Teaching the Art of Literature

By Bruce E. Miller

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0814151922
• ISBN13: 9780814151921
• Release Date: January 1980
• Publisher: Natl Council of Teachers
• Weight: 0.48 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.5" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

What Exactly Does the Teaching of Literature Imply?

For even experienced teachers of English, TEACHING THE ART OF LITERATURE is a worthy addition to a cabinet of books already cluttered with a myriad of other books. Bruce Miller takes a commonsense approach that suggests that teaching is indeed an art but is one that can be honed by practice and observation. There is nothing of a threatening nature within. Nor does he devolve into impenetrable jargon. Miller divides his book into two parts. In the first he considers literature as what he terms "events" "objects" and "messages." He points out that most floundering readers see literature as very little more than words on a page that lack all connection to the world external to that text. Miller teaches the teacher how to help a student make the transcendant leap from the often abstract maze of printed words to the concretized universe of hardened reality that the teacher sees so clearly but the student does not. In the second section, Miller shows how a teacher may approach four genres: poetry, the short story, the novel, and the drama by providing specific examples of standard words. Miller does far more than simply summarize key elements. He lists specific tasks that enable the students to work either individually or collectively. The beauty of this text is that the author does a superlative job of showing one things that are either already known or are so clearly explained that one shakes his head at not having thought of them first.