This article explores how college instructors can use William Blake's unique pairing of image and text -- what W.J.T. Mitchell calls "composite art" -- to encourage students to think and write about the dynamic interplay of image and text in modern communications. Opening with an anecdote of teaching Songs of Innocence and of Experience…

To challenge resistance to required literature courses, instructors quiz students regularly on the readings; they also require examinations that ask students to define key terms, to answer background questions focused on authors and dates, to identify key passages by author/title/speaker, and to explain the thematic significance of each quotation.…