Textbook

The educational technology and digital learning wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search

This article or section is currently under construction

In principle, someone is working on it and there should be a better version in a not so distant future.
If you want to modify this page, please discuss it with the person working on it (see the "history")

<pageby nominor="false" comments="false"/>

Definition

According to Wikipedia, retrieved 19:57, 8 August 2007 (MEST), “a textbook is a manual of instruction or a standard book in any branch of study. They are produced according to the demand of the educational institutions. Textbooks are usually published by one of the four major publishing companies. Although most textbooks are only published in printed format, some can now be viewed online.”

Textbook is a teaching tool (material) which presents the subject matter defined by the curriculum. A university textbook is required to contain the complete overview of the subject, including the theories, as well as to be of a more permanent character.(CARNet, retrieved 19:57, 8 August 2007 (MEST)).

In this article we will try to identify what we mean by textbook and then synthesize out a few fundamental textbook writing principles. So far, we didn't include any textbook research.

Introduction: What is a textbook ?

In this chapter we argue that textbooks are an element in instructional design, therefore one must start with by looking at the function(s) of a textbook. Therefore, in a way, use and production of a textbook is related to a "normal" instructional design problems and one can rely on it's various design methods and underlying psychological and pedagogical theory. On the other hand, one can identify particular functional and structural questions.

Textbook writing and pedagogical theory

Firstly, textbook writing is related to instructional design and therefore one might look at textbooks in terms of some instructional design models and methods.

On a prescriptive level, one might argue that authors should use at least some kind of backwards design, i.e. define what students are supposed to be able to do (e.g. solve problems) and then write the books that enables them to do so. In the same spirit, one also could argue that textbooks should respect some first principles of instruction, e.g. let's recall Merril's:

  • The demonstration principle: Learning is promoted when learners observe a demonstration
  • The application principle: Learning is promoted when learners apply the new knowledge
  • The activation principle: Learning is promoted when learners activate prior knowledge or experience
  • The integration principle: Learning is promoted when learners integrate their new knowledge into their everyday world
  • The task-centered principle: Learning is promoted when learners engage in a task-centered instructional strategy

However, textbook writing is a specific activity and one should not forget that textbooks are usually just an element in a given pedagogic strategy and must be planned together with possible pedagogical use cases. E.g. Horsley and Walker (2005:265) identify a changing conception of textbooks that is related to chaning learning theories. Teaching and learning materials e.g. textbooks are used differently according to pedagogical theory:

  • Transmission: Source of information, Basis of transmission, Knowledge authority, Structure of a teaching and learning program
  • Constructivist: Activity and inquiry source; Provision of multiple sources for students; student knowledge ;construction Multiple sources for teacher selection.
  • Sociocultural: Scaffolds learning; Enculturates students into disciplinary knowledge and practices; Source of inquiry activities; Basis of explicit teachings.

See also the related discussion around the pedagogical purpose of various kinds of learning objects.

This short discussion only tells us that textbooks can be analyzed in terms of their function and in this perspective it becomes less clear what a textbook is. E.g. Johnsen (2001) argues that “the definition of a textbook may be as general as to include other books made and published for educational purpose, or even any book used in the classroom. The textbook may also be a subset of an even broader and increasingly more commonly-used term "teaching media"”.

Daniel K. Schneider adheres to the idea that a textbook is a special genre of teaching media and that includes some kind of "built-in" pedgagogy.

Pedagogical objectives

Textbooks are written with pedagogical objectives in mind by the author. Of course, teacher and learners must construct their own representation and they sometimes re-purpose a text in ways not anticipated. E.g. a textbook, instead of for strong instruction, can be used just for reference.

For an author, there are several ways to manage objectives (each ISD model or extensions like the Kemp will tell you more). Often, advise on writing textbooks suggests to plan book chapters in terms of desired learning level outcomes.

