The speeches in this collection on English instruction are by (1) Walker Gibson, who discusses the teaching of responsibility to the young by making them responsible for clear writing; (2) Hart D. Leavitt, who describes the ways in which many possible subjects for composition can be seen in the collection of pictures, "Stop, Look, and Write"; (3)…

The unreliability of first impressions and subjective judgments is the subject of both Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" and Lionel Trilling's "Of This Time, Of That Place"; consequently, the works are worthwhile parallel studies for high school students. Austen, by means of irony and subtle characterization, dramatizes the…

This study was concerned with the attitudes and practices of high school English teachers regarding the use of contemporary literature in their classrooms. Data were obtained from the completed questionnaires of 58 randomly selected New Jersey English teachers. It was determined that 95% of the teachers favor using contemporary works, that the…

The main section of this 10th-grade teaching unit on Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" consists primarily of sample dialogue, between the teacher and students, which attempts to lead the students to think critically about values. Other sections list questions on the novel, major events of the plot, and page references for descriptions…

Designed to assess the maturity level of the novels which students read, the Novel Reading Maturity Scale (NRMS) is based on the notion that fiction of high quality is characterized by a number of themes or topics. The list of 22 topics in NRMS came from a survey of several guides on books for teenagers. To explore the reliability of the scale,…

One of a series of works aimed at presenting contemporary critical opinion on major American authors, this volume contains critical studies of Thomas Wolfe. Designed for use by both literary critics and secondary and college teachers of English, this work would also be of value to undergraduate and graduate students of literature. Topics covered…

This paper discusses some uses of nonprint media to support the study of novels by education students. The author suggests that students choose a novel that is short, interesting, and not too difficult; that they reach a consensus among themselves as to the theme of the novel; and that they express their interpretation through nonprint media.…

This paper discusses a thematic approach to introduce high school or college students to fiction that deals with minority groups. The author discusses how this thematic arrangement of novels may be a useful method for organizing a study of minority groups as represented in major works of American fiction. She discusses the initiation motif as a…

This paper discusses the work of two Mexican American authors, Jose A. Villerreal and Richard Vazquez, using "Pocho" by Villarreal and "Chicano" by Vazquez as the focus for discussion. Both authors describe the world of Mexican Americans and their social conditions, and both underscore the need for conserving their native…

This guide to Sholom Aleichem's works in translation cross-indexes the Yiddish originals with at least one, the most accessible, English translation. The guide is intended for teachers of Yiddish at the university level who have difficulty in acquiring suitable reading materials, and provides a basis for instructor-prepared materials. Part one…

A technique using dialogues and realistic prose passages from the works of Georges Simenon and Simone de Beauvoir to teach French conversational skills at the college level is explained and illustrated. (MSE)

Includes annotated bibliographies of young adult books written in the 1980s by Black authors. Selections intended to interest Black teenagers represent both historical and contemporary realistic fiction. (NKA)

A Mount Holyoke College course on gender and the development of modern fiction focused on the novel in eighteenth-century France, emphasizing women writers, writings about women, and the application of modern feminist criticism to the genre. (MSE)

An author recommends that young children read good fiction rather than stories in basal readers. Recounts her dismay when one of her books was adapted for a basal reader and the language was changed and simplified. (NKA)

Two historical youth novels have evoked controversy and criticism based on claims that the books present a distorted and inaccurate view of Black culture and history. Examines the controversies, discusses the books, and argues that the traditional evaluation process must be joined by criticism that focuses on the sociohistorical and cultural…