A questionnaire was sent to the teachers of literature in a stratified random sample of public 4-year Iowa high school districts to gain a description of the teaching of literature. It was found that the "typical" English teacher is a married woman with a bachelor's degree, usually earned in English. She prefers to teach short stories, dramas, novels, and poems, which are presented according to type rather than thematic unit. She believes that she chooses literature for presentation on the basis of her students' readiness for that particular literary experience, although actually she seems to select the pieces almost exclusively from the standard classics. She uses a combination of the sociopsychological, didactic, and emotive approaches in her teaching and may develop her own course of study rather than use the Iowa state course of study. Printed materials most frequently used include sets of dictionaries, literary anthologies, and single novels; audiovisual aids employed are the chalkboard, the bulletin board, the phonograph, and the film projector. (Author/JB)