July Poems
We in the northern hemisphere may be melting in the July heat, but there are compensations. July poems from poets such as Emily Dickinson, Robert Louis Stevenson, Amy Lowell, and Lewis Carroll remind us...
Category: Resources for Teaching
Resources for Teaching includes a variety of articles and essays, plus links to useful resources for teachers of literature and writing. If you’re looking for something you don’t see, try typing a few keywords into the search box.
Miguel de Cervantes Biography
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES SAAVEDRA (1547-1616), Spanish novelist (Don Quixote and others), playwright, and poet was born at Alcalá de Henares in 1547. The attempts of biographers to provide him with an illustrious genealogy are...
Guide to the Classics: Homer’s Odyssey
Odysseus and his crew escape the cyclops, as painted by Arnold Böcklin in 1896. Wikimedia. Guide to the Classics: Homer’s Odyssey Chris Mackie, La Trobe University The Odyssey of Homer is a Greek epic...
The Romantic Period, 1820-1860: Essayists and Poets
Outline of American Literature: Chapter 4 The Romantic Period, 1820-1860: Essayists and Poets By Kathryn VanSpanckeren TRANSCENDENTALISM Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) Walt Whitman (1819-1892) THE BRAHMIN POETS Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)...
Approaches to Literary Interpretation
A story is not a problem to be solved, but a continent to be explored. Dr. Randy Laist Using the Cinderella story, Dr. Randy Laist of Goodwin College discusses some approaches to literary interpretation,...
How to Evaluate Writing (It’s More than Grading Papers)
Grading papers is usually not a favorite chore, but have you ever thought of writing evaluation as a teaching tool? That is exactly what it can be! Every writing assignment can help a student...
3 Tools You Need to Construct a Reasonable Argument
What is an argument? An argument is an attempt to persuade someone of something. It is prompted usually by a disagreement, confusion, or ignorance about something which the arguers wish to resolve or illuminate...
A Reading List from 1910
This 1910 reading list first appeared in How to Speak and Write Correctly by Joseph Devlin. Beginning with the greatest works of all time, he offers a reading list of great books and poetry that...
Figures of Speech: Schemes and Tropes
Schemes and Tropes Schemes and tropes are figures of speech, having to do with using language in an unusual or “figured” way: Trope: An artful deviation from the ordinary or principal signification of a word....
Types of Humor
Literary devices that create humor As you read, you will encounter many types of humor, and you will find some types funnier than others. If you want to learn to use humor in writing, it helps...
Style: Canons of Rhetoric
Style: Canons of Rhetoric Style concerns the artful expression of ideas. If invention addresses what is to be said; style addresses how this will be said. From a rhetorical perspective style is not incidental,...
Arrangement: Canons of Rhetoric
Arrangement Arrangement (dispositio or taxis) concerns how one orders speech or writing. In ancient rhetorics, arrangement referred solely to the order to be observed in an oration, but the term has broadened to include...
Invention: Canons of Rhetoric
Invention Invention concerns finding something to say (its name derives from the Latin invenire, “to find”). Certain common categories of thought became conventional to use in order to brainstorm for material. These common places...
Canons of Rhetoric
The Canons of Rhetoric invention | arrangement | style | memory | delivery Rhetoric, as an art, has long been divided into five major categories or “canons”: Invention Arrangement Style Memory Delivery These categories...
Graphic Organizers for Essay Writing
What is a graphic organizer? Graphic organizers are useful visual tool that help students brainstorm ideas, organize information, and draft papers with just a few words or phrases. There are many different kinds of organizers available,...
How to Create a Reverse Outline
Reverse Outline: A useful tool As you work with a text —essay, story, speech, article, or fable, it can be helpful to create a reverse outline. This can help you see the structure of the...
Cultivating a Pleasant Speaking Voice
When teaching the art of recitation or rhetoric, we sometimes forget to teach one element essential for confident presentation: a pleasant, well-modulated speaking voice. A timid, squeaky, mumbling, or breathy voice is not only be tiring to use, but can be a social and business liability. Here are a few ideas for cultivating a pleasant, well-modulated speaking voice.
G. K. Chesterton on Aesop and his Fables
G. K. Chesterton on Aesop and his Fables G. K. Chesterton discusses some elements of fable and the fame of Aesop, in his introduction to a 1912 edition of Aesop’s Fables. Aesop embodies an epigram...
Of Education by John Milton
Of Education by John Milton Of Education was published anonymously as a tract in 1644. It represents John Milton’s views “concerning the best and noblest way of education.” Milton believed that education was to “fit a man to...
Creating Outlines by Kathleen Lietzau
Creating Outlines by Kathleen Lietzau What is an Outline? Macro Outlines Micro Outlines Crafting an Outline Moving from the Outline to the Paper What is an Outline? An outline is a way of formally...
The Age Which Produced The Faerie Queene
The Age Which Produced The Faerie Queene By Dr. George Armstrong Wauchope, Professor of English, South Carolina College The study of the Faerie Queene should be preceded by a review of the great age...
Journalism Story Structure by Mark Grabowski
Journalism Story Structure by Mark Grabowski Organizing the way you write journalism articles is as important as organizing the way you tell any story. Readers won’t tolerate a confusing story. They want a story...
Jonathan Swift Resources
Jonathan Swift Resources Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) wrote some of the most brilliant prose in the English language and is often regarded as its foremost satirist. While best known for his masterpiece Gulliver’s Travels and,...
Sample Compare-Contrast Essay Outline
Sample compare-contrast essay outline Have you ever wondered how to logically organize a compare-contrast essay? Here is a sample essay outline in which Achilles’ and Odysseus’ attitudes toward war are compared and contrasted. Subject: Homer’s...
How to Write a Compare-Contrast Essay
What is a compare-contrast essay? Have you encountered an essay prompt that directs you to compare or contrast two elements (e.g., two characters in a story, two different political theories, two different religious doctrines...
Hudson River School Artwork
The Hudson River School A group of artists known as the Hudson River School painted romantic landscape scenes, some of which depicted the American setting for Washington Irving’s works. These artists included Thomas Cole,...
How to Make a Mind Map
Mind mapping is one of the best tools you will find for generating ideas. All you need in order to begin is a pen and paper. Here’s how to do it.
Oscar Wilde Resources
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was an immensely gifted writer who produced a large variety of work ranging from humorous to tragic. He had the capacity to be ridiculous (The Importance of Being Earnest) as well...
Stacy Esch Resources
Many thanks to Stacy Esch for providing these resources for Dante’s Divine Comedy, as well as a Tolkien essay (below) and sharing them with Excellence in Literature. Stacy Esch teaches composition and literature at West...
On Fairy Stories: An Essay by Tolkien
Reading Fairy Stories with J. R. Tolkien In “On Fairy Stories,” J. R. R. Tolkien explores the realm of Faerie, and considers “What are fairy-stories? What is their origin? What is the use of them?”...
