This paper draws on observation of a primary mathematics lesson prepared and taught by a second-year pre-service teacher who lacked mathematical content knowledge. A "knowledge quartet" (Rowland, Turner, Thwaites, & Huckstep, 2009) was used to investigate when and how a pre-service teacher drew on their knowledge of mathematics during primary…

The topic of this article is high school social justice curriculum [SJC]. Three socially-just focused studies were critically analyzed. Sample sizes in these studies varied from n = 12 to n = 55. It is the author's belief, based on the research of others (Kerssen-Griep & Eifler, 2008) that an effective SJC should consist of the following elements:…

This paper is designed to accompany an appearance by the author as a panelist during a session on science fiction and teaching methods at the I-CON 28 Science Fiction Convention held April 3-5, 2009, on Long Island (near New York City). The author describes how he employs social science fiction in an honors course at the university level to…

Teachers of rhetorical criticism need not wait for critics to reach agreement on only one usage of "rhetoric" as a theoretical construct, but can use the various ways it is conceived as an educational resource. This document describes nine kinds of critics, each of whose sense of rhetoric can be useful in suggesting to students ways to unravel a…

Recently, genre studies have become increasingly important in the area of rhetorical criticism. This method of analysis is based on the assumption that rhetorics vary situationally, like situations will produce like rhetorics, antecedent rhetorical events significantly affect the creative product, and analogy is more important than anomaly when…

Defninig rhetorical analysis as a means of studying writer/audience relationships allowing both intrinsic and extrinsic analysis, the author discusses the three sections of Levertov's poem, "From a Notebook: October '68--May '69." Section 1 is the speaker's personal comparison of her associations with life and death, comparison of…

The terms "meaning" and "significance," as they relate to literary criticism, are considered in the first section of this paper. The paper then examines the meaning of "hermeneutics," the classical discipline concerned with the understanding of texts; introduces the "isomorph" construct; and demonstrates the…

The poet always listens to himself or herself as part of the expressive act that is the poem, and that listening becomes an essential part of the completed poem. The listening is never fused into the expressiveness of the poem's making, however, but continues in a dramatic relationship with that expressiveness. The difficulty of poetry stems from…

Aristotle's "Rhetoric" offers a model for applying the concept of the enthymeme to the work of film scholars to understand the role of the audience. Used from an analytic perspective, enthymemes emphasize audience reaction to a film, with the focus on how the film is seen, not on how it was made. Applying viewing skills to a sample of…

This paper critiques the debate about the purpose of HRD. Furthermore, it presents an integrative literature review that provides a meta-theory, hitherto missing, to explain the reasons for which there are endless disputes in the literature about the purpose of HRD. The synthesis explains that ideology provides the guiding meta-theoretical…

This paper discusses both the persistent and changing features of rhetorical criticism during the past 60 years. From a review of 75 critical studies that were published from 1915 to 1925, from 1965 to 1968, in 1973, and from 1975 to 1977, three observations are made: First, most studies of rhetorical criticism have been, and continue to be, case…

Theory-building in any field of inquiry is essential and utilitarian. This paper argues two points: that a concern for theory could redirect some of our typical approaches to rhetorical criticism; and that generic criticism must, by its nature, fully respond to this call for theory-building. Four important areas of rhetorical criticism are…

Noting that one of the greatest criticisms of television is the lack of television criticism itself, this paper proposes a multidimensional approach to the subject, based on current forms of criticism and theory. The 10 forms of criticism or theory discussed in the paper are (1) rhetorical criticism, (2) dramatic criticism, (3) literary criticism,…

While a critic measures a speech against a number of standards to determine its worth, a historian attempts to explain it in the context of social-institutional activity. After discussing the differences between rhetorical criticism and rhetorical history, this paper distinguishes among various types of historical explanations, illustrates each…

Using great literature to clarify and to improve students' writing is like using the unknown-literature to explain the only slightly less unknown--the writing of compositions. An alternative is to study films to foster an awareness of technique, for films contain many of the same rhetorical and structural devices as literature. It is possible to…