Argues that, in "Island of the Blue Dolphins," Scott O'Dell offers a skeleton main character (Karana). Contends that O'Dell has sketched Karana as a stereotype and that readers complete her characterization, filling out the skeleton by perpetuating the stereotypes. Points out this trading of stereotype for true character development in…

Uses the "line and stanza" method to analyze and compare texts representing different cultural backgrounds and ages. Proposes that the textual characteristics identified by the Formalists as the measure of literature are actually the hallmarks of a cross-cultural human capacity for making deep sense of experience. (FMW)

Looks at what is entailed when education and experience are regarded as equivalent. Identifies faulty inferences resulting from learning by experience. Considers how experience can close avenues to conceptual and social change. Argues that ideas based on secondhand information are more likely than firsthand experience to manifest both the real and…

Using "historicist" techniques, scholars have offered challenging alternatives to standard views on the Romantic era. Historicists advocate yoking theories such as deconstruction with analyses of political, social, and other factors that played a role in the creation of period literature. An exhibit touring the United States is…

Explores literary universe of Caribbean women writers, discusses contributions as reflective of their self-image, and examines Caribbean literature as collective identity of region. Author explains use of writing as means of linking events that reveal experiences of Caribbean women through more detailed analysis of two novels: "Moi, Tituba…

Suggests that management education should explore accommodation of individual expression and interpretation within a flexible and open teaching framework. Analysis of fiction may support a management education that questions its own content and context. Argues that management educators must employ a bold approach to literary criticism if use of…

The literary field offers an especially rich array of examples of the insight phenomenon and demonstrates that insight experiences occur outside the problem-solving paradigm of cognitive science. Analysis shows that the seemingly unitary moment of insight is actually a microgenetic sequence (a rapid sequence of developmental change) deeply…

Discusses the need for reference librarians to learn reference materials well enough to be able to review materials and correctly refer patrons to information sources. The review process is outlined and some evaluation of current reference services is provided. (CLB)

Since the 1950s, literary study has experienced a major paradigm shift. M. H. Abrams' notion that the author, reader, and the signified world are arranged like satellites around a stable text has been succeeded by one that acknowledges the reader to be a central determinant in any "reading" of a text. Five themes related to reader…

An English instructor examined 9 Judy Blume adolescent novels and interviewed 12 students (grades 6, 7, and 8) who had read the novels to look at the world as it was presented in the books and to compare the instructor's own perceptions with those of the adolescent readers. The study revealed that the books did in fact dwell on the problems of…

The English Department at Carnegie Mellon believes they are creating a new-wave curriculum. Theoretical questions are becoming the center of undergraduate study. Scholars want students to think about the political, social, and historical forces that end up shaping a writer's vision, the written work, and the reader's interpretation. (MLW)

"A Day No Pigs Would Die" by Robert Newton Peck and "The Pigman" by Paul Zindel are 2 short novels that offer treasures in the form of many lessons in life to share in the language arts classroom. These two rich novels can serve as sources for multicultural understanding of rural and urban life, as well as for interpreting the…

Reports on the investigations and writings of Stanford assistant professor of English Robert Allen Warrior concerning published writings by American Indian authors back to the 1760s. Introduces two of Warrior's current projects: comparing American Indian authors John Joseph Matthews and Vine Deloria Jr., and examining writings of Indian activists…

Reviews eight textbooks, readers, and books. Topics include Latin America, colonial America, the Carolinians, women in French textbooks, the Vikings, the Soviet Union, nineteenth-century Black America, and Ernest Rutherford. (TRS)