Describes how a "problem" student bucks the system and wins. (RL)

Describes a writing assignment that uses the song "America the Beautiful" to point the following six reasons why America is beautiful: skies, mountains, grain, Pilgrims, heroes, and dreams. (NKA)

Describes an approach to teaching narrative poetry writing to tenth-grade students. (RL)

Describes how allowing students to follow their creative impulses led to a unit in the author's tenth grade English class that rekindled an appreciation for imaginative, even whimsical, thinking. Discusses her experiences with this project. Considers why it is important to imagine. (SG)

Notes that "Julius Caesar" is required in nearly every high school curriculum, but that making the play accessible to students is not easy. Tries new teaching ideas to see whether students would more readily take to "Julius Caesar" using a more interdisciplinary approach. Describes three of these ideas that were particularly…

Argues the relative merits of using in-process and retrospective journals, during and after the writing process, to empower students to explore and use their own ways of constructing knowledge to make connections as they write. (KEH)

Discusses a reader-response approach to teaching Nathaniel Hawthorne's RAPPACCINI'S DAUGHTER. (MM)

Describes one high school English teacher's experiment with assigning stories instead of analytical essays. Argues for retelling and storytelling as a valuable resource in the high school curriculum. (RAE)

Compares Richard Adams's "Watership Down" to the "The Odyssey," and offers a selection of classroom activities for students that use Adams's novel to study classic literature. (NKA)

Examines taped small-group student discussions of "To Kill a Mockingbird" in two tenth grade classes. Explores various discussion skills, including getting started, overcoming tension, deciding who begins, keeping the discussion moving, supporting one another in groups, and dealing with conflict. (MM)

Describes a group investigation unit in a tenth grade English class that focused on the Middle East. Outlines six stages used for the investigation. Discusses the use of a steering committee as well as the problems and frustrations experienced during the project. Lists 10 areas in which the students' skills were expanded. (PRA)

Recounts the problems encountered over a period of time in dealing with a particularly difficult and unruly class, and finds that the writing process helped to close the gap between teacher expectations and student apathy. (NKA)

Maintains that the literature curriculum should reflect our pluralist society, not a canonical tradition. Suggests pairing canonical works with works instantiating pluralism. Describes a unit on the novel for a ninth grade honors class and the use of an "adolescent problem novel" in a sophomore intermediate class. (SR)

Notes the advantages grade 10 English students found in using a word processor: (1) they spend more time reworking text, (2) they are better able to determine needed change, (3) they find the revision process less arduous, and (4) they seem to find it easier to develop a sense of audience. (MM)

Suggests that peer group instruction is one of the most significant benefits to have emerged from the process approach to writing instruction. Presents a teacher's classroom research on the peer group response method. (ARH)