Discusses the issue of the use of nonfiction reading in the primary classroom. Describes the demands that nonfiction books make on children. Examines how the genre can be made more accessible to children. (HB)

Considers the difficulties inherent in developing a system of assessment through examination of student learning in Great Britain's A-level English literature instruction. Outlines the process of developing such a system as undertaken by the two appointed cochief examiners in 1986. (HB)

Discusses the role of the English department head in a time of shrinking budgets. Considers popular and governmental conceptions of college faculty productivity. Calls for increased attention to undergraduate teaching. Criticizes attacks labeling college faculty as lazy and incompetent. (HB)

Considers the benefits and impact that come from reading texts aloud with other persons. Provides a plan by which partners can read books together aloud. Claims that this is a vital and habit-forming activity. (HB)

Examines the good fortune that marks the career of writing teachers. Shows how creative writing activities stimulate and inspire writing teachers. Includes five poems written by the author. (HB)

Provides an overview of how current theories of postmodernism might inform and influence the practice of English teachers in the classroom. Provides an annotated bibliography of five central theoretical works. (HB)

Suggests that teaching Vietnam literature to adolescents can undermine a teacher's desire to implant in students a resistance to war. Narrates the experiences of one English teacher who was disappointed to find students attracted to war. Discusses a number of works of Vietnam literature. (HB)

Discusses the special needs of English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students within the context of writing laboratories. Considers the issues and options involved with training writing tutors to work with ESL students on their writing. (HB)

Argues against the encroachment of information technologies, particularly information machines, upon higher education. Describes the experience at an IBM Corporation presentation on the use of computers in the college classroom. Defines the term "talking head" and shows how this term relates to education. (HB)

Presents five responses from practicing teachers to the question, "How do you incorporate commercial and/or public television in your English curriculum?" (HB)

Considers the role of the English department malcontent, who constantly seems to spoil any chance of departmental consensus. Discusses the typical life of the English department. Analyzes departmental disputes with the aid of Jacques Lacan's notion of "jouissance." (HB)

Discusses the role of the teacher as authority in the classroom. Questions whether an assertive teacher can be understood as anything less than an abuser of students. Considers the place of the text in four classroom scenarios with regard to these questions of authority. (HB)

Argues that the crisis in the English profession is primarily an administrative one. Suggests coalition building with other disciplines is not only necessary but will be possible only if those in the English profession adopt a tolerant attitude; and the postmodernism the English profession has embraced should leave room for the perspectives of…

Argues that both composition and literary studies have a common pedagogical vocation and that by harvesting some very general insights from two decades of cultural critique, English departments can develop curricula that will resolve a good deal of the conflict between literature and composition and improve instruction in both. (SC)

Argues an English curriculum infused with multicultural literature and perspectives will not cause the educational and social outcomes attributed to it. The crux of the problem is to help students acquire, from their own experience with literature, a greater desire for literature. Suggests desire to read can be stimulated by a thoughtful…