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Purpose: This paper aims to examine the reading of a book-length fiction or non-fiction text in one disciplinary literacy (DL) teacher education course. This paper considers how the assignment may help pre- and in-service teachers understand literacy as multifaceted and connected within and beyond their content areas (Moje, 2015). The research explores how reading a book-length text may help support DL, equity-oriented curricula that consider literacy as empowerment and connected to lived and communal experiences (González et al., 2005; Muhammad, 2020). Design/methodology/approach: This work is grounded in a qualitative, humanizing methodology and thematic analysis approach (Braun and Clarke, 2006; Paris and Winn, 2014). This approach examines student work in one DL course, considering how teachers within and beyond English language arts (ELA) respond to the task of reading a book-length text. Findings: First, the assignment offered space for participants to redefine literacy as empowerment and enjoyment. Second, the assignment helped participants connect literacy within and beyond their content areas and to see literacy as active and interdisciplinary. Third, the assignment includes clear limitations for a DL approach, particularly when participants focus mainly on connections to their content area. This sometimes obfuscated participants' enjoyment of reading. Originality/value: The study offers a new perspective on a task that is often seen as specifically "ELA": reading a book-length text. This project offers space for ELA educators to consider literacy from a DL, equity-oriented framework focused on enjoyment in literature within and beyond ELA classrooms.

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.

Previous research has examined the use of nontraditional readings, particularly fiction, as a tool for teaching sociological concepts. Few studies have specifically looked at nonfiction monographs and ethnographies. This paper extends prior research by exploring how in-person and online book clubs using nonfiction texts can be used as a tool to engage and introduce students to sociological ideas. Book clubs were implemented in eight different sections across three courses. The structure and format of the book clubs varied considerably. We identify best practices for incorporating book clubs into sociology courses. Drawing on data from instructor-designed surveys, institutional course evaluations, and course exams, we also examine how book clubs influence student attitudes and learning outcomes. We conclude that book clubs can be adapted to fit a variety of courses and across different types of institutions.

This paper focuses on an educational encounter between staff, students and the River Spey, Scotland in September 2009. The themes of water and embodied and culturally constructed ways of knowing the river were used to inform a creative non-fiction narrative that was drafted during and shortly after the journey, and was later refined. Textual descriptions of both significant and seemingly mundane aspects of the experience were built up through observation, discussion and reflection upon actual events as the authors "sought a solution" to writing a narrative-based representation of the experience. This process endeavours to represent an "insider's" view of the experience through descriptions that strive to portray the "meaning, structure and essence of the lived experience[s]" for a particular group of people at a particular moment in time. We propose that this kind of storytelling has the potential to represent important elements of outdoor educational experiences and the places where they occur that would be difficult to relay in other forms of research writing. The paper is presented in three parts: setting the scene; the textual representation of the Spey descent programme; and participants' evaluations and summary. (Contains 9 notes.)

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)

Extensive reading has long been considered as a potent means for facilitating language acquisition for second language learners, especially in the contexts of primary and secondary schools where students are elementary or intermediate learners. In one of the universities in Hong Kong where English is used as a medium of instruction, the development of reading and writing skills has been designated as one of the major objectives of the curriculum reform. This paper reports a small-scale action research study on implementing guided reading sessions in an independent language learning centre of the university, which aims at helping university students who are second language learners of English develop interest and ability to access extensive reading materials targeted at general first language readers. Students were guided to read a short extract from popular fiction or non-fiction materials and responded to comprehension questions. They then had a short discussion to make use of ideas they gained, and reflected about their learning experience. Results seemed to indicate potential for these reading sessions to develop students' ability and interest in extensive reading, according to the data collected from both student and teacher participants.

In this paper, we argue that novels, mysteries and nonfiction books can provide undergraduate students with an accessible and exciting place to explore sociological concepts. Using storytelling as a pedagogical tool, we teach students key theoretical ideas by analyzing the books in their specific sociocultural contexts. First, we put forward three different strategies for using nontraditional readings in the classroom. We then present standardized assessment data to measure how well these strategies helped to meet our student learning goals: increasing engagement, enhancing conceptual understanding and improving analytic ability. We also discuss what we consider to be the pedagogical costs and benefits of using these approaches in the classroom. (Contains 4 tables.)

In recent years, memoir and the entire genre of creative nonfiction have received some negative publicity and some harsh criticism. Many have dismissed the "fourth genre," as it's called, as a form for the narcissistic and self-involved. Matters certainly are not helped when high-profile writers of memoir are revealed to be frauds and fiction writers masquerade as memoirists in order to sell books, turning themselves, not coincidentally, into literary heroes and talk-show celebrities. In this article, the author contends that although writers of personal essays and autobiographies must often rely on vulnerable memory, they should not engage in sheer invention if they want to call their work "nonfiction."

