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)

Reports on a "summing up" assignment at the end of a course on the fiction of J. D. Salinger. Notes the way students used parodies to display their knowledge of Salinger's style and recurrent themes. Offers one student-written parody as an example. (RL)

Satire is a genre long extant if not especially beloved in human history. Practitioners of the art claim the intent to persuade and educate through their works. Many quantitative studies have tested the persuasive effects of satire. In research on persuasion, A.D. Annis (1939) compared the effects of editorials and editorial cartoons and concluded…

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

Interview took place on August 8, 1970, in Barcelona, Spain. Special issue of journal of contemporary Spanish American literature. (DS)

Suggests helping students prepare for a test on Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" by having them adapt verses of "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" with key elements and incidents from the play. (RL)

Very realistic spoof of research and scholarly writing. Reports on quantitative and qualitative research into "self-nurturant" (self-indulgent) behaviors and related personality patterns such as the pollyanna, the sulky hedonist, and the guilt-ridden masochistic indulgent. (SV)

Relates how parody is useful with third-grade children. Shows how children composed personal and meaningful stories based on selected literature. Compares parody and other writing strategies. Defines the parody process, including listening to literature stories, examining picture books, peer editing, and learning language. Includes comments from…

Contributes to rhetorical scholarship on political discourse by surveying Web sites relevant to the 1996 presidential campaign. Argues that parodic sites sought to entertain the reader and to expose candidates' questionable or deceptive practices but that they themselves engaged in deception. Argues that they provided the illusion of political…

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…