This article explores how college instructors can use William Blake's unique pairing of image and text -- what W.J.T. Mitchell calls "composite art" -- to encourage students to think and write about the dynamic interplay of image and text in modern communications. Opening with an anecdote of teaching Songs of Innocence and of Experience…

In this article, the author focuses on her experiences with genre analysis. This is not a new idea or assignment. But gearing the analysis specifically toward thinking about purpose significantly narrows the focus of a typical "here's what this genre is and who uses it" essay. Genre analysis asks students to think in-depth about one particular…

Outlines a process by which senior high school students study Jonathan Swift's'"A Modest Proposal" and then write their own satirical essays by modeling the tone and style of Swift's essay. (SR)

Presents a simple writing assignment, composing an anthology, in which students have some control over their learning and gain confidence, enabling them to approach class discussions with more personal involvement and leading them to find more for themselves in poetry. (RAE)

Showing how to introduce poetry to encourage creativity while teaching solid craft skills, this book presents mini-lessons and activities to help teachers in grades 3 through 8 get students to respond to poetry with joy and enthusiasm throughout the curriculum. The skills students learn from doing the exercises in the book support national, state,…

Describes an approach, called "dependent authorship," to reading literature and writing literature that is used in the middle grades through the college level and that is effective both in teaching writing and in promoting careful reading. Notes that students use a published literary work as a foundation for their own creative writing. (SR)

At the State University of New York at Albany, a controversy arose over what type of writing assignment is appropriate in introductory literature classes, particularly those taught by graduate students. Undergraduates applying for the honors division were unable to produce even one literary criticism essay despite 9 hours of literature courses…

Measuring the effects of computer-managed instruction (CMI) on the teaching of and student writing about literature involves more than having students write and then evaluating their performance. Measurement is made difficult by the fact that the computer technology used in instruction is in a state of flux. Variation of computer technology,…

Combining the study of archetypal patterns and literature study with assignments based on archetypal schema engages students intellectually as they relate their personal experiences to texts outside of themselves. This approach is grounded in the theory that engagement in a topic, whether reading or writing, is essential for the learner to make…

Presents six teaching suggestions from classroom teachers regarding creative scenarios with literary figures, lemons in the classroom (to aid descriptive writing), conferences using a computer, organizational patterns in writing, an epistolary icebreaker in composition, and using five-minute writings as review. (SR)

Describes one teacher's methods for introducing to secondary English students the concepts of Classicism and Romanticism in relation to pictures of gardens, architecture, music, and literary works. Outlines how the unit leads to a writing assignment based on collected responses over time. (HB)

Describes the approach used with high school advanced placement English classes to a nature-writing project based on the work of Henry David Thoreau and Annie Dillard. (SR)

Describes the evolution of an assignment in a college-level English class in which students present to the class their analysis of lyrics to a favorite song of theirs (on a particular topic). Shows how students thereby are eased into interpretation, critical examination, and some of the principles of literature. (SR)

Presents three short essays designed to stimulate teachers in their approaches to teaching literature and writing as the school year draws to a close. (TB)

Describes a class writing exercise for high school and college English classes (which functions well early in the first semester), which emphasizes a basic idea (that close inspection of a subject will reveal that there is a lot to say about it) by having students describe in detail a person's face, first as a class and then individually. (SR)