Suggests a technique for teaching poetry which also sharpens students' critical thinking and reasoning abilities. (RB)

Working on the assumptions that literature should be presented to students in ways that will help them to experience the literary work rather than merely to think about it and that the teaching of literature ought to grow out of the teacher's and student's reading of it, this book is divided into two sections. The first section describes the…

Urges teachers to sometimes reverse the order in which they present units on literature. (DD)

Describes how nondirective questioning of students about poems they have read can help them to personally experience the poems. (DD)

Defense of fantasy as part of the regular English curriculum. (AA)

Transcript of a conference call, as an example of a way to obtain classroom contact with contemporary authors. (AA)

Outlines the differences between mediocre and good poetry, asserting that most objections to poetry are really objection to bad poetry or poetry poorly taught or ignorantly read and concluding that good poetry is a way of knowing and a method of organizing perceptions. (SRT)

Recounts a childhood experience that helped develop a sense of delight in an author's choice of diction. (EL)

Analyzes the banquet scene in Blake's poem, arguing that it embodies his dialectic art at its best. (FL)

An assortment of reflections and anecdotes about poetry instruction which suggest reasons why many students dislke studying poetry. (SW)

Presents a teaching guide for the novel "Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant," including questions for discussion and writing about individual characters and the novel as a whole. (HTH)

Argues that English teachers should teach literature as a subject worth knowing for its own sake rather than as a means to some other economic or social end. (AEA)

Asseverates the morality of "The Catcher in the Rye," emphasizing that teachers need not defend the book on purely literary terms. (JL)

Describes how a teacher sparked her students' interest in Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House" by having them conduct a classroom trial of the play's lead character. (JL)