In mainstream American culture, death is not usually talked about openly. It is discussed privately among adults because death is often regarded as a final ending. Nevertheless, many elementary school teachers discuss el Dia de los Muertos with their students. The celebration of el Dia de los Muertos, in contrast to dominant ideology, commemorates…

The institutional view of literature in the National Curriculum of Great Britain shows a dramatic belittlement in its revised version. It lacks a coherent literary or pedagogical rationale and substitutes a functional one in which over-simplification purports to be clarification. The institution is primarily concerned to define English literary…

The seven articles in this focused journal issue are concerned with choosing books for teaching and the various constraints on those choices. The first article, by Richard Lederer, discusses George Orwell's "1984" and the principles of Newspeak. His article sets the tone for the next two articles: "Beware the Misuse of…