This essay draws on the work of Raymond Williams in identifying a shift from the attempt to have students engage with literary texts in personal terms to a concern, founded on theoretical innovation, that they should read at a more sophisticated level in order to discern the ideology of a given text. It argues that what Williams calls an…

In the ten years since the Modern Language Association published their report, "Foreign Languages and Higher Education: New Structures for a Changed World" (2007) dissatisfaction with the "two-tiered configuration" of US foreign language departments has become increasingly vocal. While the target of the criticism is often the…

In the early 1990s, a popular American dorm-room poster luminously asserted crass materialism as "JUSTIFICATION FOR HIGHER EDUCATION". Self-consciously premised on the paradoxical success of my failure or failure of my success as a professor of Renaissance literature and culture, this essay draws on Erasmus's educational theory of…

This article describes a self-study pursuant to a clash between a lecturer and a student concerning the teaching of literature in a politically fraught context. The learning group is composed of Arab and Jewish teachers at a college in northern Israel. The work read by the group expresses a Palestinian perspective. The incident, discussed with…

Secondary student performance in the domain of reading has been a cause for concern for educators and scholars alike. To understand the demands placed on students we must first understand how reading changes within content areas and across grades. Furthermore, we must have an understanding of teachers' conceptions about the texts they teach. This…

Prior to her joining the California Writing Project's (WP) Improving Students' Academic Writing (ISA) program, the author relates how she used to get frustrated when she read her students' essays. As a result of her new understanding gained from her participation at ISA, the author boldly banished traditional literary analysis papers that asked…

The 5th International Conference on Language, Literature and Culture has been hosted by Mehmet Akif Ersoy University (Burdur, Turkey), in cooperation with Çankaya University (Ankara, Turkey) and Süleyman Demirel University (Isparta, Turkey). Our main aim has been to provide a forum for discussion, to facilitate integration in these fields, and to…

The only way English teachers and their students can have an appreciation for literature by black writers is to have appreciation for the writers themselves and for the world, past and present, they occupy. (MM)

A paper presented at annual Conference on English Education, National Council of Teachers of English (8th, Des Moines, Iowa, April 1970). (Editor)

A paper presented at convention of National Council of Teachers of English (Washington, D.C., November 28, 1969) and a shortened version of the final chapter of With Respect to Readers." (Author/RD)

Notes that classic literary works such as "Romeo and Juliet" are often taught in ways that infuse negative impressions of sexuality, while students need and deserve a more realistic approach to the subject. Cites Alice Munro's "Lives of Girls and Women" as a book that provides this approach. Lists other acceptable books. (FL)

Analyzes results of a ten-nation study of literature education in terms of three different "deep structures" or basic approaches to literature curricula. Analysis of responses reveals significant national differences in curricular deep structures and indicates that agreement between student and teacher responses increases as students'…

This study investigated certain characteristics of the attitudes of classroom teachers of English toward written student response to literature. Specifically, the study attempted to determine the preference or lack of preference for categories of student response to literature, using four categories: engagement-involvement, perception,…