Describes the College Board's Pacesetter course, a proposed senior-year English curriculum. Argues that Pacesetter is not innovative at all but, in fact, constitutes a reactionary and teacher-dominated curricular package inspired by a conservative version of educational reform. (HB)

Describes the College Board's Pacesetter course, a proposed senior-year English curriculum. Argues that Pacesetter is a positive and a democratic curriculum. Defends the Pacesetter program against its most ardent critics. (HB)

Contends that the accelerated school model is a key to effective school reform in America. Provides a case study of one such school. Describes accelerated schools as positive, empowering vehicles by which students may succeed. (HB)

Gives an account of how several English teachers in two different schools used portfolio responses to re-form the content of their classes. Outlines the positive effects of such portfolio-based course assessment and learning. (HB)

Describes how teachers might invite their students to become participants in the act of educational reform. Argues that school reform will ultimately fail unless students are encouraged to participate. (HB)

Describes a letter-writing and video exchange project carried on between two English classrooms, one in New York and one in Georgia. Outlines methods used to connect the classes, including dealing with issues of racial and ethnic differences. Claims that such methods validate students and build self-esteem. (HB)

Describes how one teacher developed an approach to teaching the plays of William Shakespeare that included both attending performances of plays and then producing individual scenes through student participation. Outlines other related activities of the unit, including holding an Elizabethan marketplace. (HB)

Shows how one teacher used innovative methods in teaching William Shakespeare's "Macbeth." Outlines student assignments including text renderings, rewriting a scene from the play, and creating a multicultural scrapbook for the play. (HB)

Describes one teacher's methods for introducing to secondary English students the concepts of Classicism and Romanticism in relation to pictures of gardens, architecture, music, and literary works. Outlines how the unit leads to a writing assignment based on collected responses over time. (HB)

Presents the responses of nine practicing teachers to the questions, "What controversial book do you teach anyway? How do you handle it in the classroom?" Provides citations and descriptions of the books discussed. (HB)

Discusses one high school senior's fictional rendition of her family's experiences of immigration and the American myth. Describes how stories such as this one can be moving and powerful, and thus constitute a sort of "fictional dream" into which readers enter and are thereby changed. (HB)

Maintains that technical communication curricula occupy valid theoretical positions within English studies. Advocates curricula which emphasize the connections between reading and writing, the historical-cultural contexts underlying communication, and a new rhetoric for technology-based communications and readers with global language skills. (SR)

Offers arguments for and against making the essay central to the English and writing curriculum. Argues for the inclusion of the essay and discusses personal experiences and feelings regarding essay writing. (PRA)

Invites a reexamination of expository writing and the way it is currently being taught. Considers the relationship of gender to writing modes. Discusses differences between male and female writing styles and whether these differences should inform writing instruction. (HB)

Discusses the results of the Modern Language Association's 1990 survey of doctorate-granting departments in English and other languages regarding doctoral study. (HB)