Discusses ways to teach modern plays and poetry, using a reader response approach that makes the works more accessible to students. (HTH)

Claims that high school curricula should provide opportunities for students to vicariously explore the relationships, roles, and ideas that appear in Shakespearean drama. Uses the dilemma dramatized in "Hamlet" as an example. (JD)

Explains how to involve students in a composition unit that requires them to complete writing assignments from various points of view. (DF)

Discusses the concept that a philosophical approach to reading "Hamlet" is the easiest for students to comprehend. (DF)

This collection of 14 articles aims to help teachers make the most of student discussion and inquiry in classrooms from middle school to high school to college. Contributors to the collection--secondary and college practitioners--offer theory-grounded, classroom-tested approaches for literature study in which students engage in democratic dialogue…

Critiques the Capacitor-Aided System for Teaching and Learning Electricity (CASTLE) curriculum. Criticism is made of the model's use of a compressible-fluid model to demonstrate charge conduction. An alternative model is proposed. (ZWH)

A series of French language classroom exercises to be used over four class sessions applies principles of semiotics to literary textual analysis. The session themes include decoding and interpreting, reconstructing meaning, sociocultural connotations in the text, and sense of time and space. (MSE)

This article reports on a study of the National Teaching Fellowship Scheme (NTFS), which was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. The study undertook a critical evaluation of the NTFS and focused on three main areas: (1) how 'teaching excellence' is understood within the NTFS; (2) the key characteristics of the NTFS as a development…

"The Line Between Us" explores the history of U.S-Mexican relations and the roots of Mexican immigration, all in the context of the global economy. And it shows how teachers can help students understand the immigrant experience and the drama of border life. "But The Line Between Us" is about more than Mexican immigration and…

This book presents the experiential approach as a method for teaching art history. Through this approach, which may be used with any student age group, art historical problems are explored through self-expressive art production and experienced events. Yet, the focus remains on the art object rather than the student. The approach encourages:…

Speech writing can be an excellent vehicle for helping students develop writing skills. The course described in this paper blends rhetorical principles and practices from public speaking, speech composition, persuasion and public relations with "real world applications." Students work on developing purposeful communication, a consistent…

The paper presents and demonstrates a heuristic for helping students learn how to read and understand figuration in literature. The heuristic contains elements from linguistics, New Criticism, and rhetorical analysis in a recursive process which enables students to see how features of words combine into figurative patterns. Beginning at the level…

Coaching rhetorical criticism events is demanding because it places demands on a forensic coach's knowledge of rhetorical theory and method and is time consuming. However, it may become a simpler event to coach if there is an understanding of the process of developing a speech for rhetorical criticism and specific strategies that can be used in…

Notes how important it is that any critical writing assignments should take into account the individual reading, and that the teacher's role is to steer discussion that stems from a class of individual readings. Explores some of the aspects of Jane Austen's novel "Emma" to which students readily respond. (HTH)

This book presents a critical analysis of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). This accreditation organization has been in existence for 50 years and claims to accredit approximately 700 teacher education programs that prepare two-thirds of the nation's teachers. There is no convincing research, however, that…