Author Description

Contributed by high school English teachers across the United States, the activities contained in this booklet are intended to promote the effective teaching of English and the language arts. Teaching strategies offered in the first section of the booklet are designed to stimulate language exploration with such activities as examining the subjectivity of magazine news reports, inventing new words and definitions, preparing and presenting consumer reports, and compiling books of family lore and local history. Activities in the second section are designed to stimulate an appreciation and understanding of classical and contemporary literature, and to suggest techniques for introducing literary works to students. Specific activities in this section can be used to help students understand the importance of the oral history of Beowulf, predict what might happen next in a novel, analyze an author's style, compose letters based on Pope's "The Rape of the Lock," write an additional episode for H. G. Wells's time traveler, and develop conversations about a novel read out of class. Activities in the third section, intended to help students improve the conception and clarity of their prose through prewriting and writing, include writing an operating manual for a household device, analyzing the interactions of writing response groups, practicing descriptive techniques using thesauri, journals and personal scrapbooks, and writing the most trite, cliched story possible. (JG)