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The pendulum of educators' interests often swings back and forth. In the current climate of high stakes assessment, there appears to be a greater emphasis placed on literal recall of information when reading. While in the short term, this may benefit score reports, there is a concern that higher order thinking skills, such as analysis, will fall by the wayside. In so doing, there may be long term effects on the citizenry of this country. A lack of shared experiences, paired with little or no opportunity to discuss and discern, could lead to an inability to participate in and manage a complex form of government, such as a democracy. In today's middle school literature classrooms, however, there is room for all types of thinking: from the simple to the complex. Teachers who desire to create an atmosphere that values the application of a variety of thinking can make their classrooms into communites that offer students the opportunity to think in a myriad of ways. These opportunities may be explicitly modeled by the educator and take the form of whole and small group discussion, developing questioning skills and using journal writing as a tool to develop meta-cognition.

The purpose of this study was to set up equivalent groups of conventional and experimental classes in English in order to test both groups with certain standardized tests before and after a definite period of instruction, and to evaluate the relative efficiency of the two teaching methods in light of the statistical evidence.

This study represents a survey of selected eighth-grade students of San Joaquin County and the measurement of their ability and achievement in certain aspects of the Language Arts program of the elementary school.

Orientador: Kelly Cristiane Henschel Pobbe de Carvalho / Banca: Thiago Alves Valente / Banca: Diana Navas / Resumo: Esta dissertação é resultado de uma investigação realizada com alunos do Ensino Fundamental - Séries Finais (9ºano), em uma escola pública estadual, acerca da leitura de crônicas, sobretudo, aquelas já consagradas pelos grandes escritores da literatura brasileira e perpetuadas no suporte livro. Assim, buscou-se refletir se o gênero crônica pode contribuir na formação do leitor estético, uma vez que, este gênero, tem sido explorado nos diferentes materiais didáticos que circulam na esfera escolar como o Currículo Oficial do Estado de São Paulo, o livro didático, além de outros materiais que contemplam o ensino da leitura. Para tanto, são apresentadas algumas reflexões sobre os pressupostos teóricos que norteiam esta investigação, como: a metodologia, a concepção de linguagem, de leitura, de leitor, a concepção de tipos e gêneros textuais, o ensino de literatura e as estratégias que envolvem o desenvolvimento da compreensão leitora. A base teórica para esta pesquisa vem, principalmente, da concepção dialógica da linguagem proposta por Bakhtin (1997, 2006), bem como da concepção sociointeracionista proposta por Vygotsky (1991, 1994), além das contribuições da Teoria da Estética da Recepção, mais especificamente, o Método Recepcional, preconizado por Bordini e Aguiar (1993). Para o desenvolvimento desta investigação, a metodologia qualitativa de caráter interpretativista foi utilizada, por meio da aplicação dos procedimentos previstos na pesquisa narrativa. Buscou-se, ainda, refl... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: This work is the result of an investigation conducted with 9th year Elementary School students from a public institution in São Paulo State, about reading chronicles, especially those already established by the great writers of Brazilian literature and perpetuated in the books. So we decided to consider if the text genre chronicle can contribute to the formation of the aesthetic reader, since this genre has been explored in different teaching materials used in the school, like the support materials of the Currículo do Estado de São Paulo, the textbooks, as well as other materials that include the teaching of reading. For this reason, we present some reflections on the theoretical assumptions that guide this research, such as the methodology, the conception of language, of reading, of reader, of text types and genres, the teaching of literature and the strategies involving the development of reading comprehension. The theoretical basis for this research comes mainly from the dialogical conception of language proposed by Bakhtin (1997, 2006) and from the sociointeractionist concepton proposed by Vygotsky (1991, 1994), besides the contributions of the Reception Aesthetic Theory, more specifically the Recepcional Method suggested by Bordini and Aguiar (1993). In order to develop this investigation, it was used the qualitative methodology of interpretative character, applying the procedures provided in the narrative research. It was also proposed a reflection on what concerns the reading of chronicles, if this work, based on the theoretical principles described, could assure to the students the development of reading comprehension, as well as the expansion of their horizons of expectation / Mestre

Sometimes students struggle to interpret literary texts because some of these texts do not lend themselves to the deduction of the interpretative processes with which they are familiar, but the same is not true when students pull interpretations from songs. Is it possible that students’ familiarity with songs might enable them to connect a song with a book and aid interpretation that way? This study attempted to explore the possibility of bridging songs to literary texts in my Community College English classroom, to ascertain if or how the use of song can support or extend students’ interpretive strategies across different types of texts. I investigated how songs might work as a bridge to other texts, like novels, and, if the students use songs as texts, to what extent do the students develop and hone their interpretative skills? Because of this, how might including songs as texts in English writing or English Literature curriculum contribute to the enhancement of students’ writing? The students’ responses disclosed that the songs appealed to their cognition and memories and helped them to interpret and write about the novels they read. Moreover, the students’ responses revealed that pairing or matching songs with novels strengthened interpretation of the book in a plethora of ways, such as meta-message deduction, applying contexts, applying comparisons, and examining thematic correlations. When a novel is bridged or paired with a song, interpretation can also be derived by examining different perspectives, characterizations, personal connections, and life experiences. Exploring emotional connections as well as signs and symbolism can also enable interpretation. Another way to deduce interpretation, according to the students, is to locate a reoccurring issue or thread in a song and transfer the analysis from the song to the novel. However, although a few students might not use songs to interpret literary texts, they might still be able to recognize that the possibility exists to grasp meaning that way.

