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Full-Text Articles in English Language and Literature

Teaching Tolkien: Language, Scholarship, And Creativity, Adam Kotlarczyk Jul 2016

Teaching Tolkien: Language, Scholarship, And Creativity, Adam Kotlarczyk

Adam Kotlarczyk

Why Tolkien? Let us start with the obvious—if cynical—question, almost certain to come from a skeptical administrator or colleague: why would any serious, self-respecting English teacher want to teach an author whose work is about dragons, fairies, and the fantastic? With all the increased attention to standardized testing and with the demand for rigor in read- ings in the average English curriculum, choosing a popular text might raise eyebrows among critics. The question that an English teacher may be asked (or indeed, may ask him- or herself) is: doesn't teaching Tolkien as "serious" literature just fan those flames?


The Novel Of Sentiment In A Short Story: Reflections On Teaching “Theresa”, Adam Kotlarczyk Jul 2016

The Novel Of Sentiment In A Short Story: Reflections On Teaching “Theresa”, Adam Kotlarczyk

Adam Kotlarczyk

I introduced “Theresa” in between units on “The Age of Reason” and “American Romanticism.” Thus it was foregrounded by works like Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography and Phyllis Wheatley’s “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” and followed by stories by Irving, Hawthorne, and Poe. Strictly speaking, this puts “Theresa” slightly out of sequence; its serialization in 1828 precedes by at least ten years the works of Poe, Hawthorne, and Irving that we study. Despite this, the text functioned well as a transitional piece, although I would consider moving it deeper into the Romantic unit. The exotic setting, relative to our other …


The Novel Of Sentiment In A Short Story: Reflections On Teaching “Theresa”, Adam Kotlarczyk Jul 2016

The Novel Of Sentiment In A Short Story: Reflections On Teaching “Theresa”, Adam Kotlarczyk

Adam Kotlarczyk

I introduced “Theresa” in between units on “The Age of Reason” and “American Romanticism.” Thus it was foregrounded by works like Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography and Phyllis Wheatley’s “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” and followed by stories by Irving, Hawthorne, and Poe. Strictly speaking, this puts “Theresa” slightly out of sequence; its serialization in 1828 precedes by at least ten years the works of Poe, Hawthorne, and Irving that we study. Despite this, the text functioned well as a transitional piece, although I would consider moving it deeper into the Romantic unit. The exotic setting, relative to our other …


Thoughts On African American Literature From The Imsa English Department, Michael Dean, Michael W. Hancock, Leah Kind, Adam Kotlarczyk, Erin Micklo, Tracy A. Townsend Jul 2016

Thoughts On African American Literature From The Imsa English Department, Michael Dean, Michael W. Hancock, Leah Kind, Adam Kotlarczyk, Erin Micklo, Tracy A. Townsend

Adam Kotlarczyk

This document is the product of an online collaborative discussion inspired by Black History Month that took place between members of the IMSA English team during the first week of February in 2015. In this conversation, English faculty ruminate on the importance of African American literature as teachers, as individuals, and as lifelong learners.


Booker T. Washington And W.E.B. Du Bois: Guiding Students To Historical Context, Adam Kotlarczyk Jul 2016

Booker T. Washington And W.E.B. Du Bois: Guiding Students To Historical Context, Adam Kotlarczyk

Adam Kotlarczyk

Seldom have two vastly different visions been expressed as clearly and as elegantly as in Booker T. Washington’s Atlanta Exposition Address (1895) and W.E.B. Du Bois’s “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others” (from The Souls of Black Folk, 1903). Awash in memorable rhetoric, these competing philosophies foresaw very different paths for America, and for black social progress, at the dawn of the twentieth century. This lesson introduces students to the ideas and informational texts of Washington and DuBois while challenging students to research some of the historical context in which these men lived, worked, and thought.


Teaching Tolkien: Language, Scholarship, And Creativity, Adam Kotlarczyk Jul 2016

Teaching Tolkien: Language, Scholarship, And Creativity, Adam Kotlarczyk

Adam Kotlarczyk

Why Tolkien? Let us start with the obvious—if cynical—question, almost certain to come from a skeptical administrator or colleague: why would any serious, self-respecting English teacher want to teach an author whose work is about dragons, fairies, and the fantastic? With all the increased attention to standardized testing and with the demand for rigor in read- ings in the average English curriculum, choosing a popular text might raise eyebrows among critics. The question that an English teacher may be asked (or indeed, may ask him- or herself) is: doesn't teaching Tolkien as "serious" literature just fan those flames?


Thoughts On African American Literature From The Imsa English Department, Michael Dean, Michael W. Hancock, Leah Kind, Adam Kotlarczyk, Erin Micklo, Tracy A. Townsend Jul 2016

Thoughts On African American Literature From The Imsa English Department, Michael Dean, Michael W. Hancock, Leah Kind, Adam Kotlarczyk, Erin Micklo, Tracy A. Townsend

Adam Kotlarczyk

This document is the product of an online collaborative discussion inspired by Black History Month that took place between members of the IMSA English team during the first week of February in 2015. In this conversation, English faculty ruminate on the importance of African American literature as teachers, as individuals, and as lifelong learners.


Booker T. Washington And W.E.B. Du Bois: Guiding Students To Historical Context, Adam Kotlarczyk Jul 2016

Booker T. Washington And W.E.B. Du Bois: Guiding Students To Historical Context, Adam Kotlarczyk

Adam Kotlarczyk

Seldom have two vastly different visions been expressed as clearly and as elegantly as in Booker T. Washington’s Atlanta Exposition Address (1895) and W.E.B. Du Bois’s “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others” (from The Souls of Black Folk, 1903). Awash in memorable rhetoric, these competing philosophies foresaw very different paths for America, and for black social progress, at the dawn of the twentieth century. This lesson introduces students to the ideas and informational texts of Washington and DuBois while challenging students to research some of the historical context in which these men lived, worked, and thought.


The Novel Of Sentiment In A Short Story: Reflections On Teaching “Theresa”, Adam Kotlarczyk Jul 2016

The Novel Of Sentiment In A Short Story: Reflections On Teaching “Theresa”, Adam Kotlarczyk

Adam Kotlarczyk

I introduced “Theresa” in between units on “The Age of Reason” and “American Romanticism.” Thus it was foregrounded by works like Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography and Phyllis Wheatley’s “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” and followed by stories by Irving, Hawthorne, and Poe. Strictly speaking, this puts “Theresa” slightly out of sequence; its serialization in 1828 precedes by at least ten years the works of Poe, Hawthorne, and Irving that we study. Despite this, the text functioned well as a transitional piece, although I would consider moving it deeper into the Romantic unit. The exotic setting, relative to our other …


Teaching Tolkien: Language, Scholarship, And Creativity, Adam Kotlarczyk Jul 2016

Teaching Tolkien: Language, Scholarship, And Creativity, Adam Kotlarczyk

Adam Kotlarczyk

Why Tolkien? Let us start with the obvious—if cynical—question, almost certain to come from a skeptical administrator or colleague: why would any serious, self-respecting English teacher want to teach an author whose work is about dragons, fairies, and the fantastic? With all the increased attention to standardized testing and with the demand for rigor in read- ings in the average English curriculum, choosing a popular text might raise eyebrows among critics. The question that an English teacher may be asked (or indeed, may ask him- or herself) is: doesn't teaching Tolkien as "serious" literature just fan those flames?