Browse The Curriculum

    Tag Archives: literature

  • September 13, 2013
    Blogger Spotlight: Classic literature and social studies lessons

    Every Friday we compile our favorite education blog posts from the week.

    Can middle school students handle classic literature? David O’Shell says yes, and argues that introducing young students into the study of literature pays dividends. Plus, on his blog The Living Teacher, O’Shell explains the role of classic literature in education.

    “The secret anniversaries of the heart”: Lee Ann Potter writes about the catharsis of reading and writing poetry.

    Best practices in social … Read more »

  • July 2, 2013
    Is Nonfiction as Important as Fiction?

    While reading fiction has tremendous benefits for students, Walt Gardner suggests that nonfiction reading ought to serve a vital role in English classrooms as well. The Common Core State Standards place a large emphasis on nonfiction, much to the chagrin of some English teachers, but Gardner argues that this emphasis serves to both inspire students and prepare them for adulthood.

  • June 28, 2013
    Blogger Spotlight: The Past, Present, and Future of Education

    Each Friday we highlight some of our favorite education blog posts from the week. This week’s edition includes new ideas for teaching history and the importance of remembering our past.

    Struggling to integrate the Common Core into your curriculum? Check out Benjamin Herold’s post about award-winning software that can help.

    Why should students study the Gettysburg Battle? Brad Burenheide explains as we approach the 150th anniversary.

    Portraits of Veterans: … Read more »

  • June 27, 2013
    Why Don’t Students Read for Fun?

    While summer vacation may be the perfect time to enjoy a new book, millions of college students appear to have little interaction with literature. Danny Heitman, writing in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, describes the dismal state of reading for pleasure among America’s youth. As a college writing professor, Heitman witnessed students’ apathy toward literature, with most students in his seminar course listing Harry Potter as the … Read more »

  • March 12, 2013
    The Case for Classical Education

    In the Wall Street Journal’s Cross Country column, Texas educators Charles Cook and Terrence Moore make the case for classical liberal arts education—both for preparing students for the workforce and for engaged citizenship:

    We have a different approach to equipping students to face the future, one that has the weight of millennia of human experience behind it: a rigorous classical education. Such an education (called liberal-arts at the college level) does … Read more »

  • November 28, 2012
    The Image of a Writer

    Early in 1851, Herman Melville’s friend and publisher Evert Duyckinck asked the author for a daguerreotype to publish in his magazine, The Literary World. Melville, then in the midst of writing a massive, rumbustious novel that would become Moby-Dick, protested that he had no such photograph, adding, “And if I had, I would not send it . . . even to you.”

    Eleven years later, the Atlantic Monthly editor, Thomas Wentworth … Read more »

  • September 25, 2012
    New Dorp High’s writing revolution

    In 2009, when Monica DiBella entered New Dorp, a notorious public high school on Staten Island, her academic future was cloudy. Monica had struggled to read in early childhood, and had repeated first grade. During her elementary-school years, she got more than 100 hours of tutoring, but by fourth grade, she’d fallen behind her classmates again. In the years that followed, Monica became comfortable with math and learned to read passably … Read more »

  • Close Reading for Civic Education

    Distinguished scholar-teachers Amy and Leon Kass demonstrate how short stories, speeches, and songs can be used to enhance civic education and how a pedagogical approach that stresses learning through inquiry can make primary sources come alive for students of all ages.

    View the Curriculum