Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / PROBLEM: The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship of high school readers' attitudes and reading comprehension abilities to critical reading responses. The two topics of communism and Negro racism were chosen for the articles about which critical reading responses were to be made. PROCEDURE: Four articles were written on each topic to provide information upon which students could make judgments. A set of questions consisting of three types, fact-opinion, interpretation of conclusions, and evaluation of arguments, was constructed for each article. Attitude scales on each of the topics were also constructed. A test-retest procedure verified their reliability. Standardized tests administered to the population were: the NelsonDenny Reading Test, Revised, Form A; the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal, Revised, Form YM; the Otis Quick-Scoring Mental Ability Test: New Edition, Gamma Test. The experimental population comprised 270 students, 145 boys and 125 girls, in ten college preparatory English classes in grade eleven. The author administered the attitude scales and the standardized tests. After completion of the testing the classroom English teachers presented the articles and questions on alternate days over a period of three weeks. The topics were also alternated. Each student responded to every question [TRUNCATED] / 2999-01-01

In this essay I will investigate the representations of gender in the unexplored field of fantasy miniature wargames. Focusing on a few publications by the largest producers of these games, namely Games Workshop, Privateer Press and Wyrd Miniatures, I intend to shed light on the views of gender that permeate their productions. Drawing parallels to research conducted on gender in the field of video games, I intend to investigate their similarities to the representations that exist in the field of fantasy miniature wargames. Through these links I will investigate areas such as the literary representation of gender, the visual representation of gender in the miniatures and images produced, and also the simulations and manifestations of gender in the rules of the games. These representations have the power to shape our perception of the world around us, especially as some of these games' target audience are young adults. Identifying these messages is important for further studies in the field and will be a first step to understanding how the miniature wargame can affect our behaviors and attitudes.

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CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeiÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / Este trabalho de pesquisa teve como objetivo perscrutar a compreensÃo leitora crÃtica de alunos concluintes do Ensino MÃdio de uma escola pÃblica de Fortaleza a partir da leitura de charges jornalÃsticas. O corpus deste trabalho à constituÃdo das anÃlises dos alunos-leitores, mediante resposta de instrumental, referentes a duas charges. Ao refletir sobre a anÃlise, tomamos por base a relaÃÃo entre os elementos semiÃticos (verbal e nÃo-verbal) na constituiÃÃo do posicionamento crÃtico dos sujeitos. Ao se pressupor ser o conhecimento de mundo que subjaz à anÃlise crÃtica, fruto das prÃticas sociais, optamos tambÃm por investigar a gÃnese desse conhecimento. Nossas hipÃteses seriam que o leitor crÃtico se posicionaria mediante a elaboraÃÃo de tese e criaÃÃo de argumentos que a embasassem; consideramos, tambÃm, que as imagens na charge se apresentariam como fortes recursos expressivos e influenciadores na criaÃÃo das teses e de seus possÃveis argumentos; em relaÃÃo Ãs influÃncias exercidas pelas interrelaÃÃes, acreditÃvamos que a mÃdia seria a maior influenciadora. A pesquisa, entÃo, norteada por uma concepÃÃo de lÃngua bakhtiniana, fundamentada nas pesquisas sobre o senso crÃtico de Carraher e embasada na anÃlise semiolinguÃstica do discurso de Charraudeau, reflexionou sobre o ato de linguagem protagonizado pelos sujeitos produtor/locutor (EUe/EUc) e leitor/interlocutor (TUd/TUi), atravÃs do qual se desenha o dispositivo argumentativo composto de trÃs quadros: proposta, proposiÃÃo e persuasÃo. Os resultados nos permitiram concluir que a linguagem nÃo-verbal cumpre um papel importantÃssimo no processo de significaÃÃo crÃtica nas charges e subsidia a interpretaÃÃo crÃtica dos leitores. Confirmamos tambÃm: a) a hipÃtese de que os leitores mais perspicazes fariam uma anÃlise crÃtica das charges mediante a elaboraÃÃo de uma tese embasada por argumentos; b) a forte influÃncia da mÃdia na constituiÃÃo do conhecimento enciclopÃdico dos leitores. A anÃlise dos dados nos permitiu ainda comprovar que a leitura de charges se constitui uma oportunidade de o leitor, enquanto indivÃduo autÃnomo, interpretar as ideologias que subjazem os discursos que permeiam o nosso cotidiano sociocultural. Sendo assim, nossa pesquisa, em termos de implicaÃÃo pedagÃgica, constata o quÃo relevante à a inserÃÃo do gÃnero charge nas prÃticas de leitura, em sala de aula, com o propÃsito de propiciar a formaÃÃo de leitores crÃticos. / This research paper aims to evaluate senior students of the Brazilian public high school system in Fortaleza, CearÃ, Brazil as far as their critical reading comprehension of newspaper cartoons are concerned. The corpus of the paper is composed of the student-readersâ analysis of two cartoons. My reflection of their analysis was based upon the relationship between the verbal and non-verbal semiotic elements in the constitution of the subjectsâ critical point of view. Since I assumed that their critical analysis depended on their knowledge of the world, which is a result of their social practices, I chose to investigate the origin of this knowledge as well. My hypotheses were that the critical readers would form their opinions through the development of a thesis and through the creation of supporting arguments. I also took into account that the pictures in the cartoon would present themselves as strong, expressive resources that would influence the creation of the theses and their likely supporting arguments as far as the influences exercised by the interrelations are concerned. I believed that the media would be the most influential aspect. Therefore, the research, which was oriented by a Bakhtinian perspective on language and founded on Carraherâs research about critical thinking and on Charraudeauâs semiolinguistic analysis, aimed to reflect upon the language act played by the subjects called producer/interlocutor (EUe/EUc) and reader/interlocutor (TUd/TUi), through which the argumentative device is designed, composed of three elements â proposal, proposition, and persuasion. The results allowed me to come to the conclusion that the nonverbal language plays an important role in the process of critical meaning in the cartoons and it subsidizes the critical interpretation of the readers. The research has also confirmed a) the hypothesis that the more perceptive readers would make a critical analysis of the cartoons through the development of a thesis supported by arguments; b) the strong influence of the media in the constitution of the knowledge of the world of the readers. The data analysis also allowed me to draw the conclusion that the reading of cartoons represents an opportunity for the reader, as an autonomous individual, to interpret the ideologies that are underneath the discourses within our sociocultural daily life. Therefore, the pedagogical implications of this research are to confirm the relevance of the insertion of newspaper cartoons as a genre to be used in classroom reading materials in order to form critical readers.

