"Undergraduate research" (UR), the educational and comprehensive curricular movement that involves students as apprentices, collaborators, or independent scholars in critical investigations using fieldwork and discipline-specific methodologies under the sponsorship of faculty mentors, is becoming one of the hallmarks of undergraduate education. In…

This article presents a commentary exchange between authors Laurie Grobman and Richard C. Raymond regarding Raymond's article "Re-placing Lit in Comp II: Pragmatic/Humanistic Benefits." Grobman said that in her brief commentary on Raymond's article, she chooses not to explicitly address his thesis that literature belongs in a research-based…

As a teacher of technical writing, the author applauds the emphasis on the strategies of research and on documented, problem-solving writing across the curriculum and on bringing writing-for-the-workplace into the first-year writing classroom. However, as a teacher of literature, he rejects the notion that responding to literature has no practical…

The advantages of introducing detailed scrutiny of metaphor into the college composition, creative writing, and literature curriculum are multiple. A number of researchers think an understanding of metaphor is important for cognitive development. This article establishes reasons for teaching metaphorical thinking and then goes on to argue that…

Given the current emphasis on disciplinary discourses, it's not surprising that so little recent attention has been devoted to identifying conventions that are universal in academic discourse. In this essay, the author argues that there are shared features that unite academic writing, and that by introducing these features to first-year students…

In this article, the author describes a text preview assignment that she gave to her students. Students completing the text preview assignment use multimodal design, introducing classmates to texts in ways that motivate and inform their reading. She discusses using previews to set the stage for reading and discussion and to deepen personal…

The experience of the combat soldier and the road back to civilian life are recurrent themes in American literature and cinema. Whether the treatment is tragic (Stephen Crane's "Red Badge of Courage", Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried", or Tony Scott's "Blackhawk Down"), satirical (Joseph Heller's "Catch Twenty-Two" and Robert Altman's…

While focusing on Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress," the author came up with the Interpretation Game, a game that had a simple set of rules designed to promote engaged academic discussion and, at the same time, to overcome problems that students have in class discussion about literature. In this article, the author narrates a few instances of…

In addition to such writers as William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Carson McCullers, and Eudora Welty, a good course in modern Southern fiction should include black writers such as Zora Hurston, Nella Larsen, Jean Toomer, Richard Wright, Maya Angelou, and Alice Walker. (MKM)

Comments on the teaching of literature in two-year colleges and suggests ways to interest community college students in reading literature. (MKM)

This paper explains how first-year composition students wrote business sales letters about short fiction and then revised those letters into full-fledged literary essays that analyzed the stories. By completing these two writings back-to-back (that is, experiencing the metagenres between business writing and literary analysis), students not only…

Proposes that literature is a means to understanding life and society. (MKM)

Describes how the author juxtaposes popular and classic literary texts in an introduction to literature course, structuring the course around a group of questions related to the difference between popular and so-called classic literature, leading students to consider important and complicated issues related to reading, interpreting, and evaluating…

Advocates teaching students to reread a piece of literature to increase comprehension and enjoyment. (MKM)

Shows how a student-centered approach to teaching literature is more rewarding for the students and the teacher alike than traditional, highly regimented and textbook-driven approaches. Considers the difficulties posed by asking students to make the transition to student-centered literature study. (TB)