A state-of-the-art compendium of resource materials and current practice that answers two basic questions: "What is literacy?" and "How do individuals become literate?" Not long ago, literacy simply meant knowing how to read and write. Today, the study of literacy is a complex field encompassing many different areas, from computer literacy to geographic literacy, and including several degrees of competence such as functional, pragmatic, and cultured. In addition there are six kinds of readers: the submissive, the active, the semiotic, the subjective, the psychoanalytic, and the interpretive community reader, and at least two distinct ways of reading: aesthetic reading and rational reading. In this comprehensive, accessible volume, two literacy experts not only help readers understand the latest theories and the heated controversies in this exciting field, they also show readers how this vast new knowledge is being applied in successful literacy programs. Detailed discussion of reader response theory and the different types of readers Contact information for a variety of literacy organizations along with a list of websites offering lesson plans, teaching resources, and literacy research

A Road Less Traveled: Critical Literacy and Language Learning in the Classroom, 1964-1996 takes us through what Robert W. Blake calls the "jaunty journey" of the English/English Language Arts classroom from its linguistic and literature foundations, to emphases on close reading techniques and structures to composing and responding to literature. A Road Less Traveled heads bumpily into the path of learning how to work with "non-native speakers" and other "basic" students toward a (re)-burst of a renewed interest in poetry and drama, reader response, a process approach to writing, and the diverse student, showing through the often winding and blurry road along the journey of our literacy travels over 30 years, that what we understood best about reading and writing has stood the test of time.

A Road Less Traveled: Critical Literacy and Language Learning in the Classroom, 1964-1996 takes us through what Robert W. Blake calls the "jaunty journey" of the English/English Language Arts classroom from its linguistic and literature foundations, to emphases on close reading techniques and structures to composing and responding to literature. A Road Less Traveled heads bumpily into the path of learning how to work with "non-native speakers" and other "basic" students toward a (re)-burst of a renewed interest in poetry and drama, reader response, a process approach to writing, and the diverse student, showing through the often winding and blurry road along the journey of our literacy travels over 30 years, that what we understood best about reading and writing has stood the test of time.

There is often confusion over the meaning and usage of terms such as efficiency, economy, effectiveness, optimization, and perfection in biology. This book defines and discusses these concepts within a broad evolutionary perspective and considers how evolutionary pressures can affect the economy and efficiency of animals. Chapters consider biomaterials, skeletal systems, muscular function, aquatic and terrestrial locomotion, and cardiovascular systems. The result is a book of interest to all biologists, particularly those working in the field of comparative physiology and evolutionary biology.

There is often confusion over the meaning and usage of terms such as efficiency, economy, effectiveness, optimization, and perfection in biology. This book defines and discusses these concepts within a broad evolutionary perspective and considers how evolutionary pressures can affect the economy and efficiency of animals. Chapters consider biomaterials, skeletal systems, muscular function, aquatic and terrestrial locomotion, and cardiovascular systems. The result is a book of interest to all biologists, particularly those working in the field of comparative physiology and evolutionary biology.