An attempt is made to show how at-risk students can increase their literacy skills through reading film as text by connecting classical Greek and Elizabethan theater to contemporary film. Films that feature violence are utilized by students to increase their literacy skills and also reach a critical awareness of the impact of violence in our…

So much has been made over the crisis in English literature as field, as corpus, and as canon in recent years, that some of it undoubtedly has spilled over into English education. This has been the case in predominantly English-speaking Anglo-American and Commonwealth nations, as well as in those postcolonial states where English remains the…

This study set out to empirically determine the reliability and validity of the Vocabulary Levels Tests, both the passive and productive versions. Furthermore, attempt was made to investigate the nature of the students' vocabulary knowledge with regard to their passive and active knowledge of the L2 words as a whole and at different word frequency…

As this report goes to press, the nation's capital is in the midst of a six-moth, city-wide celebration of William Shakespeare. With this celebration as a backdrop, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) researched how Shakespeare fits into English curricula at 70 of the nation's leading colleges and universities. ACTA surveyed English…

As the lead Advanced Placement (AP) English teacher at Suncoast High School, a magnet school, the author started a pilot program teaching the lowest quartile group of African American students the AP English Literature and Composition course their senior year. Their educational background was limited, and several were not able to write a complete…

Designed for young adults, this book on Jane Austen's novels is one of an anthology series providing accessible resources for students researching great literary lives and works. Contributing writers' essays in the book are taken from a wide variety of sources and are edited to accommodate the reading and comprehension levels of young adults; each…

Thomas Hardy has received great acclaim as a poet and novelist, but his short stories have remained largely ignored with regard to the usual short story "canon." Early reviews of Hardy's stories were mixed, but after his death the tide of critical opinion tended to turn against Hardy's stories. A significant historical factor was the…

This handout is a guide to library resources in the J. Murrey Atkins Library at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte for the criticism of poetry. The guide enables the reader to find sources of criticism on poetry, including critical articles and essays about single poems, or writings on the work of a single author. The guide's sections…

Intended to impart the basic ways a poem is constructed, this concise handbook is a prose guide to writing poetry. The handbook talks about meter and rhyme, form and diction, sound and sense, iambs and trochees, couplets and sonnets, and how and why this should matter to any person writing or reading poetry. Interspersing history and analysis with…

Designed to supplement the "Shakespeare for Children" series, this guidebook can be used by teachers who have no dramatic training or particular experience with Shakespeare and with students from elementary to high school. The book begins with a rationale for teaching Shakespeare to children and a comprehensive introduction which…

The polarities in the political activities of twentieth-century British homosexuals correspond to the polarities of the literary scene. (JH)

Discusses how to deal with "The Lord of the Rings" by J. R. R. Tolkien as a centerpiece for a course in science-fiction and fantasy literature. (RB)

A study was conducted to measure students' assessments and attitudes in two college English literature classes at Lehigh University, one in which the approach was traditional and one in which material derived from linguistics, literary theory, or philosophy of language was added. Students in the non-traditional class received additional…

The high school or community college history teacher can use these background materials to teach about Tudor England (1529-1603) and the foundation of the Anglican Church. The materials might also be used by humanities or literature teachers. After an explanation of the Tudor family tree, there is a discussion about the wives and legitimate…

This library handbook is a guide for the student majoring in English. It lists some of the more useful materials and reference books basic to general research and gives their location in the Fogler Library at the University of Maine. Materials are listed in ten categories: (1) dictionaries and handbooks, (2) books of quotations, (3) style manuals,…