Summarizes trends over the last century of analyzing literature (poetry and prose) through the aid of linguistic theory. The contributions and shortcomings of various schools (Structuralist, Danish, Formalist, Transformationalist, Generativist) to the evaluation of literature are briefly outlined. (LET)

Literacy must be grounded in creation: imagination, vision, revision, metaphor, and image. Literacy entails imaginative interpretation of texts in private and social contexts. Literacy education that ignores storytelling in favor of "practical" skills prevents construction of perspectives that make experience comprehensible. (SK)

Profiles J. Patrick Lewis, a college professor and a writer of children's literature. (RS)

Offers four essays containing suggestions from classroom teachers on using big books for sharing reading experiences; poems or paragraphs; an interdisciplinary unit of study for first graders around Tomie de Paola's "The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush"; and comparing film and text to build critical comprehension. (SR)

Describes innovative programs for teaching elementary school students. In Illinois, students learn about the artists Raphael, Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Donatello using the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. An Oregon program prints student poetry and places it on cafeteria tables. In rural Texas, students learn about restaurant etiquette through play…

Provides a list of 61 children's books including recently published nursery rhymes, songs, and verse games, book-length poems, themed poetry collections, collections of one author's work, and anthologies of several poets' work. Offers a bibliography of 27 new alphabet and 16 counting books. (MG)

Shares how a teacher helped students learn about the concerns of people who come from different cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds by having them write poetry from the point of view of literary characters in literature which they read. Points out how this helps students weave literature, history, social analysis, writing, and classroom…

Provides a method for helping young poets shape their poems by arranging lines and inventing poetic patterns. Shows how using odd geometrical shapes can be used to help students determine the arrangement of words in poems and to encourage a vital interaction between the visual form and the words inside it. (HB)

Examines the good fortune that marks the career of writing teachers. Shows how creative writing activities stimulate and inspire writing teachers. Includes five poems written by the author. (HB)

Presents a summary of a bibliotherapy approach that has been used in the Vilnius Republic Psychiatric Hospital in the Soviet Union for over two decades. Notes that prescribed reading of fiction and nonfiction is used for diagnostic and treatment purposes. (RS)

Investigates the effect of poem selection on therapeutic process and outcome. Examines the use of three different poems by three different therapists in a variety of contexts. Concludes that the "success" or "failure" of poems is based, in part, on what the therapist and poem ask of a client. (SR)

Describes the use of poetry, music, and creative writing with forensic patients at a state mental health institute. Demonstrates that expressive interventions were helpful in group treatment by promoting verbalization, decision making, and the recognition of personal responsibility for incarceration. (SR)

Describes how high school students can give J. Alfred Prufrock (from T.S. Eliot's serious poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock") a "makeover" so he can acquire more self-confidence. Shows how this makeover exercise can lead students to a deeper general understanding and appreciation of complex literary characters and of a…

Discusses the advantages of dramatizing poems in the English-language classroom. Apart from the individual lines, there can be a chorus for the story part of the poem, which can include the whole class. Each pupil can play a part, according to his or her own ability. (MSE)

Describes a personal artistic struggle against heroin addiction, advising teachers of the difficulty of working to discover and express one's developing self. Considers the effect of poetry and philosophy on the developing creative process. Provides samples of the author's own poetry to demonstrate creative development, as an example to Montessori…