Discusses a classroom exercise designed to introduce the themes prevalent in a survey of American literature. The exercise explores issues familiar and applicable to the students' lives, such as cultural attitudes toward masculinity, femininity, community, and heroes, thus making the literature more relevant to student interests. (HTH)

Proposes the newspaper as a source of plots, characters, and motivations that can be used by students for short story material. (FL)

Recommends an interdisciplinary approach to writing a term paper about James Hilton's "Lost Horizon." (TJ)

Presents an in-class literature exercise to help students understand that there may be more than one "right" reading, more than one right answer, more than one right way of understanding literature. (SR)

Describes a unit of study focused on the novel "Summer of My German Soldier" (by Bette Greene), involving a range of activities, such as research, poetry writing, and collecting visuals. Describes how students were evaluated through a collage which was a fusion of the reading of the novel with writing, researching, visuals, and their own artwork.…

Describes an assignment useful in high school and college-level literature classes in which students choose a book (or other reading material) from among a group of works that fit the parameters of the course or unit and work in groups to prepare a presentation. Suggests these reading groups and self-selection of reading material encourages active…

Discusses using comics in high school and college writing and English classes to teach figurative language and other literary terms and techniques such as style and descriptive writing. Describes several activities and notes benefits of using comics in this way. (SR)

Describes the evolution of an assignment in a college-level English class in which students present to the class their analysis of lyrics to a favorite song of theirs (on a particular topic). Shows how students thereby are eased into interpretation, critical examination, and some of the principles of literature. (SR)

Outlines an exercise the author has successfully used in literature classes to promote discussion. Describes how students engage in a pen-and-paper exchange of short, thoughtful responses to a particular topic. Notes how this exercise allows (and requires) every student to "speak" at the same time through writing, and that in ensuing class…

Describes an assignment that urges expository writers to pursue their own interests and create a fully developed prose project that they will be eager to share. (HTH)

Describes using the novel and television adaptation of Harriet Arnow's "The Dollmaker" in a cross-media approach to teach a unit on the problems of translating literature into film. Includes approaches for generating discussion of rural and urban values and weekly discussion and reading assignments. (HTH)

Provides a rationale for allowing students to write in journals that the teacher will never read. Suggests requiring students to write responses to their journal writing at the end of the semester, which would be shared with the teacher and the rest of the class. Includes a sample response. (HTH)

Describes an essay writing assignment that combines points from R. D. Kepes' futuristic point of view and V. E. Frankl's real life projections. (FL)

Suggests several ways that English teachers can cooperate with teachers in other subject areas and with the community to expand the number of people involved in teaching language skills to students and to provide greater motivation to students to develop language skills. (TJ)

Recommends a series of sense exploration exercises to help students develop more adequate descriptive writing. (TJ)