Literature that provokes readers to engage in activism is the author's favorite type of writing. For years she has celebrated the tradition of counterculture authors who advocated for a cause, using narratives to educate the world and elicit change. As a culminating project after a year of embracing dialogue and promoting writing for power, she…

Today's high-stakes testing world has changed the English classroom a great deal, and perhaps one of the most dramatically affected areas has been that of creative writing. As all English teachers well know, creative writing does not easily lend itself to a multiple-choice test or a five-paragraph essay. As the authors began the push to prepare…

High school teacher Julie Gorlewski considers the complexities of multicultural education and the challenges of realizing its potential as a social movement. She explains how students became "powerful users of language" by writing to the editors of their literature anthology to question what appeared to be censorship through alterations to text…

Reviews and describes Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (HBJ) Literature Series. Discusses the contributors to these anthologies, the content, and a teaching apparatus. Concludes that HBJ has made few changes in their books over the years and has paid only the most cursory attention to how schools, teachers, pedagogy, literature, and culture has changed.…

Asserts that drama is one of the most popular genres among adolescent students. States that it mobilizes their energies, exercises their imaginations, and rewards them for social interaction. Reviews four anthologies of plays for classroom reading in secondary school. (PRA)

Presents classroom teachers' recommendations for a variety of poetry anthologies, as well as one teacher's suggestions on making one's own anthology. (ARH)

When the literature anthologies did not arrive, Allen Webb turned to the Internet, where he found a wealth of classic and contemporary e-texts. Using these online resources opened up possibilities for new ways of teaching and learning traditional skills of close reading and critical analysis. Students created blogs of poems and commentary,…

Discusses the history and evolution of censorship and how different publishers have censored textbooks and literature anthologies in order not to appease certain groups. (SRT)

Presents several teachers' recommendations for short-story anthologies to use in junior-high or high-school English classes. (MM)

Argues that excerpts from the literary canon and from contemporary nonfiction should be included in secondary education textbooks of the future, contrary to the opinion of militant whole language supporters. (RS)

Presents an interview with Don Gallo, editor of seven anthologies of short stories and one collection of plays, and author or editor of seven books about young adult fiction for teachers and scholars. (TB)

Explains the use of the personal anthology to stimulate wide reading and hold students accountable for what they read. Identifies strategies for and results of using the personal anthology in English instruction. (MS)

Offers advice to sufferers of "textbookitis:" (1) writing textbooks are not necessary for high school classes; (2) the best language textbook is a dictionary--money not spent on a writing textbook could be spent on sets of dictionaries; and (3) literature anthologies can be useful additions to the writing classroom. (RL)

Reviews "The Elements of Literature," a high school literature anthology series. Concludes that the series is particularly strong in grades 9 and 10 although the selections for grades 11 and 12 are conservative. Recommends not purchasing the entire series with all its ancillary materials. (RS)