For educators' summer reading enjoyment, "Kappan" editors recommend three books on nature (Robert Richardson's biography "Emerson: The Mind on Fire, William Cronin's edited book "Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature," and Gary Snyder's poetry volume "Mountain and Rivers Without End"). Also…

Offers six high school teachers' suggestions about using adolescent novels to introduce students to a literary classic. Reports that this approach can help young readers relate the literary experience to their own lives. (SR)

Finds "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" functions as a "surprisingly accurate cultural translation" of de Troyes's "Perceval" text. Suggests that using such films helps students open a door upon film studies and discursive studies that will serve them well as they adapt to their own historical moment. (PA)

Argues that the 1996 film of "Romeo and Juliet" (starring Leonardo Di Caprio and Claire Danes, and transposed to inner-city gang culture) is a gripping presentation of Shakespeare's story of star-crossed lovers in an impulsive, hot-headed, violent world. Suggests that the film is practically guaranteed to make students love Shakespeare.…

The author joined the faculty of Macalester College in the fall of 1968. Much to his surprise, he discovered at the first faculty meeting that he could not understand what his new colleagues were talking about. For many years he literally had no one to talk to about subjects that mattered most to him, such as the philosophy of education. Then…

This article reports and discusses the findings of an initial inquiry into secondary school students' comprehension strategy use during small-group, peer-led discussions of literary text. One classroom of ninth-grade English students in the midwestern United States participated in the inquiry. Data consisted of the verbatim transcripts of four…

This paper (a) reintroduces E. Franklin Frazier's 1939 book, "The Negro Family in the United States," to family scholars and graduate students and highlights its importance as a groundbreaking and classic text, (b) provides both an introduction to the major thesis of this monograph and a reading of the text, and (c) discusses the…

Good literature stimulates thinking; evokes ideas, creates mental images, and engages the emotions. A classic is simply a literary work that has endured over time, has universal meaning, and explores the human condition. Classic books children enjoy are suggested. (MT)

This book presents 16 original scripts that have been adapted from classic works of literature for use for readers theatre with young adults and ESL (English as a Second Language) students. Adaptations of the following works are included: "Little Women" (Louisa May Alcott); episodes from "Don Quixote" (Miguel de Cervantes; "The Necklace" (Guy de…

The author recommends Tom Sawyer,'' Huckleberry Finn,'' Hans Brinker,'' Little Women,'' The Story of a Bad Boy,'' and The Peterkin Papers,'' as the major classics with current appeal. Also included are a few more recent titles recommended for children's reading. (SJ)

States that "Little Women" has appeared in many guises and many media; explores what the process of reworking has done to the story and its impact on readers' literary experiences. Looks at some of the fictional worlds created by the different films and subsequent novelizations; turns to the kinds of packaged texts produced by the…

Argues that when introductory activities to the classics begin with background information, it can upstage or confine the life of the story, and shows little faith in the students as readers or in the literature itself. Suggests sometimes letting the literature begin, and then helping students make sense of it. Discusses examples from "To Kill a…

Notes that the use of Young Adult literature to introduce the complex literary concept of the archetype is ideally suited to teachers of gifted students in high school classrooms. Discusses how once students understand the concept of archetypes in literature, they can begin to make deeper connections among all of the literary works that they read.…

In this article, the author insists that those seeking public office prove their literary mettle. As an English teacher, he does have a litmus test for all public officials, judges and senators included--a reading litmus test. He would require that all candidates and nominees have read and reflected on a nucleus of works whose ideas and insights…

This textbook is a reader intended to develop children's taste for classic, diverse works. In addition to providing a definite and flexible method for teaching beginners to read, effort has been made to include only material that may justly be called classic and that have held up under repeated school use. Care has also been taken to present a…