An assignment for high school or college students that requires them to interpret what a poem may have communicated to the poet's contemporaries can be valuable in that it teaches them that there is more than one way to interpret a poem and that the rules of interpretation are neither universal nor unchanging. Such an approach to poetry…

In order to test the opinion held by judicial and rhetorical scholars that distinct differences exist in rhetoric between majority and nonmajority Supreme Court decisions, an examination was made of 301 of Justice William O. Douglas' Supreme Court decisions. A hybrid methodology based on genre criticism and content analysis was used to examine the…

This paper analyzes non-Anglo views of the concept of justice; these views are different from those of the dominant Anglo-American tradition and therefore make up one of the components of ethnicity. The author examines justice as a concept in the literature of three contemporary American authors, the Italian American Pietro Di Donato, Nelson…

THESE THREE TESTS--"ORIENTATION,""TRADITIONAL BALLAD," AND "THE LITERARY BALLAD"--WERE DESIGNED BY THE OREGON CURRICULUM STUDY CENTER FOR A SEVENTH-GRADE LITERATURE CURRICULUM. THEY ARE INTENDED TO ACCOMPANY CURRICULUM UNITS AVAILABLE AS ED 010 135 AND ED 010 136. (MM)

THESE TWO TESTS--"SHORT STORY" AND "FABLES, PROVERBS, AND PARABLES"--WERE DESIGNED BY THE OREGON CURRICULUM STUDY CENTER FOR A SEVENTH-GRADE LITERATURE CURRICULUM. THEY ARE INTENDED TO ACCOMPANY CURRICULUM UNITS AVAILABLE AS ED 010 137 AND ED 010 138. (MM)

THESE THREE TESTS--"REORIENTATION,""TRAVEL LITERATURE," AND "NARRATIVE POETRY"--WERE DESIGNED BY THE OREGON CURRICULUM STUDY CENTER FOR AN EIGHTH-GRADE LITERATURE CURRICULUM. THEY ARE INTENDED TO ACCOMPANY CURRICULUM UNITS AVAILABLE AS ED 010 141 AND ED 010 142. (MM)

Joyce Carol Oates is unique in American fiction for her portrayals of the terror and the beauty in the mother-daughter relationship--the tensions and the bonds created by this particular form of doubling. Her more interesting explorations portraying some deeply pathological and some positive aspects of this form of doubling include the following:…

An artistic verbal performance is something more than words, yet most critical commentary on this genre focuses on the word, on the linguistic level. A methodology for making performance-centered texts is described based on the performance of "Stagolee," a story that originated from Julius Lester's book, "Black Folktales." A…

The social and literary representation of the unmarried woman of "a certain age"--the spinster--provides a convenient focus for observing the overall progress of all women in English life. As the single woman's stature increased in the esteem of her culture, English writers began to reflect the changing social attitudes by depicting her in ever…

Frame analysis is an approach to social situations that can be applied profitably to literature and performance. A frame is the reality status of a situation; keys are the characteristics that define a frame. Most literary works are keying on real life frameworks. Literary works that are based on other literary works, such as parodies, are…

This study examines T.S. Eliot's intentions for the staging of his plays, as revealed in the texts themselves and in related documents. His plays reflect his basically naturalistic conception of the stage environment and the acting; two of the plays, "Sweeney Agonistes," which was unfinished, and "The Family Reunion," demonstrate his inability to…

An examination of the stylistic differences among writing from literary specialists, from science, and from social science shows that a more precise diagnosis of the writing problems of clarity and coherence is possible. Ten randomly selected paragraphs from each of four publications, the "Canadian Medical Association Journal," the "Canadian…

Six points appear prominently in modern theory of composition: theory basks in the shadow of literary criticism and scholarship; writing is an act involving creativity, of which theory should take account; creativity depends upon the primacy of personal insight, which is also the basis of intellectual development; the grapholect of standard edited…

This paper examines the stylistic changes that have occurred since 1850 in short fiction written by women. A shift is noted from the sentimental, romantic, "pretty" writing of the past to today's more realistic writing, with its characteristically vivid imagery. Discussion defines the term "feminist fiction" and shows how today's women writers are…

Theories of communication can be applied to case studies in human behavior drawn from short stories, novels, plays, and screenplays, in addition to standard psychological texts and personal experiences of class members. One example is A.H. Maslow's concept of self-actualization exemplified by the character of Phineas in John Knowles'"A…