The forces of fate and free pull at Romeo and Juliet’s relationship throughout the play, and it is up for debate whether fate or free will plays a larger role in the tragic events that unfold in their story. Examine the balcony scene to see how these forces are already at play from the very beginning of their relationship in this video from Great Performances: Romeo and Juliet.

This course is a seminar on creativity in art, science, and technology. We discuss how these pursuits are jointly dependent on affective as well as cognitive elements in human nature. We study feeling and imagination in relation to principles of idealization, consummation, and the aesthetic values that give meaning to science and technology as well as literature and the other arts. Readings in philosophy, psychology, and literature are part of the course.

In this video from August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand scholars discuss Fences, the Tony Award-winning drama about a former Negro League baseball player and his family. The video features performances of two scenes from the play along with critical commentary.

Sensitive: This resource contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class.

In Bud, Not Buddy, we see the world through the eyes of our narrator, Bud. The way he describes the world tells us a bit about who he is as a character, too. In this assignment, we will focus on figurative language that tells us more about the text.Figurative language is language that is not literal, or exactly accurate, but instead appeals to the senses by describing something in an unlikely way. Examples are metaphors, similes, hyperboles, and personifications. These can make writing more persuasive, effective, or impactful.

This course examines problems in the philosophy of film as well as literature studied in relation to their making of myths. The readings and films that are discussed in this course draw upon classic myths of the western world. Emphasis is placed on meaning and technique as the basis of creative value in both media.

This collection uses primary sources to explore The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

The FLLITE website contains a collection of lessons in second language literacy for various languages.

The website is the focal point of the FLLITE Project, which takes the creative moments found in everyday language use as the basis for lessons in second language literacy. By emphasizing language play as central to communication, FLLITE lessons aim to develop language awareness as well as communicative abilities through the integration of speaking, reading, listening, and writing tasks.

The goal of the FLLITE Project is the publication of classroom-tested lessons based on authentic texts in different languages, for example, blogs, Internet memes, YouTube videos, slam poetry, and so forth.

All FLLITE lessons carry an open license that allows you the teacher to…

…access, adapt, and re-use any lesson; and
…contribute a lesson for editorial feedback and publication.

This class will investigate the ways in which the formal aspects of Western storytelling in various media have shaped both fantasies and perceptions, making certain understandings of experience possible through the selection, arrangement, and processing of narrative material. Surveying the field chronologically across the major narrative genres and sub-genres from Homeric epic through the novel and across media to include live performance, film, and video games, we will be examining the ways in which new ideologies and psychological insights become available through the development of various narrative techniques and new technologies. Emphasis will be placed on the generic conventions of story-telling as well as on literary and cultural issues, the role of media and modes of transmission, the artistic significance of the chosen texts and their identity as anthropological artifacts whose conventions and assumptions are rooted in particular times, places, and technologies. Authors will include: Homer, Sophocles, Herodotus, Christian evangelists, Marie de France, Cervantes, La Clos, Poe, Lang, Cocteau, Disney-Pixar, and Maxis-Electronic Arts, with theoretical readings in Propp, Bakhtin, Girard, Freud, and Marx.

As we read broadly from throughout the vast chronological period that is "Homer to Dante," we will pepper our readings of individual ancient and medieval texts with broader questions like: what images, themes, and philosophical questions recur through the period; are there distinctly "classical" or "medieval" ways of depicting or addressing them; and what do terms like "Antiquity" or "the Middle Ages" even mean? (What are the Middle Ages in the "middle" of, for example?) Our texts will include adventure tales of travel and self-discovery (Homer's Odyssey and Dante's Inferno); courtroom dramas of vengeance and reconciliation (Aeschylus's Oresteia and the Icelandic Njáls saga); short poems of love and transformation (Ovid's Metamorphoses and the Lais of Marie de France); and epics of war, nation-construction, and empire (Homer's Iliad, Virgil's Aeneid, and the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf).

This subject offers a broad survey of texts (both literary and philosophical) drawn from the Western tradition and selected to trace the growth of ideas about the nature of mankind's ethical and political life in the West since the renaissance. It will deal with the change in perspective imposed by scientific ideas, the general loss of a supernatural or religious perspective upon human events, and the effects for good or ill of the increasing authority of an intelligence uninformed by religion as a guide to life. The readings are roughly complementary to the readings in 21L001, and classroom discussion will stress appreciation and analysis of texts that came to represent the cultural heritage of the modern world.

