And so America continues to search subconsciously for ways back, for snorkels to lower to those buried souls. Consider the resurgence of magical literature in America over the last decade and a half. Never since Tolkien has the fantasy genre -- the Twilight books and the wealth of vampire chronicles accompanying for example -- been so widely successful. J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels are a recent manifestation of that search

Images of war, homelessness, and poverty also convey poignant messages that can be construed differently by different people. The photographer presents the image but the viewer deciphers it. When photographs like those from Walker Evans are used as journalistic content, they can become imbued with meaning and political ideology. Other images are less equivocal. For example, a shot of a homeless man sleeping on a bench in Beverly Hills

The means of musical dissemination today often incorporates only audio, but even music videos are seldom used in the way that traditional music used visuals. Whereas traditional songs were crafted specifically incorporating dance and costume, that is not the case. Even assuming that the lyrical component is just as potent now as it ever was, it represents only one-third of the traditional song. This represents a major loss. Conclusion Native American

Classroom: Teