While conventional critics seek the comic aspect of parody, modernist critics credit parody with questioning mainstream literary trends and subverting literary production. For instance, Mikhail Bakhtin believes in parody's power to create "a decrowning double" by turning the official worldview up-side-down. For experimental poets like…

This article describes an instructional lesson the author developed to help students use parody to read and write original poetry. The author begins this article with an introduction to parody and a rationale for using it as an instructional strategy. Then, he describes materials and procedures he used and he shares samples of student writing. He…

Suggests the use of parody to deepen students' understanding of how and why poems work. (TJ)

The initial phase of Porta's mature poetry, composed between 1801 and 1805, is discussed in the context of dialect translation and parody of famous literary texts. (Author/LB)

Argues that writing parodies of poetry is a productive, nonthreatening introduction to the creative effort of poem making. Provides several suggestions that may help in the parody-writing process. (RS)

Describes and presents examples of work from the Western Michigan school of bad versemakers, a group of nineteenth century poets who strove to give their frontier experiences high seriousness, but achieved, at best, unintentional humor. (MM)

Reviews 18 young adult books chosen for their balanced, realistic view of the meaning of love. (RBW)

This paper describes a writing assignment given in an introductory literature class at an open-admissions university. In what can be called "the paper of many parts," students write six short pieces in which they do different things with a poem. The paper begins and ends with response statements: an initial one and one at the end that…

This study presents the third of four reports of the 1970-71 National Assessment of Literature. The educational attainments of nine-year-olds, thirteen-year-olds, seventeen-year-olds, and adults (ages 26-35) were surveyed according to their ability to recognize literary works and characters. Five types of exercises were used: (1) an illustration…

Humorous imitations of famous poems and quotations, altered with metric language, are presented in this document published by the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools Metric Education Project. In addition, a section entitled "A Metrikey" relates metric units to familiar items such as width of doorknobs, areas of typewriter keys, etc. (MP)