Teacher's then defined reading assignments (textbooks as a whole or portions) in function of their pedagogical objectives. These may not be compatible with the original intent of the author.

The most important objectives concern learning objectives, e.g. what the student should master after having worked through the textbook, usually part of other class/homework activities. Again, both authors and teachers (and one could argue, learners too) should also engage in this exercise. For example, the IOWA writing assistant identifies 6 levels of emphasis based on Bloom's taxonomy of learning that we reproduce here exactly as defined in Applying your results (retrieved 20:03, 27 July 2007 (MEST)):

  1. Knowledge: rote memorization, recognition, or recall of facts.
  2. Comprehension: understanding what the facts mean.
  3. Application: correct use of the facts, rules, or ideas.
  4. Analysis: breaking down information into component parts.
  5. Synthesis: combination parts to make a new whole.
  6. Evaluation: judging the value or worth of information or ideas.

Depending on global objectives of the book, an author can put different emphasis on each "Bloom" level.

Objectives at book and chapter level should also be associated with activities, assessment, etc. Here is an example for Synthesis-level objective. Target students are students in educational technology. They have to prepare an e-Text about e-learning standards as an activity.

  • Objective: "By the end of this section, you (as a student) will be able to design a learning object that introduces key components of e-learning standards, and in particular modeling languages.
  • Activities: Make your own summary of the most important concepts you can find in articles on and then design of a course module with eXe
  • Assessment: The course module
  • Key Words: Design, formulate, build, invent, create, compose, generate, derive, modify, develop.

Usually in textbooks, objectives are not just used to plan the text, but they are made explicit. Objectives then can written out at the start of chapters and/or sections and activities inserted where appropriate. Hints for self-assessment can added too.

Genres of textbooks

As argued above, according to the educational context and pegagogy adopted by a teacher, textbooks can have very different functions and probably need to be organized in a different way. There are different ways to look textbooks and it may not be easy to define a taxonomy based on good criteria.

Daniel K. Schneider (after a little research) couldn't find any prominently cited list of textbook genres. Therefore I suggest looking at a few kinds of features that might help defined textbook features that might be used to build a taxonomy of genres

According to genres of teaching media

(Sigurgeirsson 1990, DsU 1980:4) cited by Johnsen distinguish five kinds "teaching media". In their pure form, Daniel K. Schneider would hesitated to call them textbooks. However, textbooks come in various form that can be close to these genres.

  • basic texts
  • manuals
  • workbooks
  • reference books
  • exercise books

These forms may be linked to their function in the global pedagogical design. E.g. a university teacher who "owns" his lectures, presents his own work-through example, designs his own assignments, etc. probably is rather interested in a pedagogically well written manual than a typical (lengthy) US textbook.

According to amount of "built-in pedgagogy"

There are parameters that define how much "built-in pegagoy" is needed. Typically in small classrooms or systems with strong tutoring support, there is less need.

Here are few typical setups for which textbook needs may be different:

  • Small classrooms (with less than 20 students)
  • Large classrooms (teacher can not monitor individual students)
  • Large classrooms with attached seminars/labs run by teaching assistants
  • Good distance education (tutored learning
  • Low cost distance education (full self-learning)
Cost

There is a question of cost, in particular for the third world where interest is very high in quality Open educational resources.

  • Rich / medium / poor context (students can/cannot afford textbooks)

Since textbooks are expensive, cost is also an issue in countries where education is supposed to be free (e.g. in Switzerland) and where textbooks are mainly used for "supplementary reading".

