Students in the English Language Arts classroom have access to more author commentary than ever. While following authors on social media may deepen students' engagement with their assigned reading, it also threatens to subdue students' own interpretations of the authors' texts. This essay explains how educators can introduce basic aspects of…

When the newly appointed professor of medicine at the University of Rinteln, Johann Peter Lotichius (1598-1669), delivered an oration entitled "Oratio super fatalibus hoc tempore academiarum in Germania periculis" ("Oration on the pernicious dangers to the universities of contemporary Germany") at said university in February…

The "College, Career, and Civil Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards" guides teachers to initiate complex inquiries by sparking students' disciplinary literacy and critical analysis of rich sources. With effective scaffolding and engaging content, elementary students can explore and contextualize complex historical…

Joseph McCabe (1867-1955) was one of the most prolific and gifted polymaths of the twentieth century. Long before such a thing was thought respectable, and almost a century before any university established a chair in the public understanding of science, McCabe made a living as a populariser of science and a critic of philosophical and religious…

I. Hakki Tonguc was undoubtedly one of the most gifted educational thinkers of his generation. As the architect of a short-lived but highly innovative experiment in the early 20th century Turkey, Village Institutes (Koy Enstituleri), he certainly made an important contribution to educational theory and practice. On the other hand, despite his…

Critical scholarship frequently depicts literacy education as an "initiation into passivity." Disconnected from the lives of students and reduced to strategies for scoring points on tests, literacy becomes an exercise in the reproduction of a moral economy of discipline, compliance, and productivity. Yet people also recognize that the modern world…

This article begins by contrasting the popularity of biography in the general culture with the neglect of literary biography as a branch of literary studies. The argument follows from the hybrid character of a genre in which history is crossed with narrative. Using concepts drawn from narratology, it shows how biography's handling of life stories…

This article describes in candour, the journey of a novice researcher deciding which methodological approach to apply to her doctoral research. Eager to commence fieldwork, she considers five options: ethnography, phenomenology, biography, grounded theory, and case study. Upon discovering however, that none of the described alternatives…

Shows how one teacher answered student questions about how a particular piece of literature came to be regarded as worthy of in-depth examination. Proposes that students be taught about various critical approaches, including Jungian/archetypal criticism, formalism, reader-response criticism, socio-historical and biographical criticism, and…

Argues that feminist history enriches the understanding of Canadian history by focusing on groups of women beyond the white, middle class, including those from First Nations communities. Reviews the life and works of E. Pauline Johnson (1861-1913), a Mohawk, English poet, and performer. Notes sources on women's history. (DSK)

Walter D. Edmunds created convincing characters of the Iroquois without pretending to know them. Carl Carmer was less interested in digging for the truth about Indians than in writing a story. Edmund Wilson perceived the Iroquois world view intuitively in his writing, overcoming any obstacle to get at the truth. (Author/LC)