The focus in many language curricula is shifting from "four skills" to "literacy." In a literacy-oriented curriculum, texts stand at the center of every course at every level. Teachers introduce content through texts early in the language learning process, assist even advanced students with the challenges of reading and writing in German, and help…

This article describes an approach to working with foreign language texts in the classroom, "Stationenlernen," that takes the ongoing development of students' foreign language literacy as a goal. "Stationenlernen" is a pedagogical method common in German elementary schools and readily adapted to the foreign language classroom. In this…

Study of children's books, Eric Kastner's "Emil und die Detektive" (1928) and Wilfrid Bade's "Trommlerbub' untern Hakenkreuz" (1934), with American students in an introductory German-literature course offered insights into pedagogical function of children's literature in Weimar Republic and Third Reich. Although books reveal character and plot…