Synectics, the making of analogies, was used with learning disabled high school seniors to provide them with a creative process that aids in developing a deeper understanding of literature. After studying Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," the students completed a six-step process and produced a short writing assignment. (VW)

Teachers teach literature to help students expand and develop their image-making powers, "to imagine, conceive, fancy, picture," to think. To get students involved in literature, especially poetry, Robert Frost's poem, "The Witch of Coos," is particularly useful because it is so immediately accessible. In order to help engage…

Describes an eighth-grade teacher's decision to heed innervoices and make time for poetry in her classroom. The class began by reading fun-filled, picture-book poetry; enlisted the help of school and town librarians in finding compelling single-author works and anthologies; and finally wrote "recipe poems" together. (Contains 27…

Describes the use of "poemakers," sheets of white paper with special drawings pre-printed on them that have blank lines where words go. Describes using these poemakers as springboards for writing in poetry workshops for students from first grade through twelfth, as well as with college students. Includes one finished example, followed by four…

The article describes a special writing program for learning disabled high school students with the following four components: (1) writing exercises in class as well as at home; (2) peer and teacher evaluation of writing skills and samples; (3) reading comprehension; and (4) reading enhancement. (PHR)

Shows how the regular reading and discussion of rich literary passages builds a respect and interest among students for imagery. Describes a series of classroom exercises designed to build imagery writing skills. (TB)

Literature is the ideal vehicle to enable English-as-a-Second-Language students to better recognize their own and other viewpoints and values. Students can develop academic skills by focusing on point of view and multiple perspectives through reading short stories and by completing related writing assignments. 38 references. (Author/CB)

Focuses on advantages of video as a tool in teaching literature in a foreign language class. Emphasizes that use of visual aids, such as video, can help the reader overcome his limitations in comprehending vocabulary meanings and context of sentences and lists two ways in which a film version of a story can be presented: in nonstop viewing or in…

Suggests a possible unified theory of reading, interpretation, and composition based on recent research in composition combined with the theoretical contributions of reader response critics in literature. Describes a pedagogical program based on this theoretical model that uses students' responses to texts as the center of the course. (JL)

The reader-response journal has proven useful in the literature-based composition class; it is also useful in the literature survey at the sophomore or junior level of college. Survey courses have a standard protocol that students have come to expect. In these classes, the teacher is an expert who lectures on historical background, trends, and…

In a required class on literature and composition at Eastern Illinois University, students learn about the short story by writing one of their own. Their stories then become the context for an introduction to literary terminology such as point of view, setting, and use of dialogue versus narration. Having just written their own stories, students…

English courses should help students recognize the interrelationships among creative and expository writing, literature, and language. By helping students understand literary elements such as point of view, for example, creative writing courses can produce better student narratives. Required composition courses should replace sterile exercises in…

When students write in response to literature, they make reading a creative act. Recording their personal reaction to a poem or an excerpt from a larger work, students become aware of the complex web of past experiences, associations and ideas triggering their responses; they learn to interact more fully, more consciously, with the text. Besides…

Suggests the importance of George Orwell's "1984" for today's students and recommends specific analytic and descriptive writing activities to develop critical reading skills. (MM)

Engineering students can use a humanistic research project on the poetry of Walt Whitman as the basis for a technical report. Students must first become familiar with the scientific method so that they will have a general procedure for gathering and analyzing data for the project. To use the scientific method, students isolate the problem, observe…