In an instructional experiment in poetry in a college English literature course, chronology of publication and labels of authorship were ignored in the study of Wordsworth and Coleridge's "Lyrical Ballads." In the original plan for the "Lyrical Ballads," Coleridge was to supply poems treating supernatural elements as real,…

This paper argues that the prevailing tendency in the teaching of literature today is to rely too heavily on secondary material. An approach to training English majors to explicate and evaluate literature on their own is described. Students should understand that literature is not often autobiographical, that the writer's original intent is not…

Proposes three theatrical games by which elements of literary experience may be made dramatic. (DD)

Gives brief suggestions for using the "whodunit" to motivate student interest and analysis. (KS)

Alternatives to the lecture in college teaching of literature. (AA)

Argues that students need to be shown the value of the study of literary style. (AA)

Discusses problems that arise in teaching Black literature to students who know little of the minority culture out of which the literature comes. Argues that students whose experience is limited will still gain from their contact with such works. (AA)

Defends fantasy fiction as an important literary study. (AA)

Lists eight methods for preparing to teach and for teaching science fiction: among others, the "superstar" method, the "make a monster method," and the "alternate probable reality" method. (KS)

Criticizes the recent emphasis on a curriculum designed to teach skills and advocates a return to a traditional humanities centered curriculum. (SRT)

Shows how the character Gilbert Clandon from Virginia Woolf's "The Legacy" illustrates one of Woolf's underlying beliefs about fiction--that it should not present reality as absolute and neatly packageable, but rather as subjectively experienced by individuals. (EL)

A former high school English teacher recounts his discovery of Steinbeck in "Steinbeck Country," California, and the effectiveness of this literature in the classroom. (JK)

Maintains that the concept of decontextualization is fallacious, and that meaning is a dialectical process between reader and text involving, in addition, the intentions of the writer as well as the historical and cultural contexts of the text, or its place in the world of intertextuality. (EL)

Describes four techniques that attempt to develop language arts ability within the context of interesting interactions with pieces of good literature. (EL)

Suggests that childrens' responses to traditional methods of teaching literature are a function of their developmental status, which parallels their preference for particular types of jokes. (KS)