Search

Toni Morrison's vision of America juxtaposes the rubble and rabble of a silent, screaming America against an affluent America that cannot hear. In "The Bluest Eye" she offers a poignant portrayal of the bastardization of the American Dream: opportunity has become entitlement, success has been translated in currency. This paper analyzes the text of Morrison's novel, which tells the story of the Breedlove family. The paper views Pecola Breedlove as the most tragic character and finds that the novel chronicles Pecola's futile struggle against an assault that she cannot identify and that she certainly cannot understand--the silent assault of racism. Each chapter of the novel is introduced with an excerpt from "Dick and Jane," the primary school basal reader in which all children live harmoniously and prosperously with Mother and Father in a tidy little house. In "The Bluest Eye" Morrison does not prescribe a panacea for the dystopian ills of American society but offers up conflict, injustice, inequality, abuse, prejudice, intolerance, and inhumanity for the reader's critical examination. (NKA)

This paper is the beginning of a plea for a reconsideration of the way in which educators teach short stories. It is only the beginning because the paper's main purpose is to draw together literary critical perspectives on the short story and then briefly examine their implications for teaching. It is the convenient yet evasive nature of short stories that forms the basis of this argument. An examination of broad ranging critical approaches to the short story raises a number of important questions concerning classroom practices. First, what students expect from short stories is considered, comparing responses to a novel with those to a short story. The paper then considers how educators can help students read the lack of resolution in many short stories, noting that students could be asked to summarize the plot in a single sentence, thereby calling attention to what has been left out. How educators can help students to see the significance of the story frame is examined next. In this context, students must be encouraged to predict pasts and futures for the characters, preferably over a broad time span to encourage summarizing. Last, students need to be made aware of short story theories, in the same way that educators want knowledge of literary theory or of poetic diction to inform their responses to novels or poems. Contains 48 references. (TB)

This paper surveys the study of English in British schools from the 16th century to the present. The paper proceeds chronologically, using key terms operative in education at various times to structure discussion. In the 16th century a key term was "rhetoric," which concerns oral expression. "The Art and Craft of Rhetoric," is one of the oldest surviving textbooks, discussing, types of discourse--logical, demonstrative, deliberative, and judicial. By 1700, a key term was "expression"--verse writing in English was encouraged as a skill approved at the highest social levels; imitation and the use of stock expression was the dominant convention. By the middle of the 18th century, literature anthologies were common, as were spelling books and grammar textbooks, but from the middle of the 17th century to the middle of the 18th century it is hard to know how much attention was given to written expression, since no textbooks survive. During that same period, however, social and economic developments caused particular attention to be paid to oral expression, especially for those upwardly bound socially. In the 19th century, educators were asking their students to read and explain particular literature selections and grammar continued to be taught through this century and writing remained unpopular with students. History suggests that English has developed as an alliance of components. Includes 22 notes. (TB)

The institutional view of literature in the National Curriculum of Great Britain shows a dramatic belittlement in its revised version. It lacks a coherent literary or pedagogical rationale and substitutes a functional one in which over-simplification purports to be clarification. The institution is primarily concerned to define English literary heritage; it is more interested in control than in curriculum. For this reason, the issues of literature and learning are ignored; tests of levels of attainments are the levers of control. Opposition to Great Britain's National Curriculum could focus on three basic issues that have been the subject of advances in literary studies over the past 25 years and are either neglected or misunderstood in the National Curriculum. First, policy makers must understand that texts are no longer autonomous but are rather fluid, conditioned by the culture and personal inclinations and experience of the reader. Second, a child's reading ability is not systematic but idiosyncratic and serendipitous. Third, a prescribed canon of books is not workable. Current literary scholars regard the canon as evolutionary, subject to the shifting values being negotiated by a culture. (Contains 40 references.) (TB)

Research on teachers and teacher thinking finds itself subject to tensions between two prevailing factions. The first sees promise of progress in the rejection of frequently conservative, idiosyncratic teachers' thoughts; the second embraces those thoughts as expressions of a sacred, lived truth. Detecting conflicting mythologies at the core of this division, the author considers several means by which teachers' memories can be persuaded to yield their fruits: the fruit of structure, which provides a way to organize and retain experiences; and the fruit of quest, which provides an impetus to examine the fruit of structure in order to extract deeper meaning from those experiences. In the process, the author makes use of literary representations and philosophical investigations, concluding that a candid evaluation of researchers' mythologies will recognize them as varieties of meaning-generating faith. (Author)

Explores how two-year college students may be assisted in the transition from reader response criticism to literary analysis and research paper writing. Proposes a heuristic that requires student researchers to draw on previous student essays on their topic. (TB)

To incorporate Robert Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" into a course on writing may be to subvert the author's purpose. Pirsig meant for his book to be read aimlessly--like a Zen experience whose goal is only realized after it is achieved. Pirsig might even object to the "teaching" of "Zen and the Art" since college courses are driven by purpose and agenda. Nevertheless, the book may be fruitfully used as a tool when preparing students for the task of writing a research paper. Here are six reasons that the study of the book supports the process approach to writing of all types. One, students are interested in "Zen and the Art" for its story line, so they will read it. Two, students enjoy solving the mystery of Phaedrus's identity. To do so, they must gather facts. Three, reading a long, dense text over several weeks, students can practice and gain confidence in their ability to gather significant evidence, to cite correctly, and to combine evidence into an organized essay response. Four, students can follow one or several themes through the book. When they write more than one paper on a single topic, they can see how their perspective changes over time. Five, form follows function in "Zen and the Art," so students learn how verb tense and ordinary words can contribute to a text's success. Six, the book teaches that the Zen experience requires active engagement, so students learn that they must become actively involved in their research paper topics if they are to produce well-written papers. Contains three references. (TB)