The two complementary questions--"What does literature do to young readers?" and "Can literature be taught?"--are not easily answered. Youth should not employ literature as an exclusive guide to life since they will encounter numerous unrealistic situations. Instead, literature should entice them to deal vicariously with vivid, new experiences and…

This collection of five papers from the Anglo-American Seminar on the Teaching of English deals with language standards, common attitudes toward language, the relationship between linguistics and the teaching of English, and the linguistic component of the preparation of the English teacher. Albert H. Marckwardt surveys the history of language…

A new fundamental tool of analysis, the morphophone, is presented in this monograph, and some implications of this discovery for the problems involved in the teaching of literacy are considered. The relation of written to spoken English is explored first, for experience has shown that the basic problem in becoming literate is gaining the ability…

The problem of finding adequately prepared teachers in public schools is determined to be directly related to school size and grade level in this study. Tables illustrating this principle are derived from a state-wide survey of Iowan junior and senior high schools concerning teaching assignments in the communicative arts during the first semester…

Emphasizing the newspaper's influence on people's lives and opinions and its role in preserving a democratic government, this teaching guide attempts to promote student understanding and appreciation of the functions, service, and responsibilities of the press. Units for grades 7-12 focus on particular aspects of the newspaper: introduction to the…

Three articles deal with primary school English instruction. W. J. Jackson examines some possible sets of objectives for a language arts program--e.g., development through language of creative and reasoning faculties, awareness of language characteristics and of writing models useful in contemporary society, achievement of expected terminal and…

As part of an international study of students' achievement in literature, a thorough analysis was made of 23 current books, curricula, and reports, concerning the teaching of literature, to determine the pedagogical objectives pursued and the kinds of literature being taught in secondary schools in the United States. From these sources, a number…

Emphasizing the behavioral and social aspects of language as a foundation for instruction, 16 concepts for learning the structure of English in grades 7-9 are outlined in an attempt to set down in logical order the basic concepts involved in the understanding of the English language. The concepts begin with a recognition of the social purposes of…

This book utilizes principles of curriculum development established by research findings and by tested experiences of teachers throughout the country. Part 1 treats the adolescent and his world from the viewpoints of both the teen-ager and the teacher. Part 2 focuses on the language arts program: (1) designing the program, (2) building…

Social contact through informal speech, a basic adolescent need, can be most effectively developed in secondary schools through the learning, working, and creating situations of drama activities. Since drama is conflict and living language is action, the process of making a play is as important as the play. Thus, drama creation within a small…

For the beginning or general student, dialectology and the history of the English language can both be taught with a common frame of reference provided by certain principles of linguistic change. Related in obvious ways with the history of language but often overlooked in dialectology, these principles are (1) that any living language is certain…

Evaluations of three English methodology courses at Bradley University, Illinois, were made to determine which course or combination of courses was most effective in preparing the student to teach English in the secondary school. Questionnaires completed by Bradley graduates teaching English in secondary schools indicated that none of the three…

The purposes of this study were (1) to investigate the effectivenss of activities centered around children's literature on pupils' use and understanding of figurative language, (2) to study the effect of the activities on pupils' reading vocabulary and comprehension, and (3) to examine the relationship of age, sex, IQ, and socioeconomic status to…

This study was made to discover whether or not teacher ideas and performance could be changed by a short English extension course on principles of composition, practical applications of linguistics, and various approaches to teaching slow learners. In 1965-66, three instructors spent 3 to 4 weeks in each of several schools in Illinois teaching…

This survey of "listening, as a receptive communication skill," summarizes major research on listening in the following areas: (1) "Scope and Extent of Listening," (2) " Literature on Listening," (3) "Relationships to Listening"--the interrelationships between listening and such factors as reading skills, intelligence, school achievement, cultural…