Teaching Literature

american literature

british literature

multicultural/women's/world literature

lesson plans/course syllabi

drama/speech

shakespeare

young adult literature

literary genres/mythology

nonfiction

poetry

critical lenses

story response/writing

assessment

censorship

professional development

media/technology

chapter activities    further reading    web links    literary texts    home

How to use this site

CHAPTERS

1

Goals for teaching literature: What does it mean to teach literature?

2

Understanding students’ individual differences: Who are our kids?

3

Planning and Organizing Literature Instruction: How Do I Decide What to Teach?

4

Using Drama to Foster Interpretation: How Can I Help Students Read Better?

5

Leading Classroom Discussions of Literature: How Do I Get Them to Talk about Literature?

6

Writing about literature: How do I get them to write about literature?

7

Using narratives in the classroom: What’s the use of story?

8

Teaching text and task-specific strategies: How does the shape of a text change the shape of my teaching?

9

Teaching the Classics: Do I Have To Teach the Canon, And If So, How Do I Do It?

10

Multiple Perspectives to Engage Students with Literature: What are Different Ways of Seeing?

11

Teaching Media Literacy: What else is a text and how do I teach it?

12

Assessing and Evaluating Students’ Learning: How do I know what they’ve learned?

13

Text Selection, Censorship, Creating an Ethical Classroom Environment. and Teacher Professionalism: How do I Stay in Control, Out of Trouble, and Continue to Develop as A Teacher?

home «

Further Reading

Narrative Theory, Critical Analysis, and Interpretation

Balling, H., & Madsen, A. (2003). From Homer to Hypertext: Studies in Narrative, Literature and Media. Odense University Press.

Barthes, R. (1974). S/Z. Hill and Wang.

Barthes, R. (1975). The Pleasure of the Text. Hill and Wang.

Beattie, M. (2003). Narratives in the Making. University of Toronto Press.

Berger, A. (1997). Narratives in Popular Culture: Media and Everyday Life. Sage.

Bhabha, H. K. (1989). Nation and Narrative. Routledge.

Booth, W. (1961). A Rhetoric of Fiction. University of Chicago Press.

Brink, A. P. (1998). The Novel: Language and Narrative from Cervantes to Calvino. Macmillan.

Brockmeier, J., & Carbaugh, D. (2002). Narrative and Identity: Studies in Autobiography, Self and Culture. John Benjamins Press.

Brooke-Rose, C. (1991). Stories, Theories & Things. Cambridge University Press.

Brooks, P. (1984). Reading for the Plot: Design and Intention in Narrative. Harvard University Press.

Brown, J. (Ed.). (2000). American Women Short Story Writers: A Collection of Critical Essays. Garland Pub.

Brown, J. (Ed.). Ethnicity and the American Short Story. Garland.

Bruner, J. (2002). Making Stories; Law, Literature, Life. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Burke, K. (1973). The Philosophy of Literacy Form. University of California Press.

Campbell, J. (1975). The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Abacus.

Champion, T. B. (2003). Understanding Storytelling Among African American Children: A Journey from Africa to America. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Chatman, S. (1990). Coming to Terms: The Rhetoric of Narrative in Fiction and Film. Cornell University Press.

Coates, J. (2003). Men Talk: Stories in the Making of Masculinities. Blackwell.

Cobley, P. (2001). Narrative. Routledge.

Cottle, T. J. (2003). Beyond self-Esteem: Narratives of Self Knowledge and Devotion to Others. Peter Lang.

Curnutt, K. (1997). Wise Economies: Brevity and Storytelling in American Short Stories. University of Idaho Press.

Currie, M. (1998). Postmodern Narrative Theory. Macmillan.

Currie, M. (Ed.). (1995). Metafiction. Longman.

Danow, D. (1997). Models of Narrative: Theory and Practice. St. Martin’s Press.

Davis, J. E. (Ed). (2002). Stories of Change: Narrative and Social Movements. SUNY Press.

