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Presents a basic framework for guiding children in report writing using children's informational books as models in the process. Discusses various aspects of report writing. Describes specific book titles as they relate to these aspects. (MG)

Reading comprehension of informational texts has been largely debated and introduced at all levels of education across western countries. However, it has not received enough attention in developing countries including Vietnam. This paper aims to investigate the procedure of reading and comprehension of informational texts in high schools in Vietnam. The study surveyed 588 teachers and 2744 high school students across all regions of Vietnam. The survey questionnaires asked teachers and students' opinions on the teaching and learning of informational texts. Through statistical analysis with Excel sheets, the results show that the part of informational texts in the curriculum was small when compared with literary texts. This shows that there is very little requirement of teaching and learning informational text in high schools which results in students' limited ability in reading informational text. The findings also suggest that understanding and reading informational texts have been contended as essential to the educational performance of students. The research also revealed that both teachers and students need to be more prepared in the classrooms to teach and learn informational texts. It is recommended that Vietnamese general education curricula should include a greater amount of informational texts in textbooks and instruction on informational texts should be given more attention to improve students' understanding.

Reading rate, usually measured in words per minute, is a common operationalization of reading fluency in second language (L2) research and pedagogy. However, the impact of word length is often not addressed. This paper presents two studies showing how the number of characters in a text influences L2 reading time, independent of word counts, within classroom-based activities for Japanese university English as a Foreign Language students. In Study 1, students (N = 160) read two sets of graded texts manipulated to differ only in the total number of characters. The texts with more characters required significantly more time to read, with a small effect size. In Study 2, the average reading times for students (N = 27) throughout a semester-long timed reading course were strongly associated with text length as measured in characters, controlling for differences in word counts. Together these studies support the inclusion of character-based counting units when measuring L2 reading rate or reading amount.

To the consternation and dismay of its critics, the 12-year basic education program is now in full swing in the Philippines. The concerns over the implementation of this purportedly neoliberal educational policy have included the displacement of education workers, the perennial shortage of school facilities (especially in the public schools), and financial impact on low-income families. There has also been a concern over the ostensibly western orientation of the country's educational system because of colonialism. However, as this paper argues, there are also spaces for an empowering and critical pedagogy as defined by Paulo Freire. The principles of critical pedagogy, for instance, can be deployed through the inclusion of non-canonical and insurgent literature in at least two new courses in the curriculum--21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World and Creative Nonfiction. One particular example of such literature is the testimonial narrative or testimonio, a first-person narrative about experiences of abuse and other forms of injustice. The paper includes a survey of studies that foreground the use of testimonios in education, and argues that the same strategy can be used in the Philippines' new curriculum. The use of testimonios in literature and other disciplines may constitute an attempt at locating alternative knowledges and cultural modalities while surfacing the narratives of Philippine society's marginalized sectors.

"Relief: Observations on Creative Nonfiction as Pedagogy" offers a case study in the possibilities of using creative writing as a pedagogical tool with ESL students. Analyzing the experience, comments, and creative work of a Chinese nursing student named Wei Wan at Ryerson University, the essay explores the benefits of personal writing and peer workshops as tools for self-exploration, aesthetic appreciation, and confidence building. While urging teachers to see the advantages of this methodology, the paper also reflects on the literary values of creative work in hybrid, non-standard English forms.

Presents books written by authors with a emphasis on the culture of public credit while excoriating it in favor of the landed interest. "The Discourse of the Sublime: Readings in History, Aesthetics and the Subject," by Peter De Bolla; "Writings and the Rise of Finance: Capital Satires of the Early Eighteenth Century," by Colin Nicholson; "Models of Value: Eighteenth-Century Political Economy and the Novel," by James Thompson.

