Topic: Brief Summaries of Research Findings

Ten-Second Review. Topics: Goals. Direct Instruction. College Reading Classes. Literary Theme. Textbooks vs. Children’s Literature. Journals in Mathematics.

Title: “Annotated Bibliography of Research in the Teaching of English.” R. L. Larson. Research in the Teaching of English (May 1995), 239-255. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Goals: “…confirms mismatch between the level of literacy preparation expected by employers in the state of Texas and what educators perceive to be important.” CEB Aulbach, p. 239. Note: These are simply brief statements of findings. They leave many questions unanswered. RayS.

Direct Instruction: “Examining the effects of direct instruction, indirect instruction and combined direct and indirect instruction, finds that direct instruction proved the most effective….”L.R. Ayres, p. 240. Comment: Students generally learn what you teach directly. RayS.

College Reading: “…faculty disagreed about the definition and purpose of college reading courses. M.G. Dimon, p. 241. Comment: I vote for teaching otherwise bright students how to study. RayS.

Literary Theme: “…reports that students were able to identify the literary theme of a story, especially when presented with the question, ‘What is the story really about?’ ” C.L Vali, p. 247.

Textbooks vs. Children’s Literature: “Comparing 2 sixth-grade classes’ posttest scores for a unit on Mexico, finds the group taught with children’s books showed significant gains in achievement as compared to the group taught with the textbook.” H.J. Jones, et al., p. 248. Comment: How about using both? RayS.

Journals: “Three-a-week journal writing during the last grading period of the year appeared to increase student understanding of mathematical concepts and teacher understanding of student difficulties.” ML DiPillo, p. 255. Comment: The use of journals to comment on content in courses makes a great deal of sense to me. I’m sorry I did not use this idea when I was teaching. I would now. RayS.

The purposes of this blog, "English Archives" is to provide interesting ideas from journals published in the past.