Orientador: Claudia Maria de Lima / Resumo: A presente pesquisa de mestrado, vinculada à linha “Processos formativos, ensino e aprendizagem”, tem como objetivo geral investigar e analisar as potencialidades e os desafios de uma proposta formativa em mídia-educação para estudantes de licenciatura. O estudo apresenta uma abordagem qualitativa, seu caráter é descritivo-explicativo, com delineamento metodológico do tipo pesquisa-intervenção. A investigação se justifica à medida que busca contribuir para o processo de apropriação crítica, criativa, autônoma e reflexiva dos licenciandos em relação às mídias e porque pretende ampliar o debate sobre a necessidade da presença da mídia-educação no contexto da formação superior, sobretudo, nos cursos de licenciatura. Com as novas demandas sociais, em tempos de cultura digital, entendemos que a postura mídia-educativa deve ser pensada como um propósito de todos os educadores. Desse modo, a pesquisa contou com duas etapas de coleta de dados. A primeira foi constituída pela aplicação de um questionário visando compreender o perfil do público-alvo e os seus conhecimentos sobre a mídia. Em um segundo momento, nos dedicamos à proposta formativa, a partir dos pressupostos da mídia-educação, que compreende um trabalho de educação para os meios, com os meios e através deles. As fases de análise, interpretação e triangulação dos dados coletados foram orientadas pelo referencial teórico e metodológico da análise de conteúdo. Entre os resultados da pesquisa, destacamos que a proposta formati... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: The present research from this Master Degree, attached to the line “Formative processes, teaching and learning”, has as a general objective to investigate and analyze the potentialities and the challenges from a formative proposition.ruled by the media education, on a licentiate course. This study presents a qualitative approach, its character is descriptive-explanatory, with methodological outline having as a kind intervention research. The investigation justifies itself as long as it searches to contribute to the critic appropriation process, creative, autonomous and reflexive from the licentiate students related to the medias and because it intends to enhance the debate about the necessity of the presence of the media education in the context of the degree formation, specially related to the licentiate courses. With the new social demands, at the digital culture time, it is understood that the posture media education must be thought as a purpose of all educators. Like this, the research had two stages related to data collect. The first was built by the application of a questionnaire for our understanding of the public target profile and about their knowledge about the media. On a second moment, we dedicated the formative proposition, having as a beginning the assumption from the media education, that contains a education work to the ways, with the ways and through the ways. The analyses phases, interpretation, triangulation from the collected data were oriented by the theo... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

The articles in this portfolio provide a detailed account of how educational drama enhances language and literacy development, and in particular the reading of narrative texts, in a range of Australian Primary (K-6) classroom settings. The research for this portfolio was positioned within the interpretive research paradigm. A combination of both action research and case study methodology was used to investigate how the researcher's teaching practice influenced children's language and literacy development, and how the student's responses during drama sessions influenced the researcher's subsequent practice. The theoretical underpinning for these investigations was based on socio-psycholinguistic theory and critical reading theory. Both theories explain why literature as opposed to basal readers is a better resource for the development of critical reading practices and both maintain the need for teaching/learning activities that attend to the distinctive features of narrative texts. As a collection, these articles illustrate how drama strategies and/or forms such as still image, questioning in role, parallel improvisation, teacher in role, Reader's Theatre and play-building enable participants to interpret and reconstruct the meaning of a text. Furthermore, and through the process of metaxis, children reflect upon universal themes and issues through the enactment of their own stories within a fictional context. Educational drama is thus positioned as a pedagogically appropriate teaching/learning methodology for enhancing language and literacy development in primary classrooms. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This case study is conducted in order to observe and investigate the critical reading discourse of twenty seven freshman pre service teachers of English at the department of foreign language teaching at METU. In addition, it attempts to answer the question how the critical reading discourse of the students&rsquo / are shaped through feedback, instruction and time. The extensive data (both written and audio-visual data) is collected in the Advanced Reading and Writing I and II courses which are offered to the first year students at the FLE department. The results of the analysis of the data indicate that the critical reading discourse of the freshman pre-service teachers of English at METU involves interpretive, evaluative and responsive discourse. Evaluative discourse is found to be limited in students&rsquo / written work and discussions when compared to interpretive and responsive discourse. The students also usually tend to evaluate the content of the texts rather than form of them. It is also found that instruction on academic writing foster critical thinking but it is not sufficient to encourage critical reading.

