Suggests that research is a process, not a product, whose most important skill is thinking. Maintains that students cannot produce outstanding research papers unless they are taught strategies for gathering information, analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating that information through critical thinking. Discusses ways English teachers can build…

Presents a Ukrainian teacher's impressions of American English teaching, and an American high school English teacher's reflections about teaching English in the Ukraine. Notes the differences and similarities of teaching English in both countries. (SR)

Presents an open letter to English teachers outlining what the author hopes English teachers will teach his children about books and reading this year, focused on helping them love reading. Includes some thoughts about how to do so. Presents short annotations of 11 new or overlooked young adult books worth reading. (SR)

Presents 10 specific reasons in response to a student's question "Why should we read literature?" Answers the question from 10 angles: escape, empathy, mirror, time machine, cultural heritage, language, art, "lifesaver,""reading of life," and fear of change. (NH)

Shares insights of an English teacher gained through a variety of teaching experiences. Describes how the Bay Area Writing Project provided effective strategies to improve the teaching of writing. (NH)

Presents four teachers' reasons why they each favor teaching a particular novel. Discusses teaching "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (Ken Kesey), "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" (Betty Smith), "My Antonia" (Willa Cather), and "The Wave" (Tod Strasser). (NH)

Details the planning and the specific assignments involved in teaching "Great Expectations" over a period of nine months. Explains how the novel was coordinated with other reading using the themes of Judgment, Influences, and Control. (NH)

Describes the steps involved in shifting an American Literature curriculum from teacher-centered to student-centered. Includes strategies to provide learning that is cooperative and dynamic, as well as a process of negotiation, consensus, and disagreement. (NH)

Describes a unit plan for teaching "Lord of the Flies" that allows students to respond freely to the reading and to "get out of their seats" and experience the first chapter of the book. Includes guidelines for the response-based approach, for discussion groups, and for character portfolios. (NH)

Describes the process by which Cherry Hill, New Jersey teachers, in cooperation with parents, administrators, and other professionals, developed a curriculum for teaching "Huckleberry Finn" that successfully explores the controversial issues by embedding traditional teaching in a rich, historical, and cultural framework. Provides the "Huck Finn in…

Presents the perspectives of five experienced high school English teachers on how the threat of censorship influences their selection of literary works and their teaching methods. Claims teachers need strong support from administrators and professional organizations in order to present a culturally diverse literature curriculum. (NH)

Suggests English teachers might draw from authors such as Carl Sagan, Arthur C. Clarke, Mary Shelly and others: (1) to knock down the walls that separate science and literature; (2) to show their interrelationship; and (3) to instill enthusiasm for the study of both. (NH)

Describes the success of a unit for tenth-grade students wherein they created a book of poetry. Provides guidelines for the unit and evaluation criteria. Claims the "books" turned out to be far superior to the "flat pro forma" poetry papers assigned in the past. (NH)

Describes a unit of study called "A World Cultures Unit: Africa in a Nutshell," developed for ninth graders at the Hong Kong International School. Claims good literature has the power to make students more perceptive readers, more expressive writers, and more thoughtful speakers. Suggests teachers take literature across the curriculum to make…

Describes a unit wherein students reading "The Odyssey" produced visual representations of important story elements, considered differences in Homer's use of language and their own, enacted scenes from "The Odyssey," and wrote goal-setting and interpretive essays. (NH)