Rarely do students and teachers see themselves as people who have the authority to talk back to the gatekeepers; instead, they are on the receiving end of a conversation begun by others. But the conversation about young adult (YA) books--like the authors who write them--is a living thing. Students and teachers can help to shape it. In this…

Three English teachers share their ideas on how their work as a writer helped them as a teacher. One teacher has found that the desire for meaningful response to her own writing has led her to evaluate her students similarly. A second teacher discusses how personal experience translates into teaching how to convey rejection in a useful and tactful…

When Don Imus made his infamous comments about the Rutgers University women's basketball team in 2007, he provoked widespread (yet short-lived) attention to the circulation of language practices demeaning to women of color. In an elective autobiographical writing course that the author designed with and for urban high school girls, the students…

Contrasts the complaints of a class of gifted students about Dickens' novel "A Tale of Two Cities" with their teacher's discomfort at sitting through the long and tedious movie "Brazil." (NKA)

Discusses how writing is the combination of two voices, "creator" and "critic," and how writers use these voices to create a recognizable yet variable pattern. Presents two story beginnings by Rachel McCaleb Watts that illustrate the repetitions and variations in one writer's work. (ARH)

Argues for the use of the author's comments on their works as a process for literary interpretation for teachers and students, using Warren as an example. (MM)

Examines the reasons why so many people have preconceptions about how much "truth" is in fiction. Notes the effects of believing that authors base their fiction primarily on personal, "true-to-life" experiences. (RL)

Reports responses of several authors of young adult literature concerning the importance of first readers' reactions to their unpublished drafts. Offers comments on the general subject of writers' attitudes toward criticism and revision. (EL)

Teachers can increase students' involvement in literature and improve their skills in research and literary analysis by assigning each student to report on an author born the same day the student was. (DD)

States that reading Scott O'Dell's popular juvenile book, "The Island of the Blue Dolphins," can increase high school students' comprehension and appreciation of Herman Melville's "The Encantadas," as both works are fictional treatments of the same historic event. (MM)

Argues that Judy Blume's novels are not so much the recreation of closely observed individuals but the fleshing out of general life processes from the statistics of contemporary psychology. Points out the need for books that do not simply stress accepting things as they are but encourage the hope of changing reality through individual effort. (MM)

Shows how literature gradually assumed importance during the nineteenth century, particularly when promoted as a valuable study by the colleges and universities, and reviews some American and British authors who were widely read during the century. (DD)