Dimitriadis, G. & McCarthy, C. (2000). Reading and teaching the postcolonial: From Baldwin to Basquiat and beyond. Teachers College Press.

Eakin, P. J. (1999). How our Lives become Stories: Making Selves. Cornell University Press.

Galda, L. & Liang, L. A. (June 2003). Literature as experience or looking for facts: Stance in the classroom. Reading Research Quarterly, 38 (2), 268-75.

Gates, H. (1987). Introduction: The Classic Slave Narratives. Mentor.

Genette, G. (1988). Narrative Discourse Revisited. Cornell University Press.

Genette, G. (1997). Paratexts: Thresholds of Iinterpretation. Cambridge University Press.

Green, M., Strange, J. & Brock, T. (Eds.). (2002). Narrative Impact: Social and Cognitive. Erlbaum.

Golden, J. (2000). Storymaking in Elementary and Middle School Classrooms: Constructing and Interpreting Narrative Texts. Erlbaum.

Gornick, V. (2001). The Situation and the Story: The Art of Personal Narrative.Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Gutierrez-Jones, C. (2001). Critical Race Narratives: A Study of Race, Rhetoric, and Injury. New York University Press.

Herman, D. (2002). Story Logic: Problems and Possibilities of Narrative. University of Nebraska Press.

Ireland, K. (2001). The Sequential Dynamics of Narrative: Energies at the Margins of Fiction. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.

Jacobs, C., & Sussman, H. (2003). Acts of Narrative. Stanford University Press.

Josselson, R., & Amia Lieblich, A. (Eds.) (1999). Making Meaning of Narratives. Sage Publications.

Kacandes, I. (2001). Talk Fiction: Literature and the Talk Explosion. University of Nebraska Press.

Kearney, R. (2002). On Stories. Routledge.

Kennedy, J. G. (Ed.). 1995). Modern American Short Story Sequences: Composite Fictions and Fictive Communities. Cambridge University Press.

Kermode, F. (1979). The Genesis of Secrecy: On the Interpretation of Narrative.Harvard University Press.

Kermode, F. (1981). The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction. Oxford University Press.

Lacey, N. (2000). Narrative and Genre: Key Concepts in Media Studies. St. Martin’s Press.

Lackey, K. (1997). RoadFrames: The American Highway Narrative. University of Nebraska Press

Langmuir, E., & Smith, C. S. (2003). Narrative. Yale University Press.

Lothe, J. (2000). Narrative in Fiction and Film: An Introduction. Oxford University Press.

Martin, W. (1986). Recent Theories of Narrative. Cornell University Press.

May, C. (2002). The Short Story: The Reality of Artifice. Routledge.

McAdams, D. P., Josselson, R., & Lieblich. A. (2001). Turns in the Road: Narrative Studies of Lives in Transition. American Psychological Association.

McQuillan, M. (Ed.) (2000). The Narrative Reader. Routledge.

Miller, J. H. (1992). Ariadne’s Thread: Storylines. Yale University Press.

Minami, M. (2002). Culture-specific Language Styles: The Development of Oral Narrative and Literacy. Multilingual Matters.

Miller, J. H. (1998). Reading Narrative. University of Oklahoma Press.

Mishlet, E. (1999). Storylines: Craftartists: Narratives of Identities. Harvard University Press.

Mitchell, A. (2002). The Freedom to Remember: Narrative, Slavery, and Gender in Contemporary Black women’s Fiction. Rutgers University Press.

Moraru, M. (2001). Rewriting: Postmodern Narrative and Cultural Critique in the Age of Cloning. SUNY Press.

Moss, G. (1989). Un/popular fictions.Verso.

Murray, J. H. (1997). Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. MIT Press.

Nagel, J. (2001). The Contemporary American Short-story Cycle: The Ethnic Resonance of Genre. Louisiana State University Press.

Olney, J. (1998). Memory & Narrative: The Weave of Life-writing. University of Chicago Press.

