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James Joyce's 'Circe' episode in Ulysses, by way of its closet drama form, raises questions at the center of ongoing debates on reading practice and method. Joyce uses the closet drama genre, whose name and tradition call attention to depth and concealment, to examine the relationship between surfaces and depths. Instances of free indirect discourse and interior monologue within the 'Circe' episode's stage directions renegotiate reader receptivity and accessibility. Ultimately, 'Circe' is not only a consideration of surfaces and depths but also the relationship between action and contemplation. Honoring the closet drama's historical function as pedagogical and philosophical apparatus, 'Circe' is an opportunity to evaluate the relationship between theory and practice in literary studies. Keywords: James Joyce / Ulysses / reading practice / closet drama / method / theory, An adolescent James Joyce wrote, 'There is nothing so deceptive and for all that so alluring as a good surface' in his page-long composition 'Trust Not Appearances' at Belvedere College [...]

In this paper, I investigate some of the reasons for the relative paucity of scholarly attention given to Niq Mhlongo's debut novel, Dog Eat Dog. I argue that this text anticipates and articulates themes that are vital to contemporary South African culture generally, and to the academic space of the university specifically. For this reason, I contend that it is a work worthy of consideration, both because of its unusual form (it is a novel of ordeal rather than a Bildungsroman), and its prescient depiction of issues to do with institutional racism and academic exclusion-subjects which were central during the student-led protests on South African campuses in 2015 and 2016. A principal thesis of this article is that one of the reasons for literary study's unwillingness to engage with the novel is the discipline's predisposition to a hermeneutics of suspicion, a method of analysis that I show is unsuited to Mhlongo's text. Instead, I argue for the use of surface reading as a valid and appropriate praxis given the form and the content of Dog Eat Dog. KEYWORDS Niq Mhlongo, Dog Eat Dog, surface reading, #FeesMustFall, Novel of Ordeal, In a provocative blog published in 2011, renowned cultural critic Sarah Nuttall posited that South African literary studies had problems: it was no longer responsive enough to the cultural works [...]

I was delighted to receive your letter asking about the best route to becoming a theologian. Let me confess up front: I'm still in via myself. My business card should [...]

In thinking about Early American Literature at fifty, and looking forward to the fifty years ahead, one concept that I'd like to propose is that of a 'networked field.' I [...]

At the center of Wyndham Lewis's aesthetics is a theory about what kind of novel resembles a machine. In his view, modern society experienced technology in terms of time, as [...]

Much ink has been spilt in asserting what it is we do when we read; our proper proximity, pace, and disposition to texts all seem to be recently up for [...]

In Words nd Ends from Ez (1989), Jackson Mac Low systematically reads the letters of the name E-Z-R-A P-O-U-N-D through The Cantos, reducing Pound's source text to fragments in an [...]

This article presumes that recent debates about the nature of reading take implicit positions on the corporate university's project of replacing critical with instrumental reason. In response it argues for a 'curatorial' approach to historical objects, one predicated on a relation of care that is intrinsic (aimed at cultural objects themselves) and extrinsic (aimed at critiquing the violence such objects necessarily mediate). Three photographs by Felice Beato stand as test cases: via the trope of prosopopoeia, or displacement, these images are held to perform the conceptual activity most often ascribed to (later) critics. Seen curatorially, Beato's dynamic images enable us (in Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's terms) to be reparative in reading them but properly paranoid about the ongoing work of empire., It is a truism that all thinking about the past takes shape in dialogue with the present. But a corollary is that acts of historical thinking necessarily imply judgments on [...]

Surface reading, the most prominent example of the recent backlash against the 'hermeneutics of suspicion,' eschews traditional depth-based approaches to literary and cultural analysis in favor of more descriptive reading practices. Despite the stridency of these assertions, however, when compared to traditional reading practices the published examples of surface reading demonstrate little methodological innovation. A discursive analysis of the emotional rhetoric mobilized by these arguments suggests that the real issue at stake has less to do with methodological dissatisfaction than with political disappointment. A reading of George Eliot's Romola (1862-63) draws a parallel between Romola's disillusionment with her spiritual and political mentor and surface reading's frustration with a previous generation of critics whose political promises remain unfulfilled. Eliot's merciless dissection of both characters reminds us that, for her, sympathy was both an ethical mandate and a critical practice, a positive form of suspicion that reorients, rather than repudiates, accepted interpretive methodologies., It is tempting to say that we need not speculate on the legacy of historicism because, to adapt a scene from Middlemarch (1871-72), our own methodological version of Mr. Featherstone [...]

The full title of Sihle Khumalo's travel account, Dark Continent My Black Arse: By Bus, Boksie, Matola ... from Cape to Cairo (2007), already provides the reader with a possible lens through which to read the work. Khumalo's journey follows in the footsteps of those sons of empire who imagined a route from the Cape to Cairo and references the idea of Africa as 'dark' and unexplored until seen by imperial eyes. A reader wanting Khumalo's text to resist these tropes is disappointed, however. This article aims to find a context for this book that will make its engagement with texts and genres other than travel writing visible. Its relation to travel writing, I suggest, is both obvious and limiting as a framework. Instead the argument here seeks to activate other intertextual fields, to make other trends in the text and our responses to it visible. A reading that yields more is one that reads this text as akin to the genre of self-help manuals that Khumalo admires and consults. This article also relates Khumalo's book to the FIFA World Cup and similar discourses about nationhood and continental African identities, arguing that these intertexts generate more contextualized readings., HOW TO WRITE ABOUT AFRICA, HOW TO READ ABOUT AFRICA When a book by the then unknown, first-time, author Sihle Khumalo was first published in 2007, it was discussed enthusiastically [...]

