Ways that computer assisted instruction (CAI) can be useful in teaching English at upperclass and graduate levels are considered, with illustrations from PLATO lessons that have been composed and programmed. One lesson takes advantage of PLATO's graphic design capabilities, which enabled the teacher to design the runic figures and to show them in various sizes. The lesson includes a bibliography of materials on runes, a list of Wotan's magic runespells, and samples of runic inscriptions and runes in Old English poetry. Lessons have also been designed on Middle English, on Chaucer's vocabulary, idiom, grammar, and syntax. Assigning these lessons has resulted in quicker comprehension of Middle English, better pronunciation, and more class time to talk about Chaucer. A lesson on Yeats' poem, "Leda and the Swan," attempts to improve on the poetry lessons now available on PLATO. The lesson tries to solve the problem of narrowly focussed questions that CAI tends to use by choosing a poem for which a good deal of background information is necessary and creating interesting questions that can still require a rather small range of answers. In addition, another lesson attempts to deal with the question of (comparatively) free response. The student is asked to indicate as many words up to 10 as possible to deal with the theme of old age. Words from the poem which deal with old age have been stored in a set of variables. Each is assigned a numerical value according to the teacher's assessment of the degree to which each word is involved with the theme. The students' words are compared to the stored words, and the total scores for the words and phrases the student has entered are totalled and scored against a possible 50. (SW)