According to any sort of learning or pedagogical theory.
  • Learning modes. E.g. Hayes (2005) uses Kolb's experiential learning modes: active / concrete learning, reflective / active learning.
  • Learning theory, e.g. behaviorist, cognitivist, constructivist, socio-constructivist like in Horsley and Walker (2005:265)
Political
  • Titles that are formally approved by some body (a university, a school district, etc.) as teaching materials.
  • Titles that are sold as textbooks (e.g. everything that is published by Pearson's brands)
According to media
  • Published as book (online or offline)
  • Informal linear texts (online or offline)
  • Non-linear online texts

Language and organization of contents

Textbooks, in language research seems to be identified as a genre (or genres). Most research focus on structual analysis of textbooks, but some research also produces knowledge that can be used for prescriptions: According to Jones (2005), textbook writers have three choices: simplification, easyfication, or the scaffolding of concept knowledge. We shall summarize some prescriptions can be derived from this article.

Simplification strategies - enhanced cohesion/coherence
  • simplification of content: explain new technical terms as they arise
  • simplification of form: make sure that the text has cohesive links and restores implicit relationships, e.g. when using general-specific of problem-solution progressions.
  • simplification by including explanations and exemplifications
  • using similar structures, i.e. syntactic repetition acts as a form of syntactic scaffolding.

Note that simplification may turn against learning. For example NcNamara et al. (1996) found that “text coherence improved readers' comprehension, but also that giving readers with sufficient background knowledge an incoherent text that forced them to infer unstated relations engaged them in compensatory processing, allowing deeper text understanding than might occur with a coherent text.”

Easification strategies - enhancing structure

The purpose easification is to “give learners an additional instructional appahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textbookratus by developing a kind of "access structure" around the text without his [sic] having gone through the intervening stages of simplified materials” Bhatia cited by Jones (2005:9). Examples of such devices are:

  • Provide introductory paragraph(s) to a text (or text segment)
  • Provide a structural analysis ('tagging' sections) to a text (or text segment), e.g. as in Advance Organizers.
  • Provide a schematic representation of a text (or text segment)
  • Add annotations/explanations to the text, e.g. marginalia
  • Add metadiscursive commentaries (before, in the middle, or after)
  • Add questions to encourage interactions with the text
Scaffolding - providing domain knowledge

“Scaffolding in the sense intended here means the provision of a series of carefully designed pre-task exercises (or activities) which allow students to familiarize themselves with concepts of increasing complexity and to explore these concepts in terms of their reactances and interrelations.” Jones (2005:10)

Typical activities can be:

  • filling in gapped texts
  • complete sentences
  • propositional clusters
  • produce or complete tables and flow charts
  • write summaries of various sorts, e.g. include critique, most things relevant, organize information, etc.

Note that these activities can be assigned by teacher, i.e. must not necessarily be part of the text itself.

Textbook chapter elements

Most textbooks are written with a sort of direct instruction model in mind. However, this is not an obligation. On the other hand, teachers engaged in other pedagogical approaches do not necessarily use textbooks, but rather a combination of manuals and "normal" academic texts.

But in any case, chapters should be planned also in terms of various functional elements and that also may show visually. This chapter is partly based on Lepionka (2003), chapters 8-10.

Overview and introduction

Lepionka (2003:117-118,123) distinguishes four major elements:

Openers
Express “subject, theme, aims, topics, and organization of a chapter [... readers should] know at the outset what they are reading and why or to what end” (Lepionka 2003:117). E.g. if you follow Gagné's nine events of instruction then you should include

something to motivate and gain attention (step 1), something to help the frame and organize (step 2) and something to recall prior knowledge (step 3).

Closers
Give students opportunities to review, reinforce, or extend their learning, i.e. help with transfer (Lepionka 2003:118)
Internal Pedagogical Devices
Feature Strands


Learning objectives

Organizers

Case studies, scenarios, vignettes

Quotations and epigrams

Pictures

Conclusion and summary

List of definitions

Review questions

Transfer aids

Self-assessment

Further reading

Typographic Design

Pedagogical discourse should be reflected in layout.

