Analyzes oral narrative told to peers by a Black girl and compares it to one told to an adult female by a White middle-class girl. Proposes that the White girl's style is compatible with school-based values governing speech and writing, while the Black girl's style is compatible with cultures emphasizing verbal mastery but is not compatible with…

Designed to tap the rich collection of instructional techniques in the ERIC database, this compilation of lesson plans focuses on practical suggestions for addressing the works of women authors in the English/language arts classroom at elementary, middle-school, and secondary levels. The 57 lesson plans in this book cover lessons on gender equity,…

Across the centuries the heroes in dramatic works develop and play out action along the same lines, although the dramas may have been created by different authors and may reflect various eras and cultures. A case in point is a comparison of the two Spanish plays "El Caballero de Illescas" by Lope de Vega (1602) and "Los Intereses…

Although modern readers often find the interpretation of medieval literature difficult, they should be encouraged to use their imagination to resolve the dilemmas they encounter. Often, these are the same issues with which medieval audiences had to wrestle and which the poets intended to raise. W. Iser's and H. R. Jauss's principles of…

This course, one of 16 sequential courses comprising phase one of a part-time Bachelor of Arts degree program in Australian Studies, uses literary authorship as an example of a highly individualized social role and shows how authorial attributions and modes of composition have changed over time. It is designed for independent study combined with…

The teacher of English prose is responsible for teaching students three skills: the ability to react with appropriate sensibility to prose literature, the ability to understand written prose, and the ability to write prose that can be understood. A study of the precision and demands of the best modern novelists (Joyce, Lawrence, Woolf, Faulkner,…

This study of works of Jesse Stuart treats in some depth the setting and background for the humor in his writings, his reverence for the eastern Kentucky hill country, and the various ways he uses materials from his own life and observations as subject matter for his fictional world. After establishing Stuart's kinship with earlier frontier…

Reports on a study that found that children who read, write, and discuss whole texts of their own choice show remarkable insights into literature and its making, and that the insights match those of experienced adult literary critics. (SKC)

A professional conference exercise for teachers of French as a second language is described, in which participants analyzed the cultural content and linguistic form of headlines in adolescent mass literature. Two examples of this kind of analysis are given. (MSE)

All language use, including written school language, is rhetorical and communicative, and both composing and reading textbooks are rhetorical situations that include interactions and transactions. One issue concerning text characteristics is whether the diverse parts that authors play influence how students learn from their books and respond to…

From colonial days onward, colloquial speech was looked down on as inappropriate for serious writing, but with the publication of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," American colloquial style was raised to the level of high art. English teachers should encourage students to build on their own colloquial speech in their writing, rather…

Four articles deal with approaches to style, the usefulness of contemporary literature, the danger of dogmas, and the place of technical writing in composition courses. Louis T. Milic discusses three "real theories of style"--classical rhetorical dualism, psychological monism, and Crocean aesthetic monism--and the effect of the theories on the…

Describes teaching strategies for students' initial exposure to nonfiction materials to help students' comprehension of new materials of varying opinions, and integration of new knowledge. Provides specific questions to elicit student understanding and utilization of new content, author, organization, biography, style, publishing conventions,…

Who wrote "The Groatsworth of Wit?" Was it Greene, as hitherto believed, or Chettle? To distinguish between the two writers' styles, and thereby determine the authorship of a 16th Century literary work of particular interest to Shakespearean scholars, computer-aided techniques were employed. The two authors' differing practices in word…

The chair of a small college department of modern languages reviews the struggle and progress of advanced literary study in foreign languages, covering such issues as: lack of courses and students able to study such courses; needs for curricular reform; and cooperation with other college departments. (CB)