William H. Kilpatrick is worldwide known as "Mr. Project Method." But the origin of his celebrated paper of 1918 has never been explored. The discovery of a hitherto unknown letter reveals that Kilpatrick was an educational entrepreneur who, without regard for language and tradition, adopted the term "project" and used it in a provocative new way…

This book explains the usage of more than 1,000 food-related expressions in everyday English. The 13 comprehensive chapters of the book cover the entire alphabet of food phrases from "soup to nuts" (or as in the index, from "above the salt" to "zest") as well as cooking and dining terms. The book provides many food…

Both a guide and an anthology, this book is for teachers (and self-teachers) who would like to explore the list poem, a flexible poetic form that can be used by beginning writers (from kindergarten to 12th grade) as well as by the most sophisticated. The book: offers practical advice on how to teach list poetry; describes how to work with students…

Intended to impart the basic ways a poem is constructed, this concise handbook is a prose guide to writing poetry. The handbook talks about meter and rhyme, form and diction, sound and sense, iambs and trochees, couplets and sonnets, and how and why this should matter to any person writing or reading poetry. Interspersing history and analysis with…

The "effectiveness" of a single rhetorical strategy in a speech delivered by the Iroquois spokesman, Kiotsaeton, is studied. This example of verbal art was presented at Three Rivers, Quebec, on July 12, 1645, long before the Iroquois Confederacy became subject to, or influenced by, White culture. (Author)

Examples drawn from books and interviews of blacks reveal techniques of oral and literate communication both during and after slavery. These techniques fall into two complementary categories: communication as surreptitious resistance and communication about overt resisters. Surreptitious communication occurred through the use of code words which…

The use of figurative language permeates American Indian discourse, across differences in time, geography, and tribal culture. Traditionally, the presence of figurative language has been attributed to a compulsion for decoration and to a need for mnemonic devices. However, neither of these explanations accounts for changes in the rich tapestry of…

A study examined reports broadcast by ABC News between November 8, 1979 and December 7, 1979 in its series entitled "Crisis in Iran: America Held Hostage." Transcripts of approximately 50% of actual broadcasts were subjected to rhetorical critical analysis, from which the finding emerged that confusion was the predominant characteristic…