Clarifies some common misconceptions about the nature of narcissism and projection and employs recent developments in post-Freudian psychoanalytic theory to explain how projective activities are filtered and altered by a certain notion of textual objectivity: objectivity as defined by the text's material signifiers. (FL)

Compares the theories of writing style advocated by Barthes and Coles. (FL)

Responds to Caple's self-organization paradigm with interest in methods of promoting student growth and maturity. Finds use of a continuum with developmental and self-organization theories at opposite ends unnecessary, believing that growth takes place in a state of equilibrium or disequilibrium. Considers closed systems theory, as well as Caple's…

Describes a teaching technique that capitalizes on the individual meanings a piece of literature can have for different students. Explains how it encourages students to concentrate first on facts that they notice in a text and in the inferences they make based on those facts. (FL)

Presents a criticism of Evan Carton's description of a writing assignment, noting the contradiction between the assignment's real purpose and the rigid writing restrictions inherent in the assignment that preclude the purpose. Presents Carton's response. (HTH)

Although there is abundant theoretical matter concerning the critical role that various interpretive communities play in making meanings of literary texts, most scholars do not take up the matter of the composition of these interpretive groups in their university classrooms. How may the interpretive strategies of groups of students change over the…

This paper discusses an Owen Wister poem published in 1920 in "The Atlantic Monthly" and brought to the attention of a university class without any information as to its context or its references, and read in various ways by various individuals, as information about the poem's context was gradually discovered. The central issue explored…

Explores perceptions of media bias by manipulating expectations of bias and news topic. Explains that university students read dummy newspaper articles and then responded to a survey. Concludes that readers were more likely to designate material opposing their own views as biased. (PM)

Proposes that the "Girl's Own Annual 1927" displays a distinctly Victorian construction of womanhood which was at odds with the views of "modern" girls in the 1920s. Examines tensions created by these differing social expectations and focuses on the intergenerational debate about the role of women in work and marriage. Suggests that the magazine's…

Asks why students read essays as if their meanings are simple, univocal, and transparent. Suggests that students grow up practicing "essayist literacy," a view of the text as a self-sufficient communication vehicle. Argues that a rhetoric of deproduction conceals the social process of writing behind the apparent artlessness of the plain…

Responds to "new scholarship on women" perspective presented in previous article by Greiner, considering perspective particularly salient for student affairs educators who are responsible for conveying to future student affairs practitioners concepts associated with the new scholarship on women. Examines implications of each of six tenets of…

Responds to view expressed by Wittmer in previous article concerning doctoral programs in counselor education seeking accreditation review by Council for the Accreditation of Counseling and Related Education Programs rather than by the American Psychological Association. Asserts no single response to affiliation-accreditation issue will suit all…

Suggests an approach to literature (derived from post-structuralism and deconstructionism) which goes beyond the concept of "teacher as authority," without totally abandoning form or structure. Demonstrates this approach in a discussion of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" and Philip Larkin's poem "High…

Describes an informal study of literature response journals in a graduate language arts methods course. Details advantages of response journals, procedures for use, and graduate students' reactions to journals as indicated on a questionnaire. Provides samples of students' aesthetic responses to literature. (RS)

Describes an educator's attempt to raise multicultural issues in the classroom through a course centered on Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Are Watching God." Maintains that educators have a responsibility to raise issues of cultural diversity in learning communities that provide ways for student to engage in thinking that expands their…