Outlines an English program based on three principles: (1) the content of English should be words that matter to someone, (2) students get better at something by doing it, and (3) opportunities for pupil choice should be built into the course. (FL)

Examines the past three decades of educational history to determine whether English teachers or textbook publishers dictate what goes into the English language arts curriculum. (RL)

Offers guidelines for preparing and using audiovisual materials, showing how four rules were applied to the construction of videotape curriculum materials for grammar instruction at the City University of New York. (RL)

Describes a statement of guidelines and goals developed for Boise State University's (BSU) basic writing course. Includes an account of local conditions at BSU, a copy of the statement itself with commentary on its seven competencies, a description of how the document was developed through a collaborative process, and the effects of that…

Looks back at the author's 1972 essay and responds to it now, helping readers place it within an historical context in order to learn about the genesis of his ideas then and his reflections now. Suggests that students do have authority, through their unique and at times vast understandings from their own experiences of language, of literature, and…

Notes that the key to making nonfiction work in the classroom is to connect it to the basic curriculum set forth by the school. Describes how the author's use of nonfiction slave narratives grew out of her teaching of two works of fiction. Discusses how she teaches slave narratives as a separate unit. (SG)

Notes that English teachers have to do their part in teaching literary-cultural literacy, but they also have a responsibility to expose students to the wide range of literature that exists outside of the de facto Young Adult Literature perpetuated by school curricula. Presents annotations of 10 new or overlooked Young Adult books worth reading.…

In "The Mis-Education of the Negro," Carter Woodson issues a mandate for a different and original program of education for African-Americans, specific to their own conditions. If educators, the author opines, are to take this mandate into consideration when designing and implementing appropriate curricula and pedagogy, then they must start paying…

Offers some reflections on the professional commitments of undergraduate English and argues the need for establishing clearly defined educational goals. (RB)

Indicates how the province of English has changed in recent years, using a dialogue between Socrates and an English professor to dramatize the point. (RB)

Defines and describes vocational journalism, a new subject in New York City Public Schools, and explains how it differs from traditional journalism and English courses offered in the high schools. (RB)

The Commission Four report, one of a series of conference reports of the National Association for the Teaching of English (NATE), is concerned with the developing language needs of the whole younger generation from preschool to adult life. (RB)

Describes the results of an effort to introduce elective courses in English to students in form three. (RB)

Examines the impulses that led to the curriculum reform movements in the United States and Britain during the 1950s and 1960s. (RB)