Growing out of a series of lectures given at universities in the United States, Canada, and England, this book reopens the dialogue between literature and the life of its time. It draws dramatic connections between the imperial endeavor and the culture that both reflected and reinforced it, describing a general pattern of relationships between the…

A study conducted a content analysis of seven of the most commonly taught novels in high school English classes to determine whether or not a gender bias existed in them. As each text was examined, a number of questions were asked: (1) Is pejorative language used by the author (or first person narrator) to describe female characters? (2) Are women…

Research on teachers and teacher thinking finds itself subject to tensions between two prevailing factions. The first sees promise of progress in the rejection of frequently conservative, idiosyncratic teachers' thoughts; the second embraces those thoughts as expressions of a sacred, lived truth. Detecting conflicting mythologies at the core of…

In the area of male sex roles, the mystery novel is far ahead of society in general and thus presents the academic with a wealth of new male role models that demand inclusion in the postmodern canon. For a class at Jacksonville University ("Contemporary Detective Fiction") the classical male detective of "The Big Sleep" or…

In teaching Asian American literature on the college level, the first consideration is to try to choose works that dispel the dominant stereotypes. One of these stereotypes is the "otherness" myth that Asian American culture is very exotic, distant, mysterious, as in "the mysterious and far East." In reality, Asian Americans…

A critical reader "does more than simply soak up bits and pieces of information." He applies a personal reserve of knowledge and experience to a text to ascribe possible meanings. In other words, he interprets. In addition, he compares his own values and beliefs with those suggested to him by a text and defends them, if necessary. In…

This study provides a description of the 20th-century literary criticism associated with the epistolary form in English literature arrived at by bibliometric descriptive analysis. Information gathered from eight different indexes for the period 1900-1991 helps describe the specific features of: authors, titles, format, language, country of…

This handout is a guide to library resources in the J. Murrey Atkins Library at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, intended to help students find sources of criticism on Modern British Literature (long fiction, short fiction, poetry, and drama). The guide explains important reference sources in the Atkins library reference collection and…

Reflecting educators' ongoing efforts to incorporate the female literary tradition into the canon that is commonly taught in high school and college classrooms, this bibliography derived from the ERIC database presents annotations of 21 journal articles and books concerning women writers and the canon published between 1984 and 1992. Sections of…

Urging teachers of poetry writing to better understand themselves as writers and readers, this book "interrogates" a strategy teachers might employ in reading and evaluating student poems. A thoughtful study of a teacher is presented while in the process of evaluating student poetry through the lenses of four different contemporary…

This paper presents three units of study and discusses ways that teachers can incorporate Kenneth Burke's ideas on symbolic action into the basic communication course. The three units discussed in the paper address: meaning in language and symbolic reality; persuasion; and rhetorical criticism. Each unit includes a brief introduction to the topic,…

The use of deconstruction requires the belief that human thought swims in a language system that operates according to rules independent of the thought being expressed. This paper discusses the merit of using deconstruction in educational administration. Since educational administration is dependent upon language use, it is essential that those…

This handout is a guide to library resources in the J. Murrey Atkins Library at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, for sources of criticism for the study of 17th-century British author John Milton. The guide is intended to help readers find critical and biographical information on Milton. It explains important reference sources in the…

Considering that some feminist critics have recently been approaching composition theory from a preconceived feminist perspective, the issue of maintaining an analytical bias while conducting research is once more emerging. By imposing an analytical model on a body of data, scholars run the risk of ignoring conclusions or focusing on those which…

Few concepts in argumentation theory have produced as much discussion as the idea that argument practices can be divided into distinct public, technical, and private spheres. The first important question relating to the spheres concept is whether the distinction between the spheres is useful. The second primary issue concerns the degree to which…