Viewing the myth of Sisyphus as a metaphor for the vast numbers of high school students and teachers who go through daily school rituals unable to discover personal meaning in their work, this report applies the existential philosophy of Albert Camus and other existentialists to the methodology of Teaching and learning English in high schools. The…

An interesting approach to the topic of women and literature is to see if the real working roles of women have been reflected in fiction. As delineated in novels, women are seen engaged in: (l) farm labor; (2) jobs that are extensions of their nurturing roles; (3) factory work--especially in the early textile and clothing mills; and (4) housework…

Educational research has been meeting resistance in its effort to influence curricular policy or to change classroom practice because of the lack of value placed on it by those who exercise power over and in higher institutions of learning. In order to counteract this resistance it is important to identify those predisposed to effect change in the…

By comparing high school students' total English scores on the California Achievement Test (CAT) and observing differences in performance based on grade level and gender, a recent study investigated whether significant differences exist between the achievement of students taught in an English phase-elective mini-course system and the achievement…

Black educators must act to counter the national trend toward eliminating Afro-American study programs and to preserve these programs as a permanent part of the English literature curriculum. Administrators in predominantly white institutions must be led to understand the importance of black literature to the American experience. To accomplish…

Teaching literature as a basis for teaching writing affords a paradigm for teaching structure and meaning. While a truly integrated English department would put equal emphasis upon composition, language, literature, and reading, two-year college curricula have emphasized composition and challenged literature's place. A reader-based model for…

The New Brunswick (Canada) Comprehensive Reading/Language Arts Plan (NBCRP) is an integrative framework of goals not only for a developmental reading/language arts program but also for the special students regardless of classification. The NBCRP proposes three major categories of action: (1) the institution and improvement of a reading/language…

A computer-oriented, classroom-based research project was conducted at Thomas Nelson Community College in Hampton, Virginia, to explore the ways in which students in a composition and literature class might use a local area network (LAN) as a catalyst to critical thinking, to construct a decentralized classroom, and to use various forms of…

Noting that teacher education students are unfamiliar with the censorship issue, this paper discusses three kinds of censorship the pre-service English teacher can be expected to face, and suggests ways to prepare them to recognize and remedy anticipated problems. The essay identifies the first kind of censorship as that imposed by English…

A study examined the view of literacy as a socially constructed phenomenon situated within a culturally reproductive milieu. Within the context of one medium-sized comprehensive high school in a small city in the Midwest, the focus was on the daily classroom practice in teaching and learning to read and write. Four separate classes--two low track,…

This document describes an interdisciplinary English and history course on women and work in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is designed for 11th and 12th grade students and it includes ideas suitable for use with college bound or vocationally oriented students. A major objective of the course is to help students analyze their ideas on work and…

Statewide competency testing as a high school graduation requirement represents a threat to those who encourage broad notions of reading and writing, even when a number of testing innovations in reading and writing mean a step forward in education. In Alberta, Canada, the English exam comes in a non-academic and an academic version, and…