Although no set of principles can apply uniformly to all existentialists, certain basic characteristics of existentialism are central to both the nonreligious writers like Sartre and Camus and the theistic existentialists like Kierkegaard, Maritain, Marcel, Tillich, Berdyaev, and Buber. These characteristics are (1) an insistence that human life…

Literary critical prose is a specialized, artifical mode of discourse, and it is a poor model for students trying to learn to write well. (JH)

Science fiction is satisfying, not because it projects the future, but because it helps the reader deal with the present. (JH)

We should train our students to apply the tools of literary analysis to political language.

Looks at Melville's narrative construction of "onion-like...layers of truth" that combine romance and textbook, presents critics' discussion and scholars' treatment of the cetological information present in the text, offers an explanation for the lack of recognition due to the nonfictional parts of "Moby Dick." (JK)

Urges the use of new developments in structuralist and poststructuralist theory as the basis for a new practice in the teaching of composition. (CRH)

Argues that the teaching method instructors use to present poetry--direct/indirect, analytic/subjective, or reader focused/text focused--is influenced by the kind of relationship they wish to establish with the students. (MM)

Advocates teaching the fairy tale as a way to introduce students to the complex and subtle processes of literature and to their own creative activity. (JL)

Reports the results of a personally conducted survey on graduate programs in English that ranged from amusing to appalling. (JL)

Defends the combination of literature and writing instruction, offering a special course at the University of South Carolina as an example of the way intensive work in composition can be combined with an old-fashioned literary survey. (RL)

Discusses how both novels share key thematic elements pertaining to the experiences of migrants from rural Appalachia to multiethnic industrial centers of the urban north. Notes that a focus on the authors' handling of material culture helps to point one with increased clarity and precision to the writerly method by which Attaway and Arnow convey…

After summarizing typical criticisms of multicultural composition readers, the author draws on work in "New Literacy Studies" to point toward composition pedagogies that encourage multicultural interactions beyond selections in assigned readers. The author suggests that what is ultimately needed is a productive critical frame not only for refining…

Creative writing assignments are described which prepare students better to apprehend and appreciate Shakespeare's art.