O’Neill, P. (1994). Fictions of Discours: Reading Narrative Theory. University of Toronto Press.

Patterson, W. (Ed.) (2002). Strategic Narrative: New Perspectives on the Power of Personal and Cultural Stories. Lexington Books.

Phelan, J. & Rabinowitz, P. (Eds.). (1994). Understanding Narrative. Ohio State University Press.

Phelan, J. (1989). Reading People, Reading Plots: Character, Progression, and the Interpretation of Narrative. University of Chicago Press.

Phelan, J. (Ed.). (1989). Reading Narrative: Form, Ethcs, Ideology. Ohio State University Press.

Punday, D. (2002). Narrative After Deconstruction. SUNY Press.

Rabinowitz, P. J. (1998). Before Reading: Narrative Conventions and the Politics of Interpretation. Ohio State University Press.

Radway, J. (1984). Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy and Popular Culture. University of North Carolina Press.

Ricoeur, P. (1984-86). Time and Narrative. Johns Hopkins University Press.

Rosen, H. (1984). Stories and Meanings. Boynton/Cook.

Ryan, M., & Steiner, W. (2003). Narrative as Virtual Reality. Johns Hopkins University Press.

Scholes, R. (1974). Structuralism in Literature: An Introduction.Yale University Press.

Scholes, R. (1985). Textual Power. Yale University Press.

Scholes, R. (2001). The Crafty Reader. Yale University Press.

Shank, R. C. (1995). Tell Me a Story: Narrative and Intelligence.Northwestern University Press.

Sukenick, R. (2000). Narralogues: Truth in Fiction. State University of New York.

Wellstone, P., Coles, R., & Piven, F. (2003). How the Rural Poor Got Power: Narrative of a Grass-Roots Organizer. University of Minnesota Press.

Werlock, A. (2000). Companion to the American Short Story.

White, H. (1987). The Context of Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation. Johns Hopkins University Press.

Wortham, S. (2001). Narratives in Action: A Strategy for Research and Analysis. Teachers College Press.

Worthington, K. (1996). Self as Narrative: Subjectivity and Community in Contemporary Fiction. Clarendon Press.

Young, R. (2003). Empowering Literacies: Reemergence of the Slave’s Narrative in Contemporary African American Writing. MacMillan.

Narrative and Teacher Reflection

Beattie, M. (1995). Constructing Professional Knowledge in Teaching: A Narrative of Change and Development. Teachers College Press.

Beattie, M. (2000). The Art of Learning to Teach: Preservice Teacher Narratives. Prentice Hall.

Berry, R., Mabokela, R., & Green, A. L. (2001). Sisters of the Academy. Stylus.

Billington, T. (2000). Excluding Children: Narratives of Difference. Routledge.

Brenton, D., Brown, J., & Loughran, J. (2000). Teacher talk: the role of story and anecdote in constructing professional knowledge for beginning teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education, 16(3), 335-348.

Clandinin, J. & Connelly, M. (1999). Narrative Inquiry: Experience and Story in Qualitative Research. Jossey-Bass.

Clark, C. T. (2002). Unfolding narratives of service learning: Reflections on teaching, literacy, and positioning in service relationships. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 46(4), 288-297.

Clough, P., & Sikes, P. (Eds.). (2002). Narratives and Fictions in Educational Research. Open University Press.

Craig, C. (1999). Parallel stories: A way of contextualizing teacher knowledge. Teaching and Teacher Education, 15(4), 397-411.

Florio-Ruane, S. (2001). Teacher Education and the Cultural Imagination: Autobiography, Conversation, and Narrative. Erlbaum.

Hesford, W. (1999). Framing Identities: Autobiography and the Politics of Pedagogy. University of Minnesota Press.

Hickey, D. & Reiss, D. (2000). Learning literature in an era of change: Innovations in teaching. Stylus Publishing.

Jalongo, M. R., & Isenberg, J. P. (1995). Teachers’ Stories: From Personal Narrative to Professional Insight. Jossey-Bass.

