Discusses the merits of implementing a character education curriculum through teaching literature according to themes. Argues that a reflective approach, emphasizing students' engagement with the issues and the resolutions they come up with for considering moral dilemmas, will be more effective than a didactic approach. Describes a unit on…

By using a thematic approach and by drawing on other disciplines for breadth, English teachers can "honorably seduce" career-oriented students into a love affair with literature and draw them back into the English curriculum. For example, a teacher's conversation with a student focusing on fathers and sons led the teacher to suggest that the…

One of the major problems with the English curriculum is that literature, language, and composition, the three major strands of the curriculum, have been separated rather than integrated within the curriculum. This inservice program, which was given for English teachers at Niles High School in Skokie, Illinois, advocates the use of conceptual or…

"Death in Literature," a nine-week elective course for high school juniors and seniors, was added to the English curriculum at a Kansas City high school in 1976. It has proved very popular with students and is being expanded to 18 weeks. The explicit objectives of the course are to help students to explore the theme of death in various types of…

Differentiates modernism and postmodernism to show that despite the differences in form in twentieth century American literature--differences that high school students must be made aware of--there are patterns in the American experience that are of recurrent, urgent, and ultimate concern for the American artist. (Author/RL)

The content of a literature program defined in terms of the structure of literature is proposed. A three-layer definition of structure is suggested which considers (1) the substance of literature, including man and his gods, man and the natural world, man and other men, and man and himself; (2) mode in literature, including the romantic, comic,…

GRADES OR AGES: Grades 7-12. SUBJECT MATTER: English. ORGANIZATION AND PHYSICAL APPEARANCE: The guide is divided into three sections, one each for grades 7-8, 9-10, and 11-12. Each unit contains a subunit on composition activities and eight sample thematic subunits for literature study. The guide is printed and perfect-bound with a paper cover.…

This is the second publication of the Literature Study Group using the thematic approach to literature for third through fifth year students in Scottish schools. Eight programs are presented which are a collection of literary texts grouped round a central theme. The programs are the work of different teachers who set out to discover in the…

The unit of study offered in this paper is designed to guide the analysis of a representative sample of modern fiction from four English-speaking countries: the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and Australia. Annotations of six novels are offered to show both how their main characters are young people coping with an intensely painful problem…

Using a theater arts thematic approach to demonstrate ways listening, speaking, and writing activities can be built around the study of works of literature, this guide presents activities and sample lessons to help students develop an awareness of the interrelationships between performance and the language arts. Following an introduction, the…