Six teachers have successfully combined the team teaching technique with the humanities approach to learning in an Illinois high school. Offered to juniors and seniors as either a semester or full-year elective, a maximum of 150 students can be accommodated in a single class hour. The full year program is organized into six thematic units: Man and…

The "Introduction to Shakespeare" course in the Quinmester Program involves the careful study of the tragedy "Romeo and Juliet" and the comedy "The Taming of the Shrew," emphasizing language, development of character and theme. The course also includes the study of biographical data relevant to the evolution of…

A quinmester course which concentrates on two Shakespearean tragedies is outlined. The focus of the course is on the tragic hero, his development, tragic flaw, and eventual downfall. Performance objectives, course content, teaching strategies and learning activities, and lists of student and teacher resources are provided. The course is designed…

A DISCUSSION OF THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE WAS CONTINUED (PART 1 IS ED 010 823) TO GIVE THE 10TH-GRADE STUDENT AN ACCURATE PICTURE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AT AN IMPORTANT STAGE IN ITS DEVELOPMENT. THE TIME CHOSEN WAS THE 17TH CENTURY, AND THE EXAMPLE WAS SHAKESPEARE'S "JULIUS CAESAR." THIS PLAY WAS CHOSEN AS AN EXAMPLE BECAUSE…

This teacher's guide for public television's 3-part adaptation of Charles Dickens's "Oliver Twist" provides information that will help enrich students' viewing of the series, whether or not they read the novel. The guide includes a wide range of discussion and activity ideas; there is also a series Web site and a list of Web resources.…

Offers a critique of contemporary American Shakespeare criticism in higher education. Argues that the current movement, called New Historicism, pursues its political analysis of Shakespeare within the context of a narrow political agenda including issues of race, class, gender, culture, and power determined by specific contemporary concerns. (JB)

This article describes the structure and operation of three literature seminars offered in the English curriculum at the Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics, and Humanities. The seminar approach puts the responsibility on the student and fosters creativity, thinking skills, and problem solving. The seminars include:…

Reviews essays by Raymond Williams, which explain how, within the context of a 150-year literary history, rural stereotypes have been constructed and imbedded within a collective consciousness by a form of cultural colonization. Suggests that Williams' insights can help rural education researchers think outside the conventional wisdom that…

Recounts author's experience in teaching 'King Lear' to her community college students. States that many students denounced Shakespeare's work as having little relevance to contemporary society. Argues that the author's plays and poems are relevant and timeless, and that one should "reason not the need" for reading his work. (AUTH/NB)

More than sixty years ago, John Dewey and Louise Rosenblatt produced theoretical work that challenged prevailing assumptions concerning art and aesthetic experience. Today, their work continues to be relevant and particularly useful for exploring the troubled interface between literary scholarship and classroom practice. Rereading Dewey and…

This paper describes two prospective English teachers' beliefs and understandings regarding literature and the teaching of literature. Through extensive interviews that included context-specific tasks, the study explored the subjects' prior experiences with literature, their conceptions regarding the nature of literature, and their perceptions of…

This study compared students' learning experiences in a set of courses in British literature and a set of courses in marketing, in which each set included a course taught in an intensive format and a semester-long format with the same instructor and content. Data collection included participant observation, videotaped class sessions,…

An approach to teaching English literature to first-year students of translation, emphasizing literature as a vehicle of culture, of literary experience, and for development of communication skills in English as a Second Language, is recommended based on one teacher's experience at an Iraqi university. Literature is seen as a means of helping…

An analysis of four writers' portrayals of nineteenth and early twentieth century working class life reveals a progression of political thought about the treatment of people's struggles to effectively change society. In Dickens'"Hard Times" (1854), the protagonist is a martyr-saint who finds solace in subduing his anger and continuing to…

TRAGIC AND COMIC FORMS OF DRAMA ARE EXPLORED IN THIS TWO-PART 11TH-GRADE LITERATURE UNIT. A SECTION ON TRAGEDY, TREATING THREE PLAYS, EMPHASIZES STRUCTURAL DIVISIONS, CONVENTIONS, AND SUBJECT MATTER PECULIAR TO THIS TYPE OF DRAMA. FOLLOWING A DISCUSSION OF THE CLASSICAL GREEK THEATRE AND THE ARISTOTELIAN VIEW OF TRAGEDY, THE FORM AND THEME OF…