This thesis is a theoretical exploration of critical reading in the primary school. It interrogates the term 'critical reading', examines and conceptualises the thinking processes by which readers make texts mean and proposes a description of critical reading as it is evidenced in young children. At the heart of this thesis is an ethnographic study of the reading practices of classes in three contrasting primary schools. It follows and records the reading experiences of one class of children from each school, beginning in the middle of Year Two and continuing until the children near the end of Year Three. The resulting empirical data is reflected in and measured against theoretical understandings of learning and of reading derived from a number of sources. Vygotskian and Bakhtinian theories of the interdependency of thought and language are considered, critical pedagogy is explored and literary theory, especially the ideas of reader response theorists and postmodernists, is examined. From this process of reflection and assimilation, three theoretical positions are achieved: • that the interactions that take place between children, between children and teachers and between children, teachers and texts are of vital importance in the development of children as critical readers. The thesis stresses the central role of the teacher in controlling the possibilities of dialogue in the classroom. It argues that children who are exposed to the heteroglossia (Bakhtin 1981) of Mennipean dialogue and rich and varied textual experiences are better equipped to read critically than those who are not. • that the process of reading can be modelled to show the nature of these interactions. The thesis proposes a series of theoretical models that attempt to map out the dynamic, interactive process by which readers make texts mean. The models chart the pushes and pulls of thinking that a reader must employ during the act of reading in order to shape meaning from an indeterminate text. • that a description of critical reading activity in young readers can be postulated. The thesis proposes a sequence of indicators that seem to be characteristic of the behaviour of children who are developing the ability to read critically. Finally, the thesis stresses the necessity of reading widely to children if they are to take on the heteroglossia that will enable them to read critically, and the need to empower them by encouraging and honouring their own interpretive voices.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:26:02Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2005-12-19Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:33:35Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 chaman_tjb_me_bauru.pdf: 1342603 bytes, checksum: 0ebb79d68cd52115ed15f6b9f361a209 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Uma nova ideologia comunicacional caracteriza o nosso tempo. Necessário se faz refletir, cautelosamente, a esfera da informação e o domínio cultural da comunicação. A presente dissertação destaca, como bases do discurso da comunicação, o discurso histórico e o literário, tão bem defendidos por Baccega (1998). Lança, como constelação temática, um caminho crítico da poesia percorrido pelo jornalista-escritor José Castello, levantando a questão: qual a fronteira entre o jornalista e o escritor? Questiona se há mesmo um abismo intransponível entre o jornalismo factual e o jornalismo especializado em literatura. Desenha um caminho, em que se manifesta uma feliz convivência: jornalismo e literatura, no qual a palavra, desafiada, aceita o combate. Privilegia a estética da recepção, metodologia a abrir caminhos, caminhos esses escudados nas obras de Jauss (1979), Iser (1996), Jouve (2002), Perrone-Moisés (1973), Ravoux-Rallo (1993). Elege o Caderno Cultural (Caderno 2) de O Estado de S. Paulo para análise do cruzamento contemplado. Aponta a leitura crítica como uma prática indispensável, para que o leitor se transforme em historiador do cotidiano e sujeito de sua própria história, condições imprescindíveis à formação do cidadão crítico. Pontua a questão do Jornalismo/Literatura como ampla e complexa e busca demonstrar a importância dos segundos cadernos e sua interação com o leitor. Revela assim a fronteira permeável entre jornalismo periódico e literatura, como um modo de avançar na complexidade, sem renunciar à unidade, sem desrespeitar as quatro razões de ser do jornalismo: informar, interpretar, orientar e entreter. / Our present days are characterized by a new communicational ideology, thus it is necessary to consider curefully both the information range and the cultural field of communication. This actual dissertation highlights, as the basics of the communication speech, the historical speech and the Literary one, so well supported by Baccega (1998). It also sets, us a thematic constellation, a critical path of the journalist-writer José Castelloþs poetry, raising the issue: