San Antonio College Library

In a book that is as humorous as it is learned, author Sutherland tells you how to read fiction better than you do now. He reminds readers how the delicate charms of fiction can be at once wonderful and inspired and infuriating. On one level this is about novels: how they work, what they're about, what makes them good or bad, and how to talk about them. At a deeper level, this book describes what happens when a reader meets a novel. Will a great love...

"Work with students at all levels to help them read novelsWhole Novels is a practical, field-tested guide to implementing a student-centered literature program that promotes critical thinking and literary understanding through the study of novels with middle school students. Rather than using novels simply to teach basic literacy skills and comprehension strategies, Whole Novels approaches literature as art. The book is fully aligned with the Common...

"This guide contains practical ideas that enable the teacher or librarian to incorporate acclaimed fantasy literature in the elementary and middle school curriculum, and also serves as a reference guide to parents seeking outstanding examples of fiction for students. Each fantasy novel is accompanied by a plot summary and list of major characters, a comprehension check, a vocabulary exercise, discussion questions, reference topics, and suggested multidisciplinary...

"Recent decades have seen a revival of scholarly interest in Gothic fiction. Critics are attracted to the genre's exploration of irrationality, to its dark representation of the bourgeois family and of the psychological effects of social conflict. Because of this critical interest and because of the enduring popularity of the genre from the eighteenth century to the present, the Gothic has become increasingly visible on college syllabi. This volume,...

McGurl argues that far from occasioning a decline in the quality or interest in American writing, the rise of the creative writing program [in higher education] has instead generated a complex and evolving constellation of aesthetic problems that have been explored with energy and at times brilliance by authors ranging from Flannery O'Connor to Vladimir Nabokov, Philip Roth, Raymond Carver, Joyce Carol Oates, and Toni Morrison.--From book jacket.

A student's guide to poetry, drama, and fiction.