Titles

Marginalia

Strong text

Crossreferences

Boxes

Textbook research

Below are some (disorganized) strands of textbook research .... (this chapter needs to be completed some day, for the moment I just copy/pasted a few quotes and ideas - Daniel K. Schneider 19:57, 8 August 2007 (MEST))

How students deal with textbooks

As a whole, but also focused research on things like presentations, in particular combination of illustrations with text. E.g. Wolf

Analysis of learning modes and styles

Haynes (2005:295), in a study (based on Kolb's experiential learning) of three textbooks he concludes: “In summary, we may say that Beginning Theory, Doing English and The English Studies Book all provide frequent prompts to abstract learning. Two of them - Beginning Theory and Doing English - do this too for concrete learning. Doing English provides more fully than either of the other two texts for reflective learning, though through its learning activities The English Studies Book also does this to some extent. The section in The English Studies Book is the only one that explicitly provides for active learning. None of the books offers balanced provision for all four modes of learning.”

Linguistic organization

E.g. Lucas, 2005:57) concludes that “Textbooks are representative of the didactic genre, which cross languages and epochs. This genre is based on explanation but also aims at active implication from the reader. It implies a very careful organisation and layout, in order to guide the reader and provide room for interaction. Exercises are the canonical form of interaction. Due to the many constraints of clear explanation and sufficiently detailed information on each topic, textbooks share many common features. Clear segmentation allows parallel progression between illustration discourse and text discourse. Overall progression through the book is marked by explicit checkpoints. Although textbooks are highly constrained, they still differ widely according to matter and grade, not to mention culture.”

Aamotsbakken (2005:102) considers that textbook both contain open and closed texts (Eco). Open texts are open for interpretation because they challenge the reader with a spectre of explicit and implict codes, intertextuality and a complicated structure.

Textbook production

  • Roles of publishers and editors

Cognitive processes and textbook production

  • The cognitive psychology of textbook composition, e.g. Flower and Higgins (see writing-to-learn for more references.

Content analysis and politics

According to Johnsen (2001), “Up to the 1970s, the whole field of textbook research was dominated by a few traditions (history book revision and historical content analyses) and by individual and composite works published at long intervals.”. Examples are Fleming (1982) or Anyon (1979)

Reader-book relationship

A textbook must be interpreted by the reader according to most modern cognitive and text analysis theories.

Rosenblatt (1978) cited by Johnsen (2001) “pointed out that no text is complete until it has been read, and that there must of necessity be several ways to read all texts since they are used by people with vastly different backgrounds, even if they are the same age.” and Fisch (1980) cuted by Johnsen (2001) argues that “groups of reading and interpretation patterns emerge which are determined more by society than by individuals”.

See also Aamotsbakken (2005: 106)'s model readers vs. real readers

Textbook - teacher relationship

E.g. Ball and Feiman-Nemser (1988:401) “Although the student teachers were enrolled in two different teacher education programs, all of them developed the impression that if they wanted to be good teachers, they should avoid following textbooks and relying on teachers' guides. They believed that good teaching means creating your own lessons and materials instead. These ideas proved difficult to act on during student teaching when the student teachers worked in classrooms where textbooks formed the core of instruction and they confronted the fact that they were beginning teachers lacking knowledge, skill and experience.” (cited by Johnsen, 2001).

“John A. Zahorik demonstrates the teacher-book complexity in his investigation of the relationship between textbooks and teaching styles (Zahorik 1990 and 1991). He based his work on that of K. Hinchman (Hinchman 1987) and D. Alverman (Alverman 1989), both of whom distinguish between three types of usage that also display a strong correlation to three teaching styles. The textbook may be perceived and used as a) a source of facts to be learned ("coverage"), b) a source of different types of activities ("textbook based activities") and/or c) a basis for interpretation and discussion ("higher level interpretation/reference").” (Johnsen, 2001).

Textbooks and the educational system

“Tools and media are ambivalent: as institutions they contribute to the stabilisation of the educational institution, but they also challenge the institution and they force it to evolve. The textbook is more than a simple tool. Because of the values that it transmits, and through the instrumentation that it offers to the master and the pupil, it highlights the professionalism of both, it testifies to their specialisation and becomes one of the factors of their social recognition. But, while the textbook officializes and consolidates, it also introduces changes, encourages innovations and facilitates reforms.” (Moeglin, 2005:20).

