Relates experiences teaching Philip Larkin's poetry. (HOD)

Explores how Burke's texts engage readers. Discusses his determinate meaning, propositional content, stylistic content, interest in his audience, attitudes of assent and dissent toward reading, and the idea of reading as rebirth. (EL)

Three critics comment on weaknesses in Louis G. Ceci's September 1983 "College English" article, "The Case for Syntactic Imagery," and Ceci responds. (CRH)

Examines what teachers do when they read texts in particular genres, and suggests how to encourage similar behavior in students. (CRH)

Special issue on contemporary Spanish American literature. (DS)

Focuses on the fundamental Native American idea that the land and the people are the same. Tayo's illness, a result of separation of person and land, is healed by their reunification. This is accomplished when Tayo makes ancient and new stories real in his actions (the Ceremony). (CM)

Silko demonstrates that writing "American Indian" and being "American Indian" is a matter of process rather than ethnographic and historical fact. Members of American Indian communities are shaped by the telling of stories and shape others by telling stories. To write "American Indian" is to tell stories of belonging.…

Describes the author's method of teaching literary analysis to "not particularly well-read students." Presents students with a set of over-generalizations which they are free to denounce, vilify, or modify as their exposure to literature progresses. Includes a class handout that describes characteristics of various literary movements in this…

Examines mathematical models of style analysis, focusing on the pattern in which literary characteristics occur. Describes an autoregressive integrated moving average model (ARIMA) for predicting sentence length in different works by the same author and comparable works by different authors. This technique is valuable in characterizing stylistic…

Describes a discussion between Cleanth Brooks and Eudora Welty about the state of the story in today's fiction. Characterizes the narrative form as the spine of literature. Points out that, too often, contemporary writers neglect this form of writing and instead emphasize a type of prose poetry. Notes that authors today overemphasize the present…

Analyzes 50 scientific papers selected from the top 100 most-cited papers for the period from 1945 to 1988. Finds that most are in biochemistry and became citation superstars because of method or material discoveries usable in other people's research. Discusses the typical form and writing style in these papers. (SR)

Applies 51 stylometric computer tests of Shakespeare play authorship and 14 of play authorship, developed by the Shakespeare Clinic, to 37 "true Shakespeares," 27 plays of the Shakespeare Apocrypha, and to several poems of unknown authorship. Finds that no claimant, and none of the apocryphal plays or poems, matched Shakespeare. (DSK)