Johnson, K. E., & Golombek, P. R. (Eds.), (2002). Teachers’ Narrative Inquiry as Professional Development. Cambridge University Press.

Jossleson, R., Lieblch, A., & McAdams, D. (Eds.). (2002). Up Close and Personal: The Teaching and Learning of Narrative Research. American Psychological Association.

Kotzen, K, & Beller, T. (Eds.). (2001). With Love and Squalor. Broadway.

Landay, E. (2001). Narrative interviews: an approach to studying teaching and learning in English classrooms. The High School Journal, 84(3), 26-34.

Lyons, N., & Laboskey V. K. (Eds.) (2002). Narrative Inquiry in Practice: Advancing the Knowledge of Teaching. Teachers College Press.

Martin, K. J. (April 2000). “Oh, I have a story”: Narrative as a teacher’s classroom model. Teaching and Teacher Education, 16 (3), 349-63.

McCracken, H. T., & Larson, R. (Eds.). (1998). Teaching College English and English Education: Reflective Stories. National Council of Teachers of English.

McEwan, H, & Egan, K. (1995). Narrative in Teaching, Learning and Research. Teachers College Press.

Munro, P. (1998). Subject to Fiction: Women Teacher Life History Narratives and Cultural Politics. Taylor & Francis.

O’Connell, F. (1999). Professional conversations: new teachers explore teaching through conversation, story, and narrative. Teaching and Teacher Education, 15(4), 367-80.

Osunde, E. O. (1999). Understanding Student Teaching: Case Studies of Experiences and Suggestions for Survival. University Press of America.

Palmer, P. J. (2000). The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life. Jossey-Bass.

Phillion, J. (2002). Becoming a narrative inquirer in a multicultural landscape. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 34(5), 535-556.

Phillion, J. (2002). Narrative Inquiry in a Multicultural Landscape: Multicultural Teaching and Learning. Ablex.

Preskill, S. L., Jacobvitz, R. S., Jacobvitz, R. S. (2001). Stories of teaching: A foundation for educational renewal. New York: Pearson.

Ritchie, J. S., & Wilson, D. E. (2002). Teacher Narrative as Critical Inquiry: Rewriting the Script. Teachers College Press.

Ronald, K. (1999). How to tell a true teaching story. College English, 62(2), 255-264.

Sunstein, B. (1994). Composing a Culture: Inside a Summer Writing Program with High School Teachers. Heinemann.

Trimmer, J. F. (Ed.). (1997). Narrative as Knowledge: Tales of the Teaching Life. Boyton/Cook.

Vargas, L. (Ed.). (2002). Women Faculty of Color in the White Classroom: Narratives on the Pedagogical Implications of Teacher Diversity. Peter Lang.

Wilson, C. S. (2000). Telling a Different Story: Teaching and Literacy in a Urban Preschool. Teachers College Press.

Wolff, J. M. (2002). Professing in the contact zone: Bridging theory and practice together. National Council of Teachers of English.

Teaching Narrative

Allen, E., et al. (1999). What short stories or short story collections do you recommend for use in the English class? English Journal, 88(6), 24-26.

Bage, G. (2003). Narrative matters. Adobe Acrobat eBook. UCL Press.

Boynton, R., & Mack, M. (1992). Introduction to the Short Story. Heinemann.

Braniff, B. S. (2001). Using criticism to teach Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.’ Eureka Studies in Teaching Short Fiction 1(2), 15-24.

Carino, P. (2000). Making meaning in the postmodern market: teaching John Updike’s “A & P.” Teaching English in the Two-Year College, 28(2), 192-198.

Cioe, P. (2001). Kickoffs and metaphors: Selecting a first story for the Modern Fiction Course. Eureka Studies In Teaching Short Fiction, 2(1), 85-87.

Cording, S. (2000). Learning links in literature: Pairing short stories for understanding of theme. Eureka Studies in Teaching Short Fiction, 1(1), 13-17.

de Vos, G. (2001). Storytelling, folktales and the comic book format. Language and Literacy, 3(1). [online].

