In an instructional experiment in poetry in a college English literature course, chronology of publication and labels of authorship were ignored in the study of Wordsworth and Coleridge's "Lyrical Ballads." In the original plan for the "Lyrical Ballads," Coleridge was to supply poems treating supernatural elements as real,…

This paper explains the rationale and methods for integrating workplace literacy with English literature instruction for high school or adult students. The workplace literacy/English literature activities presented include: (1) a newsletter format reporting on the major historical periods in English literature; (2) a business project report used…

Describes a tour of the places of Jane Austen's novels that is offered by the Association for Cultural Exchange (ACE) in Cambridge, England. (JL)

For almost 50 years, the 8th-grade graduating class at a New Jersey private elementary school has presented an expertly produced Shakespeare play, alternating between "The Tempest" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream." The whole school becomes involved, from younger kids reading story versions of the plays, to older kids making…

Sociolinguistic analysis of the speech patterns in Spenser's "The Faerie Queen, Book VI" indicated that the socially different characters' language styles did not vary much among themselves or from the narrative, suggesting that the strict verse scheme requirements and a concern for unity of literary style leveled out speech particularities. (CB)

The advantages of teaching English literature in an arts classroom through performance are described. The innovative assignments including poetry, applying performance techniques to a novel and drama helps students to learn English in a better way.

This article discusses the contribution made by Joseph Conrad's fictional writing to our understanding of cultural awareness. Never comfortable with his adopted English culture, Conrad used his experiences in different parts of the world during his career in the merchant navy to explore in his writing aspects of cultural dissonance and cultural…

Compares linguistic and non-linguistic components of ways of speaking, being, performing, and reasoning within an urban African American secondary classroom and a midwestern African American hair salon, identifying culturally shared interactional norms that inform knowledge building across sites and analyzing how the discourse norms and structures…

Explores how, although minority and female authors have found a place on many English departments' reading lists, the debate over the benefits of a diverse curriculum still linger. (EV)

Claudia Klein Felske, a high school English teacher, has created a vital dramatic experience in the classroom with the help of a guest workshop leader. The three activities, such as how to read William Shakespeare, Metaphor Theater and character cacophony, which helped students to experience the intensity of language and discover ramifications of…

Discusses the realities of teaching Shakespeare in the schools. Describes the beliefs undergirding the Folger Library's Shakespeare education program--Shakespeare is for all students; the teacher's job is that of tour guide and not translator; students learn Shakespeare by doing Shakespeare--and that students should make their own connection with…

Describes a series of poetry workshops that connect poetry to the tangible world of nature, and also teaches students about the biology, ecology, and history of their area. Presents several old and middle English poems used in the workshop and discusses different translations and their relation to nature. (SC)

Provides an overview of the College of Charleston's faculty/library liaison system and describes library and faculty efforts to maintain the computer science and English collections. Concludes that a liaison system can provide better coverage and higher quality than any other means available to small and medium-sized college libraries. (PEN)

Higher and lower schools routinely take their cue from luminaries like NYU dean Catherine Stimpson, who famously opined that academic objectivity and intellectual rigor equal "mishmash." As a result, they feed students a diet of bland, uninspired readings. Carol Iannone is thus not surprised at the ensuing hand-wringing when the teaching…

This paper describes a teacher of literature who worked hard to develop a literature classroom that provides not only a structured atmosphere for developing reading strategies and knowledge of literary techniques, but also an environment in which students come to understand more about themselves and others through their reading of the texts. She…