what is the boundary between the journalist and the writer? It puts in question if there is really un unbridgeable abyss between the factual journalism and the one specialized in Literature. It outlines a path in which a happy companionship is revealed: journalism and Literature and here the word, still defied, accepts the combat. It favors the aesthetic of the reception, this methodology still about to open ways which are well cared in the works of Jauss (1979), Iser (1996), Jouve (2002), Perrone-Moisés (1973), Ravoux-Rallo (1993). It chooses the Cultural Pages of O Estado de São Paulo (Section 2) for an analysis of such observed crossing. It points out the critical reading as an indispensable practice so that the reader can turn into a historian of his daily living and master of his own history, such conditions considered quite vital to the critical citizen building up. It depicts the Journalism/Literature issue as something ample and complex and it tries to demonstrate the importance of the section twos and its interaction with the reader. It reveals in this manner the allowing passage between the periodical journalism and Literature as a way of progressing in the complexity, without renouncing unity, without disrespecting the four reasons for making journalism, that is: to inform, to interpret, to give guidance and to entertain.

Orientador: Nelyse Apparecida Melro Salzedas / Banca: Ângelo Sottovia Aranha / Banca: Suely Fadul Vilibor Flory / Resumo: Uma nova ideologia comunicacional caracteriza o nosso tempo. Necessário se faz refletir, cautelosamente, a esfera da informação e o domínio cultural da comunicação. A presente dissertação destaca, como bases do discurso da comunicação, o discurso histórico e o literário, tão bem defendidos por Baccega (1998). Lança, como constelação temática, um caminho crítico da poesia percorrido pelo jornalista-escritor José Castello, levantando a questão: qual a fronteira entre o jornalista e o escritor? Questiona se há mesmo um abismo intransponível entre o jornalismo factual e o jornalismo especializado em literatura. Desenha um caminho, em que se manifesta uma feliz convivência: jornalismo e literatura, no qual a palavra, desafiada, aceita o combate. Privilegia a estética da recepção, metodologia a abrir caminhos, caminhos esses escudados nas obras de Jauss (1979), Iser (1996), Jouve (2002), Perrone-Moisés (1973), Ravoux-Rallo (1993). Elege o Caderno Cultural (Caderno 2) de O Estado de S. Paulo para análise do cruzamento contemplado. Aponta a leitura crítica como uma prática indispensável, para que o leitor se transforme em historiador do cotidiano e sujeito de sua própria história, condições imprescindíveis à formação do cidadão crítico. Pontua a questão do Jornalismo/Literatura como ampla e complexa e busca demonstrar a importância dos "segundos cadernos" e sua interação com o leitor. Revela assim a fronteira permeável entre jornalismo periódico e literatura, como um modo de avançar na complexidade, sem renunciar à unidade, sem desrespeitar as quatro razões de ser do jornalismo: informar, interpretar, orientar e entreter. / Abstract: Our present days are characterized by a new communicational ideology, thus it is necessary to consider curefully both the information range and the cultural field of communication. This actual dissertation highlights, as the basics of the communication speech, the historical speech and the Literary one, so well supported by Baccega (1998). It also sets, us a thematic constellation, a critical path of the journalist-writer José Castelloþs poetry, raising the issue: what is the boundary between the journalist and the writer? It puts in question if there is really un unbridgeable abyss between the factual journalism and the one specialized in Literature. It outlines a path in which a happy companionship is revealed: journalism and Literature and here the word, still defied, accepts the combat. It favors the aesthetic of the reception, this methodology still about to open ways which are well cared in the works of Jauss (1979), Iser (1996), Jouve (2002), Perrone-Moisés (1973), Ravoux-Rallo (1993). It chooses the Cultural Pages of "O Estado de São Paulo" (Section 2) for an analysis of such observed crossing. It points out the critical reading as an indispensable practice so that the reader can turn into a historian of his daily living and master of his own history, such conditions considered quite vital to the critical citizen building up. It depicts the Journalism/Literature issue as something ample and complex and it tries to demonstrate the importance of the "section twos" and its interaction with the reader. It reveals in this manner the allowing passage between the periodical journalism and Literature as a way of progressing in the complexity, without renouncing unity, without disrespecting the four reasons for making journalism, that is: to inform, to interpret, to give guidance and to entertain. / Mestre