Dunning, S. (Ed.). (1996). Teaching Literature to Adolescents: Short Stories. Scott Foresman.

Eisner, W. (1996). Graphic Storytelling. Poorhouse Press.

Foley, J. M (Ed.) (1998). Teaching Oral Traditions. Modern Language Association.

Fournier, D. N., & Graves, M. F. (2002). Scaffolding adolescents’ comprehension of short stories. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 46(1), 130-39.

Fulford, R. (2001). The Triumph of Narrative: Storytelling in the Age of Mass Culture. Broadway Books.

Galt, M. F. (2000). The Story in History: Writing your Way into the American Experience. Teachers & Writers Collaborative.

Golden, J. M. (2000). Storymaking in Elementary and Middle School Classrooms: Constructing and Interpreting Narrative Texts. Erlbaum.

Gray, R. T. (Ed.) (1995). Approaches to Teaching Kafka’s Short Fiction. Modern Language Association of America.

Guezzar, T. P. (2000). From Short Fiction to Dramatic Event: Mental Imagery, the Perceptual Basis of Learning in the Aesthetic Reading Experience. In: D. J. Hickey & D. Reiss (Eds.), Learning Literature in an Era of Change: Innovations in Teaching. Sylus Press.

Hamilton, C., & Kratske, P. (Eds). (1999). Short Stories in the Classroom. National Council of Teachers of English.

Hawthorn, J. (1997). Studying the Novel: An Introduction. Arnold.

Jolley, S. A. (2002). The use of slave narratives in a high school English class. English Journal, 91(4), 3-38.

Lacey, M. S. (2000). Teaching the short story: A family symposium. Eureka Studies In Teaching Short Fiction, 1(1), 120-131.

Lee, R. I, Wong, S. C., & Sumida, S.H. (2001). Asian American Short Fiction: An Introduction and Critical Survey. Modern Language Association of America.

Logsdon, L. (2001). A teacher’s adventures in understanding and teaching Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” Eureka Studies In Teaching Short Fiction, 1(2), 55-60.

Marshall, B. K. (1992). Teaching the Postmodern: Fiction and Theory. Routledge.

Martino, W. & Mellor, B. (2000). Gendered Fictions. National Council of Teachers of English.

Mayer, C. (2000). The “idea” story and Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery.” Eureka Studies In Teaching Short Fiction, 1(1), 82-89.

McCarthy, T. (2000). Teaching Literary Elements with Short Stories. Scholastic.

McKenna, J. J. (2001). Which short fictions get taught. Eureka Studies in Teaching Short Fiction, 1(2), 6-10.

McMahon, R. (2002). Thinking About Literature: New Ideas for High School Teachers. Urbana, IL: NCTE.

Mellor, B., O’Neill, M., & Patterson, A. (2000). Reading Stories: Activities and Texts for Critical Readings. National Council of Teachers of English.

Mellor, B., Patterson, A., & O’Neill, M. (2000). Reading Fictions: Applying Literary Theory to Short Stories. National Council of Teachers of English.

Merrill, T. (2002). Ray Bradbury: A High School Favorite. Eureka Studies in Teaching Short Fiction, 3(1), 79-82.

Miller, S., & Legge, S. (1999). Supporting possible worlds: Transforming literature teaching and learning through conversation in the narrative mode. Research in the Teaching of English, 34(1), 10-65.

Mitchell, D. (1997). Using short story collections to enrich the English classroom. English Journal, 86(12), 73-77.

Neumann, B., & McConnell, H. (1996). Teaching the Short Story: A Guide to Using Stories from Around the World. National Council of Teachers of English,

O’Brien, S. T. (1999). Teacher’s Guide to African Narratives. Heinemann.

Pope, R. (2001). The English Studies Book. Routledge.

Reinsmith, W. A. (2002). Literature and life: Helping students see. Eureka Studies In Teaching Short Fiction, 3(1), 10-15.

