Describes the "particle, wave, field" heuristic for gathering information, and shows how students can apply that heuristic in analyzing literature and in using procedures of historical criticism. (RL)

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)

Shows how English teachers can use film to upgrade the literary consciousness of theatre goer and reader alike. (RL)

Describes how the Aristotelian model of causality can be used to help college students systematically analyze the components, point of view, organization, and purpose of a literary theory. The literary theories of Plato, Aristotle, Longinus, Sidney, Pope, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley are analyzed, using this model. (AM)

The number of staff members serving American higher education institutions has more than doubled in the past twenty years, as occupations in technology, development, government relations, and even athletic administration have grown as never before in the history of the academy. As the number, variety, and importance of these positions have grown,…

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…

Discusses the approaches college students often take in writing literary interpretation essays for introductory courses in literature, and suggests more profitable approaches students might take. (DD)

Outlines a course designed to help students become more effective critics by teaching them a variety of ways to read and analyze literature. (RB)

Outlines common abuses that occur when students first use dramatic analysis in oral interpretation. Offers guidelines to help make students' efforts more productive; uses William Carlos Williams's poem "The Red Wheelbarrow" as an example. (PD)

Describes how an approach, limited to the reading and teaching of lyric poems, can serve as a means of opening up the world of interpretive reading to marginal readers. (DD)

Guidelines for critical evaluation of speeches, a skill seldom taught in journalism courses, are given in the areas of content, organization, rhetoric, and environment (CORE). (HTH)

Describes how an in-class journal was used in a college Shakespeare course to involve students in a daily communication process. (DD)

Suggests the use of parody to deepen students' understanding of how and why poems work. (TJ)

Suggests encouraging students to use three or four steps to disintegrate their original objective descriptions of an event in a novel as a way to experiment with writing and to develop some critical observations about the author's fictional world. (TJ)

Reexamines the use of the novel, "Murder at the Margin," in college and high school economics instruction. Identifies errors in the book's application of economic principles. Explores the novel's approach to the "prisoner's dilemma" and the making of choices. Concludes that despite problems, the book remains valuable to…