While social values outside of academia are changing from nationalism to globalization, much of English studies remains entrenched in nationalist discourses. Editor Bruce McComiskey and his contributors argue that English studies must shift from a national (petrified, zombified) to a global (cosmopolitan, planetary) orientation in order to remain…

"The Teaching Archive" shows us a series of major literary thinkers in a place we seldom remember them inhabiting: the classroom. Rachel Sagner Buurma and Laura Heffernan open up "the teaching archive"--the syllabuses, course descriptions, lecture notes, and class assignments--of critics and scholars including T. S. Eliot,…

One of the greatest challenges for English language arts teachers today is the call to engage students in more complex texts. Tim Gillespie, who has taught in public schools for almost four decades, has found the lenses of literary criticism a powerful tool for helping students tackle challenging literary texts. Tim breaks down the dense language…

This book on educational standards describes how standards create more harm than good, and it takes to task the pro-standards movement. The volume opens with a discussion of what is wrong with standards, claiming that the push for standards generally results in long lists of facts that are freighted with cultural baggage and are typically the…

The purpose of this annotated bibliography is to identify resources for the variety of approaches that teachers of courses in Shakespeare might use. Entries in the first part of the book deal with teaching Shakespeare in secondary schools and in college, teaching Shakespeare as performance, and teaching Shakespeare with other authors. Entries in…

This book provides background information on science fiction for teachers of English at any level who are approaching science fiction for the first time. Contents are: an introduction by W.E. McNelly; "SF in the Classroom" by J. Williamson; "Second Thoughts on the Course in Science Fiction" by M.R. Hillegas; "Flatland and Beyond: Characterization…

This book is designed as an introduction to John Wolcot's works for the general reader, the college student, and the college teacher. Wolcot, whose pen name was Peter Pindar, wrote topical satire on public personalities of the eighteenth century, and his methods of criticism are the motif which guides each chapter and which unites all the satires…

Designed for use by the general reader, the college student, and the teacher, this book analyzes the life and literary career of Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw), emphasizing his literary ventures and artistic talents. The analysis reveals Billings' talents as a subtle humorist, homespun philosopher, and artist of the essay. Chapters include…

This book emerged from a Poetry in the Schools program which had two facets: teacher workshops and instruction by poets in elementary and secondary classrooms. Part one, "Poets and Teachers in Dialogue," describes major issues discussed in teacher workshops: keeping the imagination alive, writing as a way of discovery, exploration of…

This book is designed as an introduction to Christopher Smart's poetry for the general reader, the college student, and the college teacher. The political, social, and literary background of eighteenth-century England is examined in the first part of this volume. The second part concerns itself with Smart's life and the factors affecting his…

A way in which poetry can be successfully approached in the classroom is discussed in this book about teaching poetry. It presents a method by which teachers can teach students to read poems rather than teaching them about poems. The first chapter discusses and criticizes the "what-does-this-poem-mean" approach to teaching poetry. The…

Telling stories from secondary and college English classrooms, this book explores the new possibilities for teaching and learning generated by bringing together reader-response and cultural-studies approaches. The book connects William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, and other canonical figures to multicultural writers, popular culture,…

Intended as a guidebook for high school English teachers, this book contains analyses of American novels commonly read in high school English classes. Each chapter is divided into two sections: an analysis of the novel, including discussions of story and setting, characters, themes, and language and style; and a guide to teaching the novel in the…

This guide, a revision of a 1966 work by Robert O'Neal, is intended to encourage reading beyond the traditional English and American literature texts by making available a useful resource in an area where few teachers have adequate preparation. The guide contains comparative reviews of the works of 136 authors and of seven works without known…

This book is an examination of the ideas of black writers in a variety of political, economic, social, and cultural contexts during the depression years, focusing on published writings of the most prominent writers of the era. Chapters include "Aged Race Men," which examines the clash that occurred in the 1930s between older black leaders and the…