Lists reasons for using the study of literature in helping students learn to write. (RL)

Outlines the differences between mediocre and good poetry, asserting that most objections to poetry are really objection to bad poetry or poetry poorly taught or ignorantly read and concluding that good poetry is a way of knowing and a method of organizing perceptions. (SRT)

Describes Albert Camus's writings regarding semantic abuses in public rhetoric. (DD)

Discusses the three main lines of symbolic development in "The Artificial Nigger" by Flannery O'Conner that make this short story an eminently teachable tale in world literature and humanities classes where Dante, Sophocles, and the Bible have been read. (RL)

Offers glimpses into the landscapes of people's lives. Discusses Edith Bruck's "Who Loves You Like This,""Life Stories: Profiles from 'The New Yorker'," and Hugh Sidey's "Portraits of the Presidents: Power and Personality in the Oval Office." (SG)

Present's Harriette Arnow's "The Dollmaker" as an excellent vehicle for teaching the fundamentals of literary interpretation, especially to non-English majors. Describes how the novel illustrates the interconnection of plot, setting, characterization, symbol, and theme. (MM)

Describes the difficulties in finding a balance between the masculine and feminine within one's self and the world. (CRH)

Proposes that English teachers have an obligation to give more attention to how language can be used in politics. Examines the characteristics of the basic political message. Offers eight suggestions for classroom exercises. (RL)

Offers a method of using reader response theory that emphasizes the expectations about a text and how those expectations are fulfilled or deflated. Specifically, students read traditional fables, fairy tales, and parables, and compare them to contemporary works such as Kafka's "Metamorphosis" and Marquez's "The Very Old Man With Enormous Wings."…

Offers an approach to teaching the essence of John Knowles'"A Separate Peace" by juxtaposing the novel's events and statements with quotations from the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. (RL)

Examines the appeal of oral histories--their intimacy, authenticity, seeming reliability, and panoramic as well as sharply focused presentations of human life--and the possibilities they offer as subject matter in English classrooms. Provides lists of oral histories and "how-to" books on oral history. (RL)

Offers a set of principles for constructing questions that compel rereading and proposes a set of principles by which literature teachers can construct significant questions--ones which compel rereading and textual constraint while encouraging independent interpretation, response, and hypothesizing. Provides examples illustrating the applications…

Suggests ways students can develop their cognitive and affective responses to literature. Shows how English teachers can use the concepts of identification, dissociation, and evaluation to help students dramatize, talk about, and write about short stories. (RL)

Analyzes ways to lead group discussions of literature. Offers suggestions on what questions to ask and how to keep the discussion a stimulating experience for the participants. (RL)