This article uses metaphors to explore how changes in technology and the world of work affect the lives and identities of workers today. The author integrates theory from vocational psychology and cultural studies with personal narrative in order to consider positive and negative aspects of the shift from traditional linear careers to postmodern,…

The overall intention of this project was to enhance awareness, for those involved with persons on the autism spectrum, of cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) strategies for treating persons with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The project involved a literature review on autism and the use of CBT strategies for people with autism spectrum disorders…

Drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin's "Dialogic Imagination" and Henry Louis Gates'"Signifying Monkey," an analysis of an African American student's essay reveals codes that are distinct to African Americans. Bakhtin's theory alerts scholars to the extent to which language is a social phenomenon. Ambiguous and heteroglossic, it reflects…

This essay considers the many benefits of journal writing. It explains how one person learned, during a 26-mile commute, to talk into a tape recorder slowly, leaving sizable pauses between phrases to facilitate transcription later on; how journal writing is a way to catch moments in the day, to describe a scene or to make connections that one…

This handbook is one of a set of six which provide a systematic means to help students in grades 4 through 8 learn the process of writing while building specific writing skills. The handbook focuses on sentence skills, and offers 30 reproducible lessons, in a variety of formats, to help students write simple, compound, and complex sentences. The…

This teaching guide for high school college instructors begins with an introduction on "Shakespeare and the American Landscape," by Samuel Crowl, and includes the following 32 essays: "Some 'Basics' in Shakespearean Study" (Gladys V. Veidemanis); "Teaching Shakespeare's Dramatic Dialogue" (Sharon A. Beehler);…

In a study investigating the hypothesis that verbal paraphrase and explanation tasks account for part of the difficulty that young children have with tests of metaphor comprehension, 32 six-year-old children were read short stories that ended with metaphorical sentences. Half of the children were asked to paraphrase the metaphorical sentences…

To learn more about how people read literary texts, with a view to improving the way literature is taught in schools, a study examined the extent to which the reading of literature is affected by variations in readers, texts, and situations. Subjects, 12 skilled (faculty) readers and 96 novice (undergraduate) readers, read a short story, either in…

To discover whether increased exposure to and understanding of figurative uses of language would result in improved performance on a metaphorical language comprehension test, gains were measured on a figurative language test that was administered twice, approximately four months apart, to a total of 319 elementary school children in Harlem, New…

Young children use poetic language naturally in that they express themselves through metaphors, colorful images, and unique word choice. Since this ability has often been repressed by the time children reach the middle grades, this article suggests classroom activities intended to stimulate children's natural poetic expression. These activities,…

THE SCOPE OF THE NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY CURRICULUM CENTER'S RESEARCH PROGRAM IN TEACHING COMPOSITION TO THE BEGINNING WRITER IS DEFINED IN THE EIGHT PAPERS COMPRISING THIS COLLECTION. THE TOPICS FOR THE PAPERS ARE--(1) LIMITING THE AIMS OF TEACHING COMPOSITION IN THE SEVENTH- AND EIGHTH-GRADES TO INCLUDE ONLY NARRATIVE AND DESCRIPTIVE WRITING AND…

Concerned with the study of lexical changes, this unit for grade 9 is intended to develop the student's understanding of several specific ways in which the meanings of words change, of the interpersonal relationships and the social values which cause such change, and of general concepts related to language change. Discussion questions, lectures,…

This curriculum guide is intended to introduce fifth and sixth grade children to the study of poetry. Separate units include discussion of, suggested activities for, and questions about (1) metrics and scansion; (2) rhyme scheme and stanza; (3) diction, denotation and connotation, and onomatopoeia; (4) rhyme (end rhyme, masculine and feminine…

This paper reviews earlier experiments in fostering creative expression in the writing of students at all educational levels, and presents an abstract of an experiment involving 81 students of educational psychology at Tennessee State University. Each wrote one essay per week, which was then rated for creativity on four scales (fluency,…