To engage students' interest and help them appreciate black drama, teachers may have their classes discuss and dramatize three plays that deal with adolescence and the stifling mother: James Baldwin's "The Amen Corner," Louis Peterson's "Take a Giant Step," and J.E. Franklin's "Black Girl." This paper shows how the…

Examines the styles and themes of Chicano literature and cites specific examples of fiction and poetry that may prove challenging for students of Oral Interpretation. (MH)

This commentary explores some of the most pointed criticisms of the "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB), and of high-stakes standardized testing more generally. The author focuses specifically on the impact of NCLB on urban schools -- schools which are the constant focus of reform in a culture that presumably wishes to educate its citizens in…

This article argues that the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) creates what Sergiovanni et al. (2004) term "turbulent policy demands" which foster ethical dilemmas for principals. It focuses on the impact of the implementation of NCLB on students with disabilities, as it appears that there is discontinuity between the…

The English curriculum for grades 10-12 at Kansas High School, a small rural school in Eastern Illinois, consists of mini-courses with an enrollment of 7-20 students. Students must pass the ninth grade English course before they are permitted to register for mini-courses; they are required to take English as sophomores and juniors. During this…

A survey of secondary school English teachers employed by three school districts in Utah was conducted by the teacher education committee of the English department of Weber State College (Ogden) to determine the areas of English instruction for which their teacher education courses had not adequately prepared them. On a scale from one to five, the…

A year-long holistic study of literary responses was conducted to determine the effects of using a transactive literary paradigm in secondary school English classrooms. (The transactive--for transactional--paradigm emphasizes the reader's involvement with a text and the reader's use of personal experiences to extract meaning from texts.)…

Present day right wing attacks on schools and the back to basics movement are in many ways similar to the criticisms made during the McCarthy era of 1949-54, neither movement offering any novel solutions to educational or social problems. Allen A. Zoll and the National Council on American Education provided much rhetoric on constitutional rights…

Following a discussion of the similarities and differences among the various communications media, the two main sections of this monograph describe ways to teach the skills of viewing and to study the moving image. The assumption is that television and film have unique characteristics that differentiate them from speech and books, requiring…

THIS CULMINATING UNIT OF THE 12TH-GRADE OREGON LITERATURE CURRICULUM IS BASED UPON ONE WORK, "HAMLET." THE TEACHER VERSION INCLUDES DISCUSSIONS OF (1) THE RELEVANCE OF HAMLET'S CHARACTER TO MODERN TIMES, (2) THE PROBLEMS IN THE CHARACTERIZATIONS OF THE GHOST, CLAUDIUS, AND HAMLET, (3) THE PLAY'S THREE-PHASE STRUCTURE, (4) THE PLAY'S…

THE FIRST OF THESE TWO 12TH-GRADE UNITS IS DESIGNED TO SHOW STUDENTS THAT THE UNIMAGINATIVE OVERUSE OF LITERARY CONVENTIONS LEADS TO TRITENESS, VERBOSITY, AND DULLNESS. LESSONS ARE ORGANIZED BY GENRE AND FOCUS ON LITERARY SELECTIONS WHICH SHOW VARYING DEGREES OF ORIGINALITY IN THE EMPLOYMENT OF LITERARY CONVENTIONS. AMONG WORKS DISCUSSED ARE…

OVER 50 EDUCATORS FROM AMERICA, ENGLAND, AND CANADA, REFLECTING DIVERSIFIED EXPERIENCES, INTERESTS, AND POINTS OF VIEW, MET FOR FOUR WEEKS IN THE SUMMER OF 1966 AT DARTMOUTH COLLEGE FOR THE ANGLO-AMERICAN SEMINAR ON THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH, THE FIRST LARGE-SCALE EXCHANGE BETWEEN AMERICAN AND BRITISH EDUCATORS ON THIS BASIC SUBJECT. THIS REPORT,…

Children's books published between 1910 and 1960 reflect a changing world and new attitudes toward children. In 1910, although some of the moral tales of the earlier Puritan era survived, the didactic period in children's books was nearly over. From 1910 to 1925, a transitional period, writers began to look toward the children's own world. Then,…

Comics--as a special literary genre--must be judged by special criteria. In fact, the four-panel daily comic strip must be judged by different standards from the full-length comic book or the single- or double-frame comic. Among the four-panel strips are found comics that make a claim to literary quality--"Li'l Abner,""Pogo," and "Peanuts." These…

This article describes the problems that the College Entrance Examination Board's Committee of Review for the Examinations in English encountered in creating a fair, objective, hour-long literature achievement test which would meet four objectives--to measure the breadth of a student's reading, his understanding of that reading, his response to…