The autobiography "I, Rigoberta Menchu" is a complicated text--the conditions of its production, the complexity of its subject matter, and the wide range of possible responses among North American readers create challenges for composition students and instructors. A week of taped interviews with Rigoberta Menchu, a Guatemalan Indian…

A study examined whether dramatization exercises generated more interpretive and evaluative thought among students regarding theme and characterization within a short story than traditional methods of answering questions or writing an essay regarding the story. Subjects, 35 junior English students at a suburban southern California high school,…

The five essays in this book criticize the "deadening heart" of compulsory state schooling, described as a series of assumptions and structures that stamp out the self-knowledge, curiosity, concentration and solitude essential to learning--a system wherein education and schooling are mutually exclusive terms. The book argues that between schooling…

This 13 day curriculum unit is designed for use in English and language arts classrooms, grades 7-12 and junior college. While it is the second section in a series of five on the literature of war and peace, it can be used with or without the other four sections. Each section of the series focuses on a different genre of the literature of war and…

This anthology of 21 short stories is intended for Spanish-speaking students of Spanish, other students in intermediate and advanced Spanish-language courses, and students commencing study of the Hispanic literature of the United States. Twelve of the 15 authors are, by birth or descent, of Mexican, Cuban, or Puerto Rican origin. Eight were born…

This paper summarizes and critiques the literature concerning the development and use of time-compressed, intensive course formats in colleges and universities and suggests directions for future inquiry. The paper begins with a discussion of the origins of intensive courses and their development over time. Briefly reviewed are related educational…

In an investigation of the characteristics of "considerate" text, defined as informative, content area text that promotes student comprehension, learning and remembering, this report presents a prototypical chapter of considerate text on American history following the Revolutionary War and a commentary on the writing. Beginning with the…

The discord between the Catholic Church and its followers in the United States crystallized with the candidacy of Geraldine Ferraro for vice president in 1984, when she became the target of attacks by members of the church hierarchy. Ferraro questioned why she was singled out on the abortion issue, and indeed, at times she seemed to be running…

Including only selections that have employed some systematic analysis of readers' responses to literary texts, this annotated bibliography lists 203 research studies. The selections date from 1970 through 1988. The bibliography is divided into sections on the following topics: (1) reader variables (subdivided into orientation, development, and…

An undergraduate course in rhetorical criticism at Wilkes University incorporated a major component on the rhetoric of the American Woman's Suffrage Movement. Considerable time was devoted to critiquing "traditional" approaches to rhetorical criticism from a feminist perspective and to questioning the appropriateness of various…

Based on the author's experience as a professor of educational administration, this monograph is an argument for establishing a link between the humanities and instruction in school administration. Part 1 discusses the instrumental value of the humanities in administrative preparation and recounts the limitations of past attempts by the University…

Schools tend to have a built-in bias toward left brain activities (tasks that are linear and sequential in nature), so the introduction of right brain activities (functions related to music, rhythm, images, color, imagination, daydreaming, dimensions) brings a balance into the classroom and helps those students who may be right brain oriented. To…

Containing a review of recent research on critical reading and six appendixes detailing course tasks and assignments in an introductory literature course, this essay aims to help teachers develop students' ability to read and write about literature critically. The essay, which focuses on how these course tasks coincide with the findings of recent…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 19 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) the ethics of violence as political strategy in contempory drama; (2) the history of Italian-American theatre from 1900 to 1905; (3) the development of the…

The 197-item bibliography on Chicano literature published from 1980 through June 1984 is presented in 10 sections: poetry (77 entries), novel (25 entries), short fiction (13 entries), theatre (7 entries), literary criticism (16 entries), anthology (24 entries), unpublished dissertations (13 entries), bibliographies and encyclopedia (6 entries),…