The teaching activities presented in this paper focus on four literature assignments. The first explores the concept of love throughout two short stories, John Collier's "The Chaser" and Max Shulman's "Love Is a Fallacy." It contains a "true love opinionaire," a discussion of irony in the stories, and a follow-up evaluation. The second assignment…

The first section of this paper notes the tremendous number of approaches to teaching writing, the agreement among experts that writing involves developmental stages specific to each student, and the need for writing programs that challenge individuals at their various levels of development. The paper then describes a newly revised writing course…

Composed by English teachers at the elementary, secondary, and college levels, this book describes practical methods for teaching writing. Part one contains essays on issues related to teaching writing, such as motivation, evaluation, and teaching sequence. Part two describes more than 100 practical lessons for classroom use, each of which…

A college level course for marginal composition students draws its format from the Personalized System of Instruction (PSI) model, in which the teacher prepares written course and assignment information in advance of the course and is then free to provide tutorial assistance to students during class periods throughout the semester. The PSI model…

This paper describes one college's individualized-instruction approach to its freshman composition courses and offers suggestions for the implementation of individualized instruction in other freshman composition programs. The paper stresses that the courses should be competency based and self-paced. Other considerations that are important include…

The eight articles in this journal issue deal with the classroom study of language. They address such topics as dealing with student dialects and teaching about dialects; creating environments in which "languaging" can take place; using stylistic analysis to explain a literary text; teaching high school students to write research papers on aspects…

This paper lists the language arts skills that are developed in elementary school children, including sentence writing, punctuation, capitalization, reference, poetry, listening, conversation, spelling, and handwriting. The degree to which children are introduced to these language arts skills depends on their grade level and capabilities, as well…

Concerned with the need to stimulate reading pleasure for older adolescents, this document outlines a high school reading unit that capitalizes on the perennial popularity of series books such as Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, and Tom Swift. Suggested activities include having students reflect on their personal reading and write a fictional sketch…

A teacher educator with an over-sized class describes an experiment with peer teaching. The class of fifteen students was divided into groups of three, defined as "mutual support groups," with each member contributing to and responsible for the performance of others. The first task assigned these "trios" was to identify desirable competencies,…

The components that one midwest community college uses in its remedial English composition program reflect applications of behavioral theory and include an explicit course goal; twelve small, sequential, cumulative instructional steps; explicitly stated behavioral objectives (based on Bloom's taxonomy in the cognitive domain); three forms of…

Global education aims to increase student awareness of cultural, political, and economic interdependence in the world of the past, present, and future. For a number of reasons, many English teachers regard global education as part of the social studies curriculum. However, global education also should be part of the English curriculum because (1)…

The curriculum, designed for use with gifted students at the junior high level, presents units of instruction which emphasize the higher level thinking skills of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. An introductory section explains each of the three higher level skills and presents tasks illustrating each one. Four units are presented, complete…

The study and teaching of literature is the emphasis of this special journal issue. The nine articles included in the issue discuss the following: (1) time and social class in William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," (2) Robert Frost's "Yankee Ironist," (3) an approach to teaching "Moby Dick," (4) using games to review…

A parenting curriculum need not be confined to the high school's home economics or social studies departments. When students are made aware that books are written for children who cannot yet read, there is no problem eliciting justifications for a unit on children's literature in the high school English class, a unit that compares the…

The three articles in this journal issue focus on composition problems and alternatives. The topics discussed are compositional invention, composition based on students' experiences, and an oral technique for teaching basic composition. The issue also contains reviews of recent publications in the field of composition. (FL)