In today's educational world, it is crucial for language teachers to continuously evolve in order to best serve language learners. Further study on the best practices and challenges in the language classroom is crucial to ensure instructors continue to grow as educators. The "Handbook of Research on Language Teacher Identity" addresses…

The transformation from grammar to literature can be difficult for college foreign language students because of the introduction of figurative language inherent in the study of literature. Article presents classroom techniques for introducing figurative language and literary analysis in classroom. (BK)

Matching contemporary rhetorical concepts with classical rhetorical figures of speech can help students improve their persuasive business communication skills. (RL)

Uses poetry and skeletal outlines of similes to stimulate students' use of imagery in their feature writing. (HTH)

Discusses the importance of world knowledge in the comprehension of metaphor. Examines difficulties encountered by students when their cultural schemata are insufficient or inappropriate to ensure comprehension. Offers pedagogical solutions to these problems. (DMM)

Suggests a series of exercises designed to help students see the value of concrete writing, to help give new life to metaphors, and to encourage concrete evaluations of abstractions. (TJ)

The paper presents and demonstrates a heuristic for helping students learn how to read and understand figuration in literature. The heuristic contains elements from linguistics, New Criticism, and rhetorical analysis in a recursive process which enables students to see how features of words combine into figurative patterns. Beginning at the level…

This anthology collects essays by current and former lecturers at the Warren Wilson College (North Carolina) MFA Program for Writers. Some of the poets whose essays are included are: Joan Aleshire, Marianne Boruch, Carl Dennis, Stephen Dobyns, Reginald Gibbons, Louise Gluck, Allen Grossman, Robert Hass, Tony Hoagland, Heather McHugh, Gregory Orr,…

This book is designed to be a how-to-write-fiction guide that is long on specifics and short on theoretical material. Each section of the book deals with a separate element of fiction--characterization, dialogue, point of view, plot, etc. Every exercise in the book is introduced in an opening paragraph, followed by instructions for completing the…

Written for those who want to write poems but are not sure how to start, this book presents 20 short exercises plus short pieces ("written talk") about poetry. The exercises in the book are designed to be completed in about 10 weeks. The types of poems in the 20 exercises include "found" and "headline" poems (which…

Designed to assess the ability to interpret the major types of figurative language or tropes such as similes, metaphors, proverbs, and personification, the two forms of this instrument each contain 50 items in a two-part, multiple-choice format. Part I tests the meaning of figures of speech in isolation; part II tests the meaning in the context of…

Describes the use of the proverb "a watched pot never boils" to help students make the relationship between literal statements and the reader's own experience. (MKM)

This 20-minute videotape program presents poet and Columbia University professor Kenneth Koch conducting a poetry workshop with a small group of fourth and fifth graders. The program's notes explain that Koch believes that students should be allowed to write poetry in the same way that they are allowed to dance and sing--with freedom,…

This book is a collection of essays designed for high school and college teachers who want to introduce non-Western and other non-canonical texts into their traditional literature courses. The essays in the book explore the kinds of visions encountered when teachers cluster Western texts with those outside the dominant Western tradition. Papers in…

This teaching guide for high school college instructors begins with an introduction on "Shakespeare and the American Landscape," by Samuel Crowl, and includes the following 32 essays: "Some 'Basics' in Shakespearean Study" (Gladys V. Veidemanis); "Teaching Shakespeare's Dramatic Dialogue" (Sharon A. Beehler);…