Examines the identity of female characters who rescue male protagonists in three works of Newbery-winning fiction, and realizes their archetypal roles of Mother. Provides readers with a vehicle for revisiting the interaction among characters in young adult fiction. Presents a rationale for using literary criticism to help students explore how…

This course outline for the study of novels by representative writers of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries emphasizes the various novelistic forms. Study objectives include: (1) explanation of how psychological elements motivate characteristics; (2) explanation of how sociological factors influence characters and situations; (3)…

Discusses the importance of the reader's response in achieving an understanding of literature. (RB)

Discusses whether the "old" realism has matured and the "new" realism (drugs, abortion, and homosexuality) in current books for young people. Compares "Skinny" (in the traditional vein) and "Mom, the Wolf Man and Me" (in terms of new realism). (JM)

Discusses the teaching of "Bleak House" to students who are daunted by its length and complexity. Provides suggestions on how to get beyond those complexities and allow students to understand the central concerns of the book. (SRT)

Discusses the way Lynn Hall uses animals in her novels. Shows how her use of animals varies from background to the focus of the story, often as central object of the heroine's affection. Analyzes Hall's animal novels as archetypically romantic in pattern. (HB)

This paper describes an approach to teaching students to become more sensitive to voice, audience, and meaning in fiction. Examined are several passages of monologue, including a passage spoken by a character named Mr. Tyler in the opening of E.M. Forster's "The Story of a Panic." The rhetorical triangle made up of speaker, audience, and subject…

Emphasizes teaching comprehension of literature by distinguishing logic of selections from the psychology of readers and writers. (RB)

Discusses three novels that have revived the author's interest in contemporary fiction. (HOD)

Discusses how Katherine Paterson, in her novel "Jacob Have I Loved," chronicles the human search for identity. Summarizes the novel's plot involving twin sisters. Analyzes the novel's assertion of the importance of individuals set against the backdrop of all humanity. (HB)

A study of the fictional treatment of the same theme--man's depravity--in "Lord of the Flies" and "Heart of Darkness" provides an approach to literary study which sharpens students' analytical skills through a comparison of the books and an exploration of the uniqueness of each. Although there are differences evident between…

Reviews Robert Newton Peck's "A Day No Pigs Would Die," pointing out the values of a courageous display of duty to others and to tasks at hand, and a vision that appreciates the natural order of life. (EL)

Notes that the brief but crucial appearances of Prince Escalus in "Romeo and Juliet" offer a key to the understanding of how plot proceeds in any dramatic or comedic work. (FL)

Discusses recent events in American culture's ongoing debate concerning the censorship of reading materials for young adults. Considers the ways to defend reading selections from attack by potential censors. Gives advice for teachers challenged to defend their reading selections. (HB)