Natural History and Aesthetic Truth in Aesthetic Theory

Theodor W. Adorno’s claim in Aesthetic Theory that artworks have a truth content, and that this truth content in turn depends on philosophical interpretation, is among the work’s most challenging and obscure claims. This article argues that “The Idea of Natural History,” Adorno’s lecture dating to 1932, offers important resources for interpreting the claim of art’s truth content. Reading the lecture’s core idea of transience, the article proposes that the form of philosophical interpretation Adorno develops there illuminates one way to clarify what Adorno means, in Aesthetic Theory, by the interpretation of art’s truth content. While far from definitive, this conclusion does support interpretations of art’s truth content that foreground art’s function as a critique of ideology, that is, of having a field of application that moves beyond the sphere of the aesthetic and toward the disclosure of conditions of social domination.

Class Percentage of Students With Reading Difficulties on Content Knowledge and Comprehension

We examined the efficacy of a content acquisition and reading comprehension intervention implemented in eighth-grade social studies classrooms. Using a within-teacher randomized control design, 18 eighth-grade teachers’ social studies classes were randomly assigned to a treatment or comparison condition. Teachers taught all their classes (treatment and comparison) using the same content; however, in the treatment classes, teachers used instructional practices that included comprehension canopy, essential words, knowledge acquisition, and team-based learning. Students with reading comprehension difficulties in the treatment classes ( n = 359) outperformed students with reading comprehension difficulties in the comparison classes ( n = 331) on measures of content knowledge acquisition and content reading comprehension but not general reading comprehension. In addition, the proportion of students with reading comprehension difficulties in classes moderated outcomes for content knowledge acquisition and content reading comprehension.

Post Modern Image-Based Research: An Innovative Data Collection Method for Illuminating Preservice Teachers’ Developing Perceptions in Field-Based Courses

As part of course requirements twenty -eight preservice teachers in a field- based content reading course create d a series of se lf-portraits that illustrated their concerns and perceptions about teaching content reading. They accompanied their drawings with dialogue. Analysis of the portraits indicates that arts-based techniques have the potential to provide insights about preservice teachers’ perceived realities and understandings that narrative data alone might not reveal. The preservice teachers experienced high levels of stress as they prepared to teach their first lesson and their anxieties continued pas t mid-semester. By the end of the course the majority developed confidence in their teaching abilities and they were able to list a wide-range of content reading strategies however, they overlooked the visual and communicative arts.