English Journal - Volume 49, Issue 9, 1960

How many teachers are teaching the new structural grammar? What do they think of its possibilities? Though Dr. Alva’s survey, which asked these questions, involves only California, the findings reported here are of general interest. Dr. Alva is a lecturer in education at Stanford University.

Efforts to achieve a closer articulation among school levels have been accelerated recently across the country. An interesting contribution to articulation has been made by the English departments of the state-supported colleges and universities in Indiana. The production and content of the “Indiana Joint Statement” is described here by the director of Freshman English at Indiana University. Copies of the statement may be had free from the Department of English at Indiana University, Bloomington; Purdue University, Lafayette; Ball State Teachers College, Muncie; Indiana State Teachers College, Terre Haute.

The role of the junior novel in the literary education of adolescents has been well defined in the past two decades. The problem, however, is to select from the spate of books those of real literary value. Miss Petitt here examines some of the junior novels ranked as outstanding by critics of the genre.

Mr. Warner’s first article for the Journal, published in October 1959, proved to be the most controversial in several years. The article, which attacked recent anthologies for use in high schools, drew a deluge of letters and telegrams. Mr. Warner, who teaches at the Longmeadow, Massachusetts, High School, describes and classifies these responses in this article and briefly restates his original thesis.