Examines three representative short poems to illustrate some of the difficulties that traditional textual criticism would encounter with them. Outlines some ways in which different approaches could deal with these difficulties. (RL)

To help students develop a broadly generative approach to reading and writing about literature, teachers of literature should employ not only systematic procedures, but also the eclectic and utilitarian spirit of rhetorical invention. A semiotic perspective offers the most solid theoretical foundation for establishing a genuinely heuristic…

Describes how to adapt a film study technique (Richard Lacey's image sound skim) to literary study (the image or scene skim) to develop students' skill in perceptive reading. (DD)

Suggests a method for teaching students how to mark up literary texts, as well as other texts in order to develop an intimate acquaintance with literature. (DD)

Encourages the study of critical and textual variations in order to raise students' awareness of how cultural and literary assumptions influence their reading and to show students how their understanding of a work can be altered by subtle variations. (DD)

Suggests that literary study should employ student creative writing as a transition into expository critical writings and discussion of literary works. (DD)

Using primary sources in literature classrooms--getting students to examine authors' manuscripts, notebooks, and letters--helps students to develop critical methods and analytic skills for questioning literature's minute particulars. (RL)

Because gifted/talented and creative high school students typically seek new views, a Sartrean analysis is useful in encouraging them to see things in less conventional ways. Jean-Paul Sartre's literary theories postulate that literature is action and writing is engagement and that the writer is responsible for "awakening" society. (CB)

Describes a college composition course in which the class read and evaluated newspaper articles from the "Atlanta Journal-Constitution" as it critically addressed the operations of subtexts, genres, target readers, and class interests. (JD)

Offers a list of questions for teachers to ask their literature classes, including questions on the author, the style, the theme, the setting, and the plot. Notes how sequencing these questions can prepare students for other activities in literature appreciation. (RL)

Offers an essay on the "obscenities" of Shakespeare's "Macbeth," to be used as a class exercise in critical reading, diction, and tone. (RL)

Recounts a method for advancing from literal to more subtle interpretations of language in literature. (HTH)

Describes four stages in a reading and writing transaction involving a reader's response to literature. The four stages described are involvement, perception, interpretation, and evaluation; student writing is required at each of these stages. (MKM)

Presents ideas for teaching the beginnings of literary criticism to secondary school English students that build on the confidence the students have in their command of the English language. (HOD)

Describes a technique whereby students are taught to use information they have gained from secondary sources to write critical introductions to novels they have read. (FL)