The purpose of the study was to describe the use of nonfiction/informational trade books within a literature-based elementary classroom by students and the teacher. Using a qualitative ethnographic approach, the researcher became a participant observer in a third grade classroom during a two and one-half week thematic unit about the westward movement. Data were collected from field notes, audiotapes of class discussions and informal interviews, documents of students' work, photographs, daily observer comment summaries, and memos. These data were coded, analyzed for recurring patterns, and grouped together, resulting in grounded theory.

The object of education in the United States is development of the human being as a person and as a citizen in a democracy. In high school that person is a youth--one whose needs for development are common to the democratic tradition of every age. The greatest wealth of any nation is its human beings. A person is whole and unified, yet he possesses many avenues through which life is realized, experiences are enlarged and control is secured over materials and forces. In view of the objectives above, it is planned to present in the paper a discussion of the way in which Virgil reveals the qualities which if acquired characterize youth as honorable, upright and noble characters. In chapter two which follows, each quality is exemplified by several noteworthy illustrations from the Aeneid. / Typescript. / "August, 1953." / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts." / Advisor: W. Edwards, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 20).

What does it mean to listen—and how can works of literature teach us about listening? Of the four modes of language—reading, writing, speaking, and listening—that together constitute the “language arts” as a curriculum area in secondary English education, listening is relatively undertheorized—and conspicuously so, given the prominence of student engagement and culturally-responsive pedagogy in scholarly and popular education writing. Western thought generally prioritizes the act of speaking or the concept of “voice” in conceiving of subjects and agency, and an emphasis on “finding your voice” and “having your say” implies questions about the modes of reception by which any particular voice actually might be heard. In the classroom, listening during discussion of literature, for instance, can be an enriching and even revelatory experience for students and their teacher. This dissertation, which is variously theoretical, historical, and narrative, often captures the drama of classrooms and sometimes contemplates the communities that sponsor them. Grounded in some concerns of the teacher as listener as well as a sense of wonder and surprise in the literature classroom (Chapters 1 and 6), this dissertation is a series of contiguous explorations of ideas about listening in educational theory and pragmatist aesthetics (Chapter 2); psychoanalysis and rhetorical studies (Chapter 3); literary history and criticism (Chapter 4); historical poetics (Chapter 5), as well as particular works of literature (Chapters 4 and 8). While discourses about literature or literary experience since at least the Renaissance arguably privilege visual metaphors for the literary imagination—as a way of “seeing” the lives of others across distances of place and time, as well as “reflections of” oneself in these others’—a parallel and even more ancient tradition among poet-critics invokes the sonorous, elaborating auditory metaphors for understanding the experience of reading itself as a kind of listening. Listening not only refers to modes of sociality, or relating to and with others in ways that manifest communicative exchange, shared experience, or mutual recognition but, importantly, also refers to an inner experience that to some extent remains private. Listening therefore instantiates a certain double consciousness. Like the imaginative participation of reading, listening is a temporal experience of engaging with the other as such—that is, an encounter with difference that might become an occasion for transformative learning.

This qualitative teacher - research study investigates how secondary students in English classes might use art materials and the construction of abstract artworks to explore, develop, and express their responses to and interpretations of literary works. The study was guided by the following research questions: 1. What happens when students are introduced to a wide variety of art materials and encouraged to use them to discover and express their response to or interpretation of a literary text? 1a. How do students describe how their understanding of or relationship to a work of literature is impacted by their production of a work of art in response to that literature? 2. How do students describe the experience of displaying their responsive art works in a final art “show” or classroom display, and how does their preparation for such a capstone event impact their creative process or their experience of producing their work of art? 3. What challenges and obstacles seem likely to arise for a teacher who tries to implement an instructional program in literature that includes a requirement that students create works of art to explore or express their response to or understanding of a literary work? The data collected and analyzed include classroom observations in multiple classes, student writing, student artwork at all stages, student testimony, and student responses to survey questions. The analysis of the collected data suggest that the creation of works of art to explore and express literary experience and response promotes in many students an expanded understanding of the definition of ‘art’ and ‘artist’; a greater personal engagement with the assigned literary work; more original, nuanced, and insightful responses to literature; and more engaged and intellectually honest writing about literature. The greatest challenges and obstacles to implementing the arts-based approach to the study of literature in the classroom were located largely in the researcher’s own attachments to conventional practices in the teaching of literature, desire to ensure that her students acquired standard knowledge about the assigned literary work, and her lingering sense of responsibility about preparing students for conventional future literature classes.