Since 2009, the author has been using an activity that she calls "book tasting" to help teens select books for independent reading assignments. While she is sure she is not the first to do this kind of activity, the term "book tasting" seems to appeal to the teens. Book tasting has been extremely successful in pairing up students with texts that…

Offers 10 strategies to enhance reading skills through wildlife reference books and other literature. Lists 10 nonfiction and 33 fiction references as resources for initiating a positive relationship among children, wildlife, and reading. (MG)

Maintains that traditional summer reading assignments discourage students' pleasurable responses to reading; based on a paper presented at annual convention of National Council of Teachers of English (59th, Washington, D.C., November 29, 1969). (RD)

Recommends Louis L'Amour's books to adolescents on the basis that the books will motivate them to read more, expose them to a strong advocate of the value of education, and stimulate interest in the classical literature referenced in L'Amour's works. (SRT)

Employing a body of texts for the reading and study of literature in the English classroom leads to much argumentation, with much disagreement about what is fair game for the writing student. To help determine which texts to select it is necessary to define cultural literacy in a different way from that of E. D. Hirsch. Hirsch would prescribe…

Noting that teacher education students are unfamiliar with the censorship issue, this paper discusses three kinds of censorship the pre-service English teacher can be expected to face, and suggests ways to prepare them to recognize and remedy anticipated problems. The essay identifies the first kind of censorship as that imposed by English…