Rickford, A. M. (1999). I Can Fly: Teaching Narratives and Reading Comprehension to African American and Other Ethnic Minority Students. University Press of America.

Rymes, B. (2001). Conversational Borderlands: Language and Identity in an Alternative Urban High School. Teachers College Press.

Satterfield, B. (2002). Doomed quest: ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro.’ Eureka Studies in Teaching Short Fiction, 2(2), 40-45.

Sayre, E. (2002). Finding relevance in ‘classic’ short fiction. Eureka Studies in Teaching Short Fiction, 3(1), 75-78.

Schevera, N. (1998). Using the talk show to “talk back” to O’Connor’s “Good country people.” Teaching English in the Two-Year College, 26(2), 174-177.

Smith, D. J. (2000). Stepping Inside the Classroom through Personal Narratives. University Press of America.

Smith, P. A. (2002). Thematic Guide to Popular Short Stories. Greenwood.

Tietz, S. (2001). Teachable fiction comes to Yellow Sky. Eureka Studies in Teaching Short Fiction, 2(1), 88-94.

Trayce, D. (2000). From tabloid to truth: using tabloid dreams to inspire powerful fiction. English Journal, 89(4), 58-64.

Wentworth, M. (2001). “Who’s in charge here?”: Teaching narrative voice in Frank O’Connor’s “My Oedipus complex.” Teaching English in the Two-Year College, 28(2), 365-371.

Wilner, A. (2002). Confronting resistance: Sonny’s Blues—and mine. Pedagogy, 2(2), 173-196.

Zemelman, S., et al. (Eds.) (2003). History Comes Home: Family Stories across the Curriculum. City Lore.

 

Storytelling Resources

Alder, N. (1998). Tellin' Tales at School: a Handbook for Teaching Storytelling in Workshops and in the Classroom, 3rd ed. Self published, Call 801-224-6861.

Changer, J. & Harrison, A. (1992). Storytelling Activities Kit: Ready-to-Use Techniques, Lessons & Listening Cassettes for Early Childhood. The Center for Applied Research in Education.

Cooper, P. (1993). When Stories Come to School: Telling, Writing and Performing Stories in the Early Childhood Classroom. Teachers & Writers Collaborative.

Gillard, M. (1996). Story Teller, Story Teacher: Discovering the Power of Storytelling for Teaching and Living. Stenhouse Publishers.

Hamilton, M. and Weiss, M. (1990). Children Tell Stories: A Teaching Guide. Richard C. Owens Publishers.

How & Why Stories: World Tales Kids Can Tell. (2000). August House.

Kinghorn, H. R. & Pelton, M.H. (1991). Every Child a Storyteller: a Handbook of Ideas. Teachers Ideas Press.

MacDonald, M.R. (1993). The Storyteller's Start-Up Book: Finding, Learning, Performing and Using Folktales. August House.

McCaleb, J. L. (2003). Story medicine. English Journal, 93 (1), 66-72.

National Storytelling Association. (1994). Tales as Tools: The Power of Story in the Classroom. National Storytelling Press.

Norfolk, B. & Norfolk, S. (1999). The Moral of the Story: Folktales for Character Development. August House.

Pellowski, A. (1995). The Storytelling Handbook: A Young People's Collection of Unusual Tales and Helpful Hints on How to Tell Them. Simon and Schuster.

Pierce, M. & Jennings.K. (1999). Storytelling Tips and Tales. Good Year Books.

Piquemal, N. (2003). From Native North American oral traditions to Western literacy: Storytelling in education. Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 49 (2), 113-22.

Rubright, L. (1996). Beyond the Beanstalk: Interdisciplinary Learning through Storytelling. Heinemann.

Stories in My Pocket: Tales Kids Can Tell. (1996). Fulcrum Publishers.

Zipes, J. (1995). Creative Storytelling: Building Community, Changing Lives. Routledge.

chapter activities    further reading    web links    literary texts    home

Click here to return to front page.