This paper outlines a behavior-analysis approach to the field of narratology, the study of the narrative or story, with emphasis on nonfiction stories and the processes by which such stories distort the world they describe. Stories are described in terms of (a) a behavior-analysis adaptation of Todorov's (1977) analysis of the plots of stories in terms of states of equilibrium/disequilibrium and (b) Grant's (2005) analysis of the structure of stories in terms of establishing operations and escape contingencies. These two sets of concepts are applied to understanding how and why stories lead to distortions of the events they report. (Contains 1 footnote.)

Recently some writers and scholars have complained that the academy, particularly American Indian Studies (AIS) programs, gives too much attention to American Indian literature while ignoring scholarly works that focus on the pressing needs of American Indian communities in the areas of economic development, social justice, and sovereignty, among others. For example, in the preface to "Indigenizing the Academy: Transforming Scholarship and Empowering Communities", Devon Abbott Mihesuah and Angela Cavender Wilson write: "Awards are seemingly presented to...poets and novelists....Not enough is being written about tribal needs and concerns, but an inordinate amount of attention is focused on fiction." Almost every person teaching in AIS programs probably would agree that attention needs to be focused on tribal needs and concerns. In this article, as a professor of American Indian literature, the author respectfully disagrees with Mihesuah and Wilson's assertion that too much attention is focused on fiction. It seems that quite the opposite is true. The author examines the situation to test the validity of the claim that too much attention is given to American Indian literature to the detriment of writing that emphasizes tribal needs and concerns through three different lenses: (1) coursework offerings in AIS programs and departments and course concentrations chosen by students in AIS programs; (2) the representation of literature and writing about literature versus scholarly writing in the main peer-reviewed journals that publish American Indian articles; and (3) awards given for literature and nonfiction scholarly writing. The author talks about the traditional value of storytelling and discusses American Indian literature as a subversive act. (Contains 23 notes.)

Contends that to tell one's own true story, to write personal creative nonfiction, is to tell other people's true stories as well. Notes that because of an author's insistence on her own perspective, creative nonfiction is not fair, but it is true. Concludes that the primary aim of creative nonfiction is to tell a good story. (PM)

Notes that because creative nonfiction exists at the boundary between fiction and nonfiction, reality and recreations of reality, and emotional and factual truth, it raises vexing issues. Discusses what carries more weight: the responsibility to a participant in a story or to the larger story of which she is an important part. Wonders if telling any story, no matter how honest and revealing, is worth creating pain in someone's life. (PM)

Examines the question of whether writers have to stick to literal facts of a story. Contends that the type of memoir a writer produces is determined in part by that writer's sensibility, as well as by how that writer views the genre. Concludes that the emotional truths of memoirs are often better served by how they are remembered than by how they happened. (PM)

Queries Kingston about her fiction and nonfiction writing--her influences, how being Chinese American has shaped her, her thoughts about history, and her ideas on the writing process and on teaching. (PA)

Defines and discusses literary nonfiction in terms of its current history. Outlines three types of motives which may account for the rise in interest in the essay as literature: nostalgic, territorial, and ideological and power-full. Asserts that writing essays empowers students. Stresses the importance of reflective stewardship--reading critically and self-critically. (PRA)

Presents comments and responses on three "College English" articles: Robert Connor's "Journals in Composition Studies," Dennis Rygiel's "On the Neglect of Twentieth-Century Nonfiction," and C. H. Knoblauch and Lil Brannon's "Writing as Learning through the Curriculum." (RBW)

Shows how Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" and John Locke's "Thoughts on Education" can be used to promote good breeding. (EL)

Proposes a way of looking at the process of expository prose--in the nonfiction texts used in composition courses--which students can then adapt, first to become aware of their own composing processes, and then to experiment with them. (EL)

Indicates a paradox in good writing: goals of truth and originality hinder writers, but at the same time, consistent and interesting writing must appear true and original. (MS)

James Agee's "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" is like many other works of American non-fiction in that it concentrates on the narrator's successful quest for wholeness of vision, a sense of home, and roots. (DD)

Flannery O'Connor, author of prose characterized by directness and precision and unusally aware of her relationship with her readers, was consciously committed to communication. Yet she submitted her readers to tests they failed repeatedly and which they were bound to fail; often readers missed the point. (MSE)

Discusses three factors that should be taken into account before a writer sets out to write an essay: audience, purpose, and personality of the writer. (AEA)

Discusses Paulo Freire's approach to adult education. Discusses personal conflicts with the traditional method of teaching and proposes how best to teach adult learners. Presents a practical version of the Freire model of desocialization based on experience with students who developed a nonfiction writing curriculum based on the nuclear arms race. (JS)

The Academic Life: Small Worlds, Different Worlds represented an impressive investigation of the largest and most complex national academic community in the world, which seriously attempted a detailed representation of the variations in its form. Its ethnographic orientation to understanding the internal academic life through exploratory interviews with individual faculty in different types of institution and a range of disciplines provided subtle and complex insights. The strength of its subsequent influence on scholars in this field, however, may have restricted analysis of broader transformations in higher education and society and the related restructuring of academic work and careers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews the book "Teaching Politics and International Relations" edited by Cathy Gormley-Heenan and Simon Lightfoot.