Other research looks into the approval processes and the relation of textbooks with curricula.

Cultural differences

Textbooks are particularly important in the mainstream US Educational system that has strong roots in more traditional instructional design.

Most of Europe's higher education system is somewhat different

  • On one hand more emphasis is put on "Bildung" (education) as opposed to training. Students are supposed to organize knowledge themselves and be able to cope with all sorts of more primary materials (e.g. real academic books and articles).
  • Professors are supposed to develop their own lecture (and views). These actually may be considered "spoken textbooks" since often students are just supposed to reproduce contents at exams. University teachers also have a fairly low teaching load (e.g. about 6 hours) since their main job is to do research.

Both of these features (that are in contradiction) make textbooks not very popular in standard universities. However, in most European countries there are higher education institutions with little research and high teaching loads, such as the Swiss Universities of Applied Sciences and these have a lot in common with American "teaching universities".

Dumbing down questions

Critiques of textbooks often claim that there can be dumbing down effect, in particular since some textbook authors indeed overdo simplification. But one must clearly distinguish between (1) the general question whether systematic use of textbooks (as in teaching universities) can have a dumbing down effect and the (2) the question whether some textbooks are too easy and aim too low and whether this is a global trend in education.

Links

General
Advice on writing textbooks
Examples of (technical) author guidelines
Electronic textbooks
Discussions
Organizations and conferences


Software

See various writing tools for a longer list of tools and a discussion of various writing tool categories.

References

Textbook understanding

  • Conderman, Greg; Elf, Nanci (2007), What's in This Book? Engaging Students through a Textbook Exploration Activity, Reading & Writing Quarterly, v23 n1 p111-116 Jan-Mar 2007.

Practical Textbook and book writing

  • Alley, M. 1996 The Craft of Scientific Writing (3rd Ed.). Springer-Verlag New York, Inc. ISBN 0-387-94766-3
  • Ben-Ari, M., Walker, H. M., Redvers-Mutton, G., and Mansfield, K. 2002. Writing a textbook. In Proceedings of the 7th Annual Conference on innovation and Technology The Textbook and after... Pierre Moeglinin Computer Science Education (Aarhus, Denmark, June 24 - 28, 2002). ITiCSE '02. ACM Press, New York, NY, 94-95. DOI 10.1145/544414.544444 (Summary of a panel discussion).
  • Dale, N., Mercer, R., Koffman, E., and Savitch, W. 2001. Writing a textbook: walking the gauntlet. SIGCSE Bull. 33, 1 (Mar. 2001), 408-409. Abstract (summary of a panel discussion)
  • Forbes, David J., (1996), Make History Textbook Writing "A Puzzlement", The History Teacher. Vol. 29, No. 4 (Aug., 1996), pp. 455-461. JSTOR Bitmap/POF
  • Hatch, Mary Jo (2007). Writing From Teaching: A Textbook Writer's Tale, Journal of Management Education, Vol. 31, No. 3, 405-412 (2007). DOI 10.1177/1052562906298443
  • Lepionka, Mary Ellen (2003), Writing and Developing Your College Textbook, ISBN 0-9728164-0-2. (This practical book gets good reviews. I bought it and find it useful - Daniel K. Schneider)
  • Lepionka, Mary Ellen (2005), Writing and Developing College Textbook Supplements ISBN 0-9728164-1-0
  • Silv (Eco)erman, Franklin H. (2004), Self-Publishing Textbooks and Instructional Materials, ISBN 0-9728164-3-7
  • Thirlway, M. 1994 Writing Software Manuals: a Practical Guide. Prentice-Hall, Inc. ISBN 0-13-138801-0
  • Ranking, Elizabeth, The Work of Writing: Insights and Strategies for Academics and Professionals, Wiley, ISBN: 978-0-7879-5679-0

