In the aftermath of the furor provoked by the 1983 blue-ribbon report "A Nation At Risk," the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) conducted a groundbreaking study to determine what America's seventeen-year-olds knew about history and literature. Administered in 1986, the tests revealed the disheartening answer: not enough.…

How can everyone celebrate the most powerful dream (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s) in America's history, which paved the way for civil rights, equality, and social justice? How can everyone heighten students' awareness of these civil and social issues? An increased use of African-American literature is one effective way. In this article,…

Few studies on representations of social class in children's literature have been published in the United States. As a language arts teacher and media specialist in a high poverty school, the author describes children's novels that directly address social class and the subtopic of the labor movement and consider the continued relevance of social…

In this paper, an application of one aspect of the Internet technology, namely Internet groups, into the teaching of American and British literatures is evaluated by means of a content analysis of the Internet group which was used as the course component. The aim of this paper was to see how students used the Internet group in the learning of…

What makes someone an "Illinois Author"? What role do these writers play in American literature? How has Illinois been presented as a setting in literature? These were a few of the questions prominent on a promotional brochure last Spring semester for a new course the author would be offering in the Fall. Now that the course has been…

Faced with the challenge of teaching American literature to large, multilevel classes in Vietnam, the writer developed a flexible small group framework called "multitasking". "Multitasking" sets up stable task categories which rotate among small groups from lesson to lesson. This framework enabled students to work cooperatively…

The author recalls that two decades ago there was no American Catholic novel, but finds several good examples in existence today. (SJ)

Although recent research strongly suggests that L. Frank Baum did not write "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" as a monetary or political allegory, the Populist-parable interpretation of his book remains a tremendous teaching tool in economics classes. The author offers some background on the rise and fall of the Populist interpretation, in recognition…

The location of tension in the text of "A Streetcar Named Desire" is accomplished by close readings of traditional sources, particularly notes on Kazan's "Production"; Williams' thoughts on his script and Kazan's "Production"; and Williams' personal relationships. By logical twists the analysis supports, in this case,…

Recollections of Arna Bontemps, author and head librarian of Fisk University 1943-64. (PF)

Approximately 5100 Wisconsin authors--defined as having had residence in the state and having published one or more books--are listed in this bibliography. The list is alphabetical by name of author; each author entry includes, where possible, birth and death dates, state locations with which the author was most frequently associated, and a record…

Contains "The Greatest Americanest Novel," a conglomerate of the first and last lines of a number of great American novels; provides a scorecard on which readers can attempt to identify the quotations. (DD)

Focuses on the imagery, the inserted anecdotes, and the bildungsroman" nature of the novel in discussing its dark dimension." (RD)

Cane...represents the apotheosis of one man's attempt to bear witness to the reality and the power of an idea . . . that the Negro is not an apprentice to equality but a journeyman in suffering." (Author)

As former Cultural Attache to the American Embassy in Caracas, the author was often consulted by exchange students as to what American Literature would be most helpful in understanding the U.S. and its history. A letter written in reply to one such inquiry is presented. (RW)