are divided into sections…

A study examined the poetic conventions of rhyme, meter, and diction to determine whether central tendencies and differences in evaluative response at various stages of late childhood and adolescence were discernible. Data were gathered from students of four grade levels (5, 7, 9, 11) enrolled in New York City public schools (359 students in all).…

In the 1970s and 1980s the white Australian author Patricia Wrightson's cross-cultural fantasies concerning the conflict of White characters with Aboriginal folk spirits struck a chord with many adolescent and adult readers who judged these novels to be outstandingly successful. A classroom-based study examined the responses of a class of seventh…

In an effort to understand the effect of a nurturing, supportive environment on children's understanding of poetry, a study was conducted involving the observation of 42 rural fifth and sixth grade students and their two teachers over a school year. During the course of the year the children were invited to respond to published, professional…

This book presents findings of a cross-section of teachers, elementary through college, who have developed ways to enable students to make connections between their lives and the literature they read. The 28 articles are grouped into: (1) a section on the collaborating and creating connection with literature; and (2) a section on the reading and…