MEJ Editor 2020, Literary Analysis, Tanya Stafsholt Miller, World Literature

Shoes, Rap Music, and Guns: Transitional Objects as Objective Correlatives in Ishmael Beah’s A Long Way Gone by Tanya Stafsholt Miller

When a person has gone through extreme trauma, writing about it can have a healing effect. The act of shaping the words on a page puts the trauma outside the self and becomes an entity of its own that can be shaped and molded. Some trauma victims use writing to expunge emotional baggage—writing it down … Continue reading Shoes, Rap Music, and Guns: Transitional Objects as Objective Correlatives in Ishmael Beah’s A Long Way Gone by Tanya Stafsholt Miller

MEJ Editor 2016, American Literature, Authors, Barbara Lehman, Elementary, Jongsun Wee, Literature, Post-Secondary, Secondary, World Literature, Young Adult Literature

Read Them Together: Paired Book Reading for Global Literature by Jongsun Wee & Barbara A. Lehman

[pdf version here: Wee-Lehman-ReadThemTogether] Abstract:  The need for global literature is growing as the society rapidly becomes more diverse. This study documented American children’s responses to global literature when it was paired with a home country book. The data were collected in a third grade classroom in a midwestern state. The results showed that in paired … Continue reading Read Them Together: Paired Book Reading for Global Literature by Jongsun Wee & Barbara A. Lehman

MEJ Editor 2015, Kristine Putz, Literary Theory, Literature, Marxist Theory, World Literature

The Kite Runner From A Marxist Perspective by Kristine Putz

[pdf version here: Putz-KiteRunnerMarxistPerspective] The use of Marxist and other literary theories in the classroom helps students to realize that the subject of English is beyond the rudimentary put your comma here or reading for the sake of fulfilling some predetermined standard (a certain number of minutes of reading per night for example). English is … Continue reading The Kite Runner From A Marxist Perspective by Kristine Putz

MEJ Editor 2015, British Literature, Feminist Theory, Literary Theory, Literature, Marxist Theory, Post-Secondary, Secondary, Taya Sazama, World Literature

Theory in Practice in the High School Classroom: Using The Kite Runner to Teach Literary Theory by Taya Sazama

[pdf version here: Sazama-Using The Kite Runner to Teach Literary Theory] Khaled Hosseini’s debut novel, The Kite Runner, is one of the newer modern sensations to hit high school classrooms. In a setting where a majority of the studied texts were written before the start of the twentieth century, this is quite an achievement. Especially … Continue reading Theory in Practice in the High School Classroom: Using The Kite Runner to Teach Literary Theory by Taya Sazama

MEJ Editor 2014, Literature, Narrative, Post-Secondary, Russian Literature, Secondary, Wes Schaller, World Literature

Crime and Punishment: An Evolution of the Narrative Techniques of Dostoevsky by Wes Schaller

The notebooks of Fyodor Dostoevsky have both complicated and enriched the analyses of Crime and Punishment. Whereas some writers may employ the notebooks to supplement and illuminate their ideas, others may regard them as irrelevant territory—not to be used within the realm of critical analyses. This dilemma will necessarily be addressed later on, for the … Continue reading Crime and Punishment: An Evolution of the Narrative Techniques of Dostoevsky by Wes Schaller

MEJ Editor 2014, Best Practices & Teaching Tips, Heather Porter, Literary Theory, Literature, Post-Secondary, Russian Literature, Secondary, World Literature

Making Dostoevsky Relevant: Teaching Notes from Underground to College Freshmen by Heather Porter

Relatively little has been said regarding how to teach Dostoevsky’s novels to students. Even less has been said about how to make his work relevant to twenty-first century American students who exist within an entirely different cultural landscape than the characters of Dostoevsky’s fiction[1]. Notes from Underground  is particularly challenging, but its difficulty is precisely … Continue reading Making Dostoevsky Relevant: Teaching Notes from Underground to College Freshmen by Heather Porter

MEJ Editor 2014, Best Practices & Teaching Tips, Humanities, Online Teaching, Post-Secondary, Technology, William D. Dyer, World Literature

Teaching English 4/533: Enabling World Texts, Past and Present, to Talk to Each Other by William D. Dyer

I am going to offer, as a means for providing a context for the long student-written collaborative paper that follows as well the brief discussion of how this assignment might apply to other teaching environments and students (written by the graduate student “point person” on that project and practicing high school teacher), an introduction to … Continue reading Teaching English 4/533: Enabling World Texts, Past and Present, to Talk to Each Other by William D. Dyer