Textbook research

Disclaimer: I don't have any knowledge in textbook research. I copied some references (e.g. from Johnsen, 2001) to have some starting points for further reading ... when I feel so ... - Daniel K. Schneider

  • Aamotsbakken Bente (2005). The relation between the model reader/-s and the authentic reader/-s. The possibilities for identification when reading curricular texts, Eighth International Conference on Learning and Educational Media. PDF
  • Anderson, Thomas H., Bonnie B. Armbruster: (1981) "Content Area Textbooks." In: Anderson, Richard C., Jean Osborn, Robert J.Tierney (eds.): Learning to Read in American Schools: Basal Readers and Content Texts. New York
  • Anyon, Jean (1979) "Ideology and United States History Textbooks." In:Harvard Educational Review 49:3,
  • Alverman, D. (1989). "Teacher-Student Mediation of Content Area Texts." Theory into Practice 27.
  • Apple, Michael W., Linda K. Christian-Smith (eds.) (1991). The Politics of The Textbook. London/New York.
  • Ball, Deborah Loewenberg, Sharon Feiman-Nemser (1988). "Using Textbooks and Teachers' Guides: A Dilemma for Beginning Teachers and Teacher Educators.", Curriculum Inquiry 18:4
  • Bhatia, V. K. Simplification v. Easification: The Case of Legal Texts. Applied Linguistics 4(1), pp. 39-78.
  • Cole, John Y., Thomas G. Sticht(eds.): The Textbook in American Society. Washington DC 1981.
  • Connors, Robert J. (1986). College Composition and Communication, Vol. 37, No. 2. (May, 1986), pp. 178-194. Available from JSTOR: HTML
  • Davies, Florence (1986). "The Function of the Textbook in Sciences and the Humanities." In: Gillham, Bruce (ed.): The Language of School Subjects.
  • De Castell, Suzanne, Allan Luke, Carmen Luke (eds.) (1989): Language, Authority and Criticism. Readings on the School Textbook. London/New York/Philadelphia.
  • Eco, Umberto. 1981. The Role of the Reader. Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts. London: Hutchinsons & Co.Ltd.
  • Farrell, Joseph P., Stephen P. Heyneman (eds.) (1989). Textbooks in the Developing World. Economic and Educational Choices. The World Bank. Washington DC.
  • Flower, L. & Hayes, J. R. (1984). Images, plans, and prose: The representation of meaning in writing. Written Communication 1: 120-160.
  • Flower and Higgings, Collaboration And The Construction Of Meaning, Technical Report No. 56 PDF. This is a preprint of a writtten communication article.
  • Grannis, C.B. (ed.) (1967): What happens in Textbook Publishing. New York.
  • Graves, M.F., W.H.Slater (1986). "Could Textbooks Be Better Written and Would It Make a Difference?" American Educator 10:1.
  • Haynes Anthony, Textbooks as Learning Resources, Eighth International Conference on Learning and Educational Media. PDF
  • Hinchman, K. (1987). "The Textbook and Those Content Area Teachers.", Reading Research and Instruction 26
  • Horsley, Mike and Richard Walker (2005). Video Based Classroom Observation Systems for Examining the Use and Role of Textbooks and Teaching Materials in Learning, Eighth International Conference on Learning and Educational Media. PDF
  • Johnsen, Egil Børre (2001), Textbooks in the Kaleidoscope, A Critical Survey of Literature and Research on Educational Texts, Translated by Linda Sivesind, Digital Edition Tønsberg: Vestfold College, 2001 HTML (This on-line text also includes a good bibliography, up the early 1990's).
  • Fisch, S.: Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities. Cambridge 1980.
  • Fleming, D.B., R.J. Nurse (1982): "Vietnam Revised: Are our Textbooks Changing?" In: Social Education No. 46.