This lesson can be used with numerous pieces of literature, videos or cassette material to develop viewing and listening skills and the students ability to compare and contrast. One of the richest sources is in the area of fairytales and folktales. This an especially good source if you can find a modernized version in video or cassette form to contrast with the more traditional written form. I have used the "Frog Prince" because of this factor and because it was part of the 4th grade language arts reading unit.

Some argue that genre fiction is only a marketing category, but other critics say that different genres meet specific expectations of readers. This course examines these different agreements of what the reader wants and what the writer provides under the aegis of different genres. We will look at how genres are divided into subgenres, and how they are combined into cross-genre work, always keeping in mind the Reader-Writer Contact that is at the heart of genre writing. We shall also think about the ways in which crossing genres has led to the establishment of new genres (steampunk, preternatural romance) and strongly established subgenres (historical mystery, urban fantasy).

Fantasy is currently one of the most popular genres across every platform in fiction. From film to gaming to literature, fantasy tops the charts. Why? Why do people who believe in democracy and live with the magic technology appear to long for wizards and dragons and the matters of kingship? In this class, we will explore this question, and from that base read articles, novels, write exercises and stories in this genre.

Students will act out a popular movie trailer in the target language. Keeping with the original plot of the movie, students have to act out the trailer as if it were a different genre.

Genre studies and genre approaches to literacy instruction continue to develop in many regions and from a widening variety of approaches. Genre has provided a key to understanding the varying literacy cultures of regions, disciplines, professions and educational settings. Genre in a Changing World provides a wide-ranging sampler of the remarkable variety of current work. The twenty-four chapters in this volume, reflecting the work of scholars in Europe, Australasia, North and South America, were selected from more than 400 presentations at SIGET IV (the Fourth International Symposium on Genre Studies), held on the campus of UNISUL in Tubarão, Santa Catarina, Brazil in August 2007—the largest gathering on genre to that date. The chapters also represent a wide variety of approaches including rhetoric, Systemic Functional Linguistics, media and critical cultural studies, sociology, phenomenology, enunciation theory, the Geneva school of educational sequences, cognitive psychology, relevance theory, sociocultural psychology, activity theory, Gestalt psychology, and schema theory. Sections are devoted to theoretical issues, studies of genres in the professions, studies of genre and media, teaching and learning genre, and writing across the curriculum. The broad selection of material in this volume displays the full range of contemporary genre studies and sets the ground for a next generation of work.

This course focuses on development of interpretive skills, using literary texts (B. Brecht, S. Zweig) and contemporary media texts (film, TV broadcasts, Web materials). The emphasis is on discussion and exploration of cultural topics in their current social, political, and historical context via hypermedia documentaries. It also covers further refinement of oral and written expression and expansion of communicative competence in practical everyday situations.

Prepares students for working and living in German-speaking countries. Focus on current political, social, and cultural issues, using newspapers, journals, TV, radio broadcasts, and Web sources from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Emphasis on speaking, writing, and reading skills for professional contexts. Activities include: oral presentations, group discussions, guest lectures, and interviews with German speakers. No listeners.

This unit has been developed to guide students and instructors in a close reading of Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address.” The activities and actions described below follow a carefully developed set of steps that assist students in increasing their familiarity and understanding of Lincoln’s speech through a series of text dependent tasks and questions that ultimately develop college and career ready skills identified in the Common Core State Standards.

The 1960s and 70s comprised some of the most tumultuous eras in American history. The people were using their voices to express dissatisfaction with their government. This lesson provides a brief history of America’s involvement in Vietnam and surrounding areas. The focal point of the lesson is the resistance on the American homefront. In this lesson, you will discover first-hand how men were drafted for the Vietnam War and understand the draft’s role in the anti-war movement of the 1960s and 70s. You will analyze and interpret multiple primary source documents to consider anti-war sentiment in the United States.  StandardsCC.8.5.11-12.A: Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, connecting insights gained from specific details to an understanding of the text as a whole.CC.8.6.11-12.A: Write arguments focused on discipline-specific content.