This dissertation presents a method for teaching secondary students many recognized critical approaches to the study of literature, so that they may choose the methods that function best for them with a given work. The novels of a contemporary American author, Jack Matthews, are used to show how the method operates. The investigator reports many…

The approximately 250 entries in this bibliography deal with the topic of women and literature and were drawn from a search of current periodicals and of recent books catalogued by the Library of Congress. The cited materials deal with women authors, with topics of interest to feminist scholars of literature, or with problems and issues in…

Using some of the tools of fantasy theme analysis, this paper analyzes the rhetoric of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy during the United States Civil War, as an expression of the rhetorical visions of the American South. Specifically, the paper deals with two speeches--Davis's farewell to the United States Senate, from which he…

Sembene Ousmane's film, "Xala" (meaning impotence), can be seen as a revolutionary tool. Although his works were originally inspired by the African's struggle for liberation from colonial domination, "Xala" reflects the revolutionary intellectual's protest against corrupt socialist authoritarianism. Everyday events in the lives of the characters,…

This paper examines fragments of American Indian and Greek poetry and suggests that they be used in English composition classes as examples of the power of language. Because the poetry is brief and deceptively obvious, it invites careful examination of the expressive meaning of each word. It is concluded that, in an age when people are inundated…

A series of 13 questions is offered for sequencing student writing activities according to a problem solving model of the composing process. The questions are organized in a cyclical framework for approaching any problem solving task that writing students may face. The questions fall into four progressively developed categories, including…

Just as strong limbs do not ensure self-defense in an age of modern warfare, so strong persuasive appeals do not ensure self-defense in an age of highly technologized communication systems. The fragmentation of the audience, the inherent loss of credibility associated with the decreased status of rhetoric, and the competition among messages all…

The "new realism" that distinguishes some recent childrens' books such as "The Mimosa Tree,""The Bear's House," and "My Daddy Is a Policeman" portrays the important issues of human life from a one dimensional perspective. These books focus on the tragedies and problems of life without answering the child's philosophical questions regarding…

WRITTEN FOR BOTH THE "GENERAL" STUDENT INTERESTED IN CRITICAL APPROACHES TO LITERATURE AND THE ORAL INTERPRETATION STUDENT WHO NEEDS A VARIETY OF CRITICAL ANALYSES TO COMBINE WITH ORAL PERFORMANCE IN HIS STUDY OF LITERATURE, THIS BOOK PROVIDES FIVE EXAMPLES OF DIFFERENT CRITICAL APPROACHES TO LITERATURE AND ITS ORAL INTERPRETATION. PART 1, "THE…

Linguistic criticism not only shows students the usefulness of grammar but also improves their comprehension of literature. For instance, a study of stress, pitch, and juncture in E. E. Cummings'"anyone lived in a pretty how town" adds meaning to the poem. Also helpful is an analysis of Cummings' tagmemic method of substitution slot-filling--use…

Rhetoric is capable of producing preceptions which observed reality does not reveal to us. Because of rhetoric's reifying powers (that is, its ability to make abstractions concrete), it has been depended upon to make certain societal values come to life. In opposition to Jacques Ellul, an articulate exponent of the view that finds no existential…

Formality in rhetorical delivery can be defined as a complex variable that represents the speaker's efforts to invoke sociocultural rules of audience control through the nonverbal components of the delivery. This document describes some of the aspects of formality, outlines its significance in rhetorical contexts, and evaluates the concept in…

A recurring puzzle in Aristotle's "Rhetoric" is the book's ethical stance; Aristotle gives practical advice on the use of persuasive discourse and intends it to be used in association with virtue, although the two seem to be separable. However, persuasion and virtue in Aristotle's theory of rhetoric have connections deriving from the…

Like other political speakers who have drawn on the personification, identification, and dramatic encounter images of mythology to pressure and persuade audiences, Jimmy Carter evoked the myths of the hero, the American Dream, and the ideal political process in his presidential nomination acceptance speech. By stressing his unknown status, his…

Because children are exposed to highly professional sales pitches on television and because the old material produced by the Institute of Propaganda Analysis is outdated and in error, a new tool for the analysis of propaganda and persuasion is called for. Such a tool is the intensify/downplay pattern analysis chart, which includes the basic…