  • Jones, Alan (2005) Conceptual Development in Technical and Textbook Writing: A Challenge for L1 and L2 Student Readers, Proceedings of the International Professional Communication Conference, Limerick, Ireland, 12-15 July, 2005. PDF - Abstract
  • Lucas, Nadine (2005). Textbooks as a research challenge in computational linguistics, Eighth International Conference on Learning and Educational Media. PDF
  • Michael, Ian (1990). "Aspects of Textbook Research." Paradigm No.2
  • McNamara, D.S., Kintsch, E., Songer, N.B. and Kintsch, W. (1996). "Are good texts always better? Interactions of text coherence, background knowledge, and levels of understanding in learning from text", Cognition and Instruction, v14 n1 p1-43.
  • Mikk, Jaan. 2000. Textbook: Research and Writing. Frankfurt: Peter Lang GmbH. ISBN 3-631-36335-4
  • Nazarova, T. S. Gospodarik, I. P. (2006). Strategy for the Development of the Textbook. Russian Education And Society 48 (6).
  • Myers, G. (1992). Textbooks and the sociology of scientific knowledge. English for Specific Purposes, 11, 3-17.
  • Rosenblatt, L.: The Reader, the Text, the Poem. Carbondale 1978.
  • Pierre Moeglin, The Textbook and after,Eighth International Conference on Learning and Educational Media. PDF.
  • Schorling, Raleigh, J.B. Edmonson: "The Techniques of Textbook Authors." In: The Thirtieth Yearbook of the NSSE. Part II. Bloomington 1931.
  • Sigurgeirsson, Ingvar: "Inquiring into the Nature, Role, and Use of Curriculum Materials in Icelandic Schools." Reykjavik 1990.
  • Squire, James R.: "Textbooks to the Forefront." In: Book Research Quarterly, Summer 1985.
  • Trail Mary Ann; Carolyn Gutierrez and David Lechner (2006)., Reconsidering a Traditional Instruction Technique: Reassessing the Print Workbook, The Journal of Academic Librarianship, Volume 32, Issue 6, November 2006, Pages 632-640. (Abstract)
  • Tyson-Bernstein, Harriet, Woodward, Arthur: "Why Students Aren't Learning Very Much from Textbooks." In: Educational Leadership, November 1989
  • Woodward, Arthur, David L. Elliott (eds.): NSSE Yearbook 1990: Part I. Textbooks and Schooling in the United States. Chicago 1990.
  • Russel, Activity Theory and Its Implications for Writing Instruction. In Reconceiving Writing, Rethinking Writing Instruction. Ed. Joseph Petraglia. (Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum,1995): 51-78. (Word Preprint).
  • Wolf, Shelby A. Interpreting Literature with Children, ISBN: 0805845143
  • Zahorik, John A. (1990) "Stability and Flexibility in Teaching." In: Teaching andTeacher Education No. 6.

Instructional objectives

See also: instructional design and instructional design method in particular.

  • Felder, Richard M. and Rebecca Brent (1997). Objectively Speaking, Chemical Engineering Education, 31(3), 178-179 (1997). HTML reprint
  • Gronlund, N.E. (1991)- How to write and use instructional objectives (4th ed.) New York, Macmillan.

Textbooks and the evolution of the school system

  • Apple, Michael W., and Linda K. Christian-Smith, eds. The Politics of the Textbook. New York: Routledge, 1991.
  • Altbach, Philip G., Gail P. Kelly, Hugh G. Petrie, and Lois Weiss, eds. Textbooks in American Society: Politics, Policy, and Pedagogy. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991.
  • Schlafly, Phyllis (1996). The Dumbing Down of America's Colleges, Eagle Forum 29:9 (has to do more with a critique of the school system)
  • Gionfriddo, Jeanne Jarema, The Dumbing Down of Textbooks: An Analysis of Six Textbook Editions during a Twelve Year Span. M.A. Thesis, Kean College of New Jersey.