Intended as a model for high school English curricula, this guide outlines the English courses offered for students in grades 9 through 12 in the Oxnard Union High School District (California). The first part of the guide offers a philosophy, the goals and objectives of the curriculum, and scope and sequence. The remainder of the guide provides…

This workshop text encourages the use of literature in a student-centered curriculum of English as a second language (ESL). The first section discusses the role of the teacher in the student-centered approach and outlines the reasons for using English-language literature in the Japanese university ESL course. The second section emphasizes the…

English literature survey courses can and should be taught as part of junior and community college curriculums. However, since students in any one course may have different levels of learning and ability, it is important to structure courses so that students do not face tasks that they are unable to successfully complete. Teachers should be aware…

Two articles address teaching English in the Peoples Republic of China. In "Why Bother About Culture in English Language Teaching?," Hu Wenzhong attempts to determine opinions about the importance of awareness of cultural traits through a study of 36 English-speaking teachers at Chinese institutions and 64 Chinese students who had…

Assembled to aid high school literature teachers in exploring the epic with their students, materials in this book approach the epic as a product of a specific culture which presents vivid pictures of earlier societies. Following the introduction and the opening essay, "The Role of the Supernatural in the Epic," chapters are grouped under the…

Providing help to teachers and schools attempting to achieve the vision of the Kentucky Educational Reform Act (KERA) which shifts the focus of instruction to student use and application of knowledge, this paper presents a sample course outline as a starting point for course development. The paper begins with one example of a course description…

For several years, one educator has taught Charles Dickens's "Great Expectations" to eighth and ninth graders. She recently discovered a woman writer of the 18th century whose novel could be taught using the same format used to teach Dickens's novel. Fanny Burney's "Evelina" is an exceptional book, effective not only for teaching the epistolary…

Maintaining that the arts are composing activities and--like talking and writing--powerful ways of making meaning, this book discusses teaching English through the arts. The book provides a brief theoretical and historical basis for its fundamental approach and presents 29 instructional strategies that classroom teachers who do not have special…

This theme issue of the "Virginia English Bulletin" focuses on "Literature and Its Teaching." The 15 major articles are: "Response to Literature" (Robert C. Small and Ruth Fisher); "The Power of a Good Book" (Gayle Sterrett); "Some Plain Truths about Teaching English" (Coalition of English Associations); "Introducing High School Students to…

This collection of articles reflects humanists' interest in searching out and studying good literature for children. Five of the seventeen articles were originally presented at a symposium on children and literature in the Middle Ages. Other articles discuss the concept of "writing for children," provide reproductions of Chinese…

Indicating the need for reading materials to be related to the teenager's problems and interests as well as consistent with the stages of reading development, this book suggests ways to provide good reading experiences for young people in an effort to helf them enjoy reading. It calls for a rational approach to the adolescent's interest in…

Video is an effective educational tool in English Literature classes when the teacher is creative in its application. Video has five specific properties which make it an effective instructional device: (1) condensing or expanding an experience; (2) making the invisible visible; (3) taking the viewers where they could not go; (4) eliciting…

This sourcebook presents reading guides for 22 literary works frequently used by secondary school English teachers. The guides contain an overview of the work, a pool of instructional objectives for each work, a variety of activities, a series of discussion options, suggestions for evaluation, and annotated lists of related works. Included are:…

Intended for college teachers and students of Anglo-Saxon literature, this paper provides an overview of the poetic devices available to poets of the fourteenth century. The paper examines how the "Pearl" poet made use of numerical symbolism and the principles of formal logic as structural devices, giving examples of these devices from…

This book contains 37 out-of-print lectures on American, English, and world literature that have been presented at the Library of Congress over the past 30 years. Lectures by Thomas Mann, T. S. Eliot, R. P. Blackmur, Archibald Henderson, Irving Stone, John O'Hara, MacKinlay Kantor, John Crowe Ransom, Delmore Schwartz, John Hall Wheelock, Robert…