This, then, is the limit of common sense. What lies beyond involves a Leap of Faith, faith in lost Causes, Causes that, from within the space of skeptical wisdom, cannot [...]

When most children read narrative texts they actively utilise cognitive resources to comprehend by constructing appropriate mental models of story events. However, many children with poor comprehension experience difficulties due to an inability to appropriately direct attention and to effectively use the resources of working memory. As a result, their ability to construct integrated mental models of story content may be impaired. However, their reading comprehension performance can be improved when they are taught inferential reading comprehension strategies involving both verbal and visual processes to facilitate more elaborated mental modeling of narrative texts. This article discusses how such strategies can be implemented and consolidated using a metacognitive focus within a flexible multiple-strategy framework., Introduction The simple view of reading (Gough & Tunmer, 1986) provides a model to conceptualise reading comprehension as the product of two dimensions: listening comprehension and word decoding processes (Kirby [...]

Researchers use the brain glitch theory to group diverse reading differences and learning styles under a single label of phonics impairment, leading policymakers to promote a common, phonics-heavy reading instruction. However, new advances in neuroscience reveal that learning is a complex process in which enjoyment of reading plays an important role.

In 2 experiments, the authors tested the effect of 2 types of reading on the spelling memory of strange or sound--spelling inconsistent words in Dutch students with and without learning disabilities: standard reading and regularized reading. Standard reading refers to reading the word the way it has to be read. Regularized reading refers to reading a sound--spelling inconsistent word as if it is sound--spelling consistent. In Experiment 1, both groups showed a short-term effect. Shortly after training, all students who participated in the regularized-reading condition showed better spelling performance than students who took part in a standard-reading condition. One week after training, spelling knowledge of students without learning disabilities appeared to be more stable than that of students with learning disabilities. In Experiment 2, only students with learning disabilities participated. The results reveal that more training substantially enhanced spelling performance in the long term, and repetition of the regularized word was even more effective. A recurrent network account served as the guiding principle to explain the results. Keywords: learning to spell, strange words, consistency, learning disabilities, feedback models

Preschoolers' (N = 156) classroom language and literacy experiences, defined across multiple dimensions, and their vocabulary and emergent literacy development were investigated. Videotaped classroom observations revealed substantial variability in amount and types of language and emergent literacy activities, across classrooms and for individual children within classrooms. Generally, more time in emergent code-focused activities was associated with preschoolers' alphabet and letter--word recognition growth, whereas more time in meaning-focused activities (e.g., book reading) was related to vocabulary growth. Only teacher- and teacher--child-managed activities were associated with alphabet and letter--word growth, whereas child-managed experiences, including play, were also associated with vocabulary growth. Overall, the effect size for student-level, code-focused instruction (small group) was about 10 times greater than was its classroom-level (whole-class) counterpart. There were Child X Instruction interactions, with the impact of different activities varying with preschoolers' incoming vocabulary and emergent literacy. Keywords: prekindergarten, language development, reading, early childhood development

This paper has been adapted from a previous publication, 'Reading visual and multimodal texts: how is reading different?', in Conference Proceedings (2005) Multiliteracies and English Teaching K-12 in the Age of Information and Communications Technology. ALEA Conference 2004, University of New England. This paper examines the differences between reading print-based texts and multimodal texts within the context of changed literacy practices. The author closely analyses aspects of a novel, a picture book and an internet site to determine the similarities and differences in the way readers might process each text. The 'affordances' of modes are considered in relation to a text's purpose and the meaning-making involved., Introduction In the realm of literacy education there is much discussion of the textual shift, and thus 'paradigm shift' (Bearne, 2003) that has occurred for today's students whose environment is [...]

Abstract Reading journals can be used in a variety of ways to encourage students to read more reflectively and to develop skills in communicating their understanding. While normally used as [...]

This article describes the development and validation of a new self-report instrument, the Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory, which is designed to assess adolescent and adult readers' metacognitive awareness and perceived use of reading strategies while reading academic or school-related materials. There were 3 strategy subscales or factors: Global Reading Strategies, Problem-Solving Strategies, and Support Reading Strategies. The reliability and factorial validity of the scale were demonstrated. After a brief review of the literature, the development and validation of the instrument are described, and its psychometric properties are discussed. In addition, directions for administering and scoring the instrument are provided, and suggestions for interpreting the results obtained are offered. Finally, the scales' implications for reading research and instruction are discussed.

This article examines the reading and writing curricula used by the Northern Lights School District in Alberta, Canada to improve the literacy of their students. An evaluation of the literacy program shows that struggling students need more independent reading and writing experience, as well as instruction in vocabulary.

The significance of books that amplify life is examined through children's own words.

Issues concerning the teaching of reading to struggling pupils are discussed. Three strategies based on social constructivism which can help poor readers are presented.

Literature is examined as a contract between author and reader, focusing on works of law and realist writings. Topics include the open-ended nature of this contract and its conversion of reading from a passive to a performative activity.

Writers Jeanette Winterson, Roland Barthes, and photographer Sophie Calle provide a meditative pathway to understanding Virginia Woolf's book 'A Room of One's Own.' The androgynous aspects of the mind, the necessity for resolving dualities by a third principle, and the connection between the camera and the literary text can be explored. Literary critics must follow the revolutionary paths established by artists.