The curriculum gets lost when schools adopt electives in English, a technique the author regards as merely reshuffling quantities"; change should be perceived in the terms of medium, not content." (Author/SP)

Describes 3-week elective courses in English, drama, and speech inserted in a traditional 2-semester format at Lincoln, Nebraska's Southeast High School. (RD)

Offers a defense of teaching science fiction as an elective in the high-school English curriculum. (RL)

Traces the history of the English elective curriculum from its roots in the 1890s to its flowering in the 1960s. (DD)

A case history of the elective English program at South High School in Minneapolis. (DD)

Details the curricular reforms of the post-Sputnik era in American high schools, especially the national stampede to an elective curriculum in English instruction. Covers criticism of the movement and the profession's struggle to define English studies. Provides pros and cons of an elective curriculum. (HB)

Elective programs may not offer real choices either to students or teachers. (JH)

The Rumson-Fair Haven Senior Elective Program was developed and implemented by students, faculty, and administrators over the three-year period from 1971 to 1974. The program offers high school students who complete graduation requirements in the first three years of the four-year program a combination of the following options for the senior year:…

The elective program for tenth grade standard English outlined in this document has been designed to improve students' attitudes toward and responses to the study of language, composition, and literature. The program consists of four minicourses, each of which covers a nine-week period. The first course, required of all students, involves the…

Provides a description of a program, including a bibliography of instructional materials, in which reading classes were incorporated in the English curriculum at Douglas County High School in Colorado. (RB)

In February 1974 a survey was conducted which focused primarily on elective programs and elective courses in the secondary language arts curricula in Indiana. Responses to the survey show (1) a movement toward predominantly elective programs in recent years, (2) almost no movement toward predominantly required programs, and (3) a similarity in the…

This curriculum guide for Indio High School (California) describes a phased-elective English curriculum designed to meet the basic needs of high school students with more flexibility than traditional programs offer. The guide contains a list of courses divided to correspond to each of the eight phases in the English program. Each course in the…

Letting students create poems out of random collections of words involves and interests them.