During the summer of 2006, over four hundred Catholic ethicists from around the world gathered for four days in Padua, Italy. About sixty of the conference papers have become available in two edited collections, Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church: The Plenary Papers from the First Cross-cultural Conference on Catholic Theological Ethics, and Applied Ethics in a World Church: The Padua Conference. As the conference was marked by a distinctive and creative tension-between the diversity which characterized the nationalities and cultural identities of the participants, on the one hand, and the commonness of their religious heritage, on the other-these essays can tell us much about contemporary Catholic ethics in its response to global pluralism. The following develops four reflections. First, the conference papers pursue a style of scholarship that is at once critically creative and ecclesially rooted. Second, the conference raises new concerns about the importance that Christian formation must have in a pluralist world. Third, the participants affirm and defend the ultimate universality of moral goods while also arguing that these goods are expressed and embodied in unavoidably particular ways. Finally, the most important contribution that Catholic ethics can make to public conversations about issues of common concern is through its articulation and defense of key human values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a list of publications the journal received for spring 2013, including "Dostoevsky's Dialectics and the Problem of Sin" by Ksana Blank, "The Transformative Humanities: A Manifesto" by Mikhail Epstein, and "The Accused" by Vera Gran and translated by Charles Ruas.

Dr. William Alexander, a noted curriculum authority and a central founder of the middle school movement, shared in a presentation in 1963 that teachers must have a goal of stimulating a "love for learning, an attitude of inquiry, a passion for truth and beauty, a questioning of mind." He asserted, "Learning the right answers is not enough, beyond answers alone, we must help children ask the right questions, and discover their answers through creative thinking, reasoning, judging, and understanding." Alexander's ideals have been influential in the development of the Association for Middle Level Education (AMLE) position paper, "This We Believe." This article responds to "This We Believe" by describing one attempt to develop a challenging and integrated curriculum. It also responds to the Common Core State Standards by describing how authentic literature can be used with instructional strategies to support learning across the curriculum. A brief review of related literature is shared. Next, instructional strategies to use with authentic literature are presented. The article concludes with final thoughts about using authentic literature to develop challenging and integrated curriculum. The hope is that this article will help teachers and students create new passions for authentic literature because when students have passion to read, they have passion to learn. Figure 1 provides examplars of authentic literature.

In this paper, the authors present findings from a yearlong ethnographic research study that examines the development of critical literacy within two urban fourth grade classrooms in Tennessee. This study examines how young second language learners in English-dominant classrooms learn to read critically, write, and construct multimodal perspectives through global (texts focused upon world issues) and informational texts.

With 13 published novels and 5 children's literature books, which have been translated into 25 languages, Andrey Kurkov has been recognized as one of the most renowned Ukrainian writers in the world of literature, and "Ukraine Diaries" is his first non-fiction literary work. This paper attempts to focus on Kurkov's unique literary characteristics in the unusual combination of deceptive simplicity of style and the profound insights, coupled with acrid ridicule and subtle narration, which can all be attributed to the characteristics of "the Absurdist School". The writer regards his living condition, as the report from Kiev shows, as kind of dilemma, or paradox: on the one hand, he feels frustrated with Russia intellectually despite the affinity to traditional culture in emotion; on the other hand, he feels more indignant about the European Union who brought painful experiences to his country and his people, in spite of his closeness to western culture and political system.

The use of teaching practices that involve intertextual relationship discovery in today's elementary classrooms is increasingly essential to the success of young learners of reading. Teachers must constantly strive to expand their perspective of how to incorporate the dialogue included in prior knowledge assessment. Teachers must also consider how the use of fiction and non-fiction text relate to each other when building young learner reader comprehension skills. This paper first briefly examines the premise of a universal approach to including prior knowledge as intertext. It then provides a case example of how prior knowledge is integral to an intertextual teaching practice.

This paper explores the positivist, museum-based, and touristic constructions of indigenous cultures in the Americas, as represented in the DK "Eyewitness" series, and then overturns these constructions using an artist book created by the authors. In our analysis of the nonfiction series, we identified three trajectories: cataloguing, consignment to the past, and pleasurable display. Using techniques borrowed from "new historiography" and the decolonizing methodologies of Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1999), we suggest ways in which adults and young people might "speak back" to these positivist paradigms.

Describes the author's personal family struggle with entering the field of English. Notes how it is becoming increasingly difficult for today's students to be able to make choices among instrumentalist and intellectual paradigms of education and work. Concludes by voicing a hope that educators can invent new rules for "academic" writing in this new century. (SG)