Budget cuts and textbook availability problems precipitate an English department chairperson's remembrance of the English curriculum as it was in the past. (RL)

Reports on a survey that investigated significant differences within the English teacher community in terms of the beliefs and practices on key issues. Makes a contribution to a larger National Council of Teachers of English project to foster communication among disparate groups of English educators. (TB)

Shares the observations of an educator visiting a high school classroom. Comments on how planning can support students' initial responses and their deeper thinking. Argues that teachers of literature can be both intuitively planful and planfully spontaneous in providing students with powerful language tools for shaping personal meaning. (MG)

Argues the importance of the relationships among silence and literature, the arts, and other experiences that point toward transcendence. Suggests that English teachers can expand the repertoire of classroom activities and teaching techniques that make use of silence. (KEH)

Examines the fifth edition of S. I. Hayakawa's "Language in Action" in terms of original strengths and major content still intact, reorganization of chapters with updated application sections, and new chapters on television advertisement and use of deceptive language. (KEH)

Considers the special challenges faced by white English teachers who use literature written by people of color. Presents models for talking about racial and ethnic differences. Asks if and how white teachers can succeed in covering such literary texts. (HB)

Focuses on the resonance and power of the Madonna, or the Virgin Mary, in literature and culture. Argues that the Madonna represents womanhood and feminism. Describes how the multiple readings of "The Scarlet Letter" charted one professor's changing relationship over 10 years with the Jesuit institution where she taught. (HB)

Discusses the role of the English department head in a time of educational crisis. Examines the possibility that graduate study in English is losing its moral base. Considers the role of leadership and oppositional politics in the context of the crisis in graduate study. (HB)

Focuses on the tutorial function of writing centers. Describes the uniqueness of the tutorial relationship. Claims that this relationship makes possible knowledge about writing unavailable in more institutionalized settings. Analyzes extensive excerpts from student comments concerning tutorial experiences. (HB)

Discusses the ways that seemingly minor events and incidents can provide the encouragement needed by beginning English teachers to make it through the ordeal of the first year of teaching. (HB)

Describes a project undertaken by a university teacher educator and a veteran high school teacher in which these two professionals exchanged jobs for an academic year. Provides excerpts from extensive field notes by both participants as well as analysis of what they both learned through the experience. (HB)

Argues that English teachers are in an admirable position to move troubled, violent students in directions that will prove productive for them. States what the real situation is in regards to violence in schools today. Looks at root causes for violence. Considers what secondary schools can do in cooperation with teachers. Outlines teaching…

Presents the responses of several well-known scholars--David Bloome, Joanne M. Golden, Carol D. Lee, Susan Hynds, Michael Pressley, and Timothy Shanahan--to Alan C. Purves's criticism of educational research in the English language arts for its redundancy, its staleness, its reliance on jargon and labels, and its flawed methodology. (TB)

Examines the ways English teachers might try to make progress with uninterested and/or problem students. Narrates one teacher's experience with a particular male student, and how she partly got through to him. (HB)

Describes the experience of one English teacher who bent the rules of the school when faced with the task of writing an "interim report" on a bright yet underachieving student. Shows how a teacher's willingness to improvise and invent methods and rules in individual cases is sometimes essential for student growth and well-being. (HB)