Deconstruction, as a critical theory, maintains that language is a system of signs and, more precisely, a system of oppositions, differences and contradictions. Accordingly, the theory is operative in the sense that meanings are ultimately, unstable, and that a text, any text, contradicts, dismantles and even destroys itself. Hence, literary texts…

This article considers alternatives to the established constructivist approaches to children's literature, exploring instead the potential of two relatively recent areas of inquiry, cognitive poetics and evolutionary literary criticism. The article questions the assumption, implied if not directly expressed by Peter Hollindale in "Signs of…

This article examines the deeper purposes behind the teaching of creative writing. To extend an analogy created by William Blake in his poem 'The Tyger', its furnaces are examined and its 'deadly terrors' clasped. It re-interprets the different views of teaching English, as drawn up in the United Kingdom's Cox Report. It argues that these views…

What happens when teachers perceive a growing rift between their pedagogical practice and their students' lived experiences? How do teachers respond to the uncertainty that such a "relevance gap" can create? In a climate in which literacy research is often pressed to address the achievement gap and to contribute to a sense of certainty,…

This article looks at how four British-based poets born in the Caribbean exploit the rich language repertoire available to them in their work for children and young people. Following initial consideration of questions of definition and terminology, poetry collections by James Berry, John Agard, Grace Nichols and Valerie Bloom are discussed, with a…

Edgar Allen Poe, Langston Hughes, Louisa May Alcott, and Stephen King are just a handful of famous authors who began their publishing careers in their teens. Many young adults would like to write and publish but few know where to begin. While there are many books on how to write and how to get published, none are written specifically for teens.…

When Don Imus made his infamous comments about the Rutgers University women's basketball team in 2007, he provoked widespread (yet short-lived) attention to the circulation of language practices demeaning to women of color. In an elective autobiographical writing course that the author designed with and for urban high school girls, the students…

Defninig rhetorical analysis as a means of studying writer/audience relationships allowing both intrinsic and extrinsic analysis, the author discusses the three sections of Levertov's poem, "From a Notebook: October '68--May '69." Section 1 is the speaker's personal comparison of her associations with life and death, comparison of…

Osundare's writing is generally acknowledged as coterminous with the contentious issues of language, style and meaning in Anglophone modern African literature, and because he is seen as representing a generation of African writers, this study highlights and analyzes aspects of Osundare's creative processes of meaning for his thematic project.…

Surveys works of Damaso Alonso, Gerardo Diego, Francisco Garcia Pavon, Carmen Laforet, Jaime Salom and Rafael Sanchez Ferlosio. (DS)

Aub died July 22, 1972. (DS)

Critical discussions of reader reaction are often only disguised discussions of author intention. (JH)

Examines the poetry and prose of James Dickey, analyzing his departure from conventional rhyme and the experiences influencing his writing. (HTH)

This annotated bibliography of children's books about Africa cites more than 800 entries written in English and published in the United States, Africa, and Europe. The books (designed for children in early elementary school through young adulthood) are evaluated in terms of the validity of the perspective of Africa which they present. Both…