English Journal - Volume 89, Issue 2, 1999

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.

Sue A. Petersen discusses how she changed her approach to teaching American literature from a teacher-centered, just-the-classics, new critical approach course for future English teachers to a student-centered, broad-based, reader response literature class designed to hook kids on reading and literature. Peterson includes the booklists from her “seminars” on American literature.

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 Context” curriculum.

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.

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.

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.

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 school experiences more enjoyable and meaningful.

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.

Discusses a summer institute that examined the shifting shape of American Literature, and teaching American Literature. Includes ways in which students help “make” literature with their own writing. Discusses the contributions of new technologies, pairing unlikely combinations of texts, and including middle school teachers who teach individual texts, if not a whole course on American Literature.

Discusses the influence of a summer institute on the development of an American Literature curriculum for middle school. Notes resulting teaching strategies include: researching archives with students to supplement textbook material; providing field trips; creating personal archival collections with students; pairing texts; and mixing media from film, to art, to fiction.

Describes how a Martin Luther King Program Series developed from a school-wide effort to “cherish differences and honor common humanity.” Provides a brief description of three events from that series: (1) a coffee house poetry night; (2) a Martin Luther King day program; and (3) a Harlem Dance Company program, “Dancing Through Barriers.”

Describes a rigorous English curriculum designed for students of mixed ability and mixed cultural and racial backgrounds using the concept of education for democracy. Details a three-step process built on inheritance, participation, and contribution. Outlines the curriculum that includes a combination of traditional classics and the works of more diverse authors.

Claims Reader Response theories form the basis for helping students to enjoy reading and studying the classics. Discusses: (1) asking students to “step into” and explore the world of the text; and (2) helping students “step out” of the world of the text to consider it analytically. Presents drama activities to help students connect to the classics.

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.

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.

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).

Gives examples of successfully exploring the pedagogical possibilities of the Internet in both breaking down the walls of censorship and engaging students in the dialectics necessary to understand their world. Cautions that technological integration of the “global village” must be carefully handled in order to avoid repression of alternative voices and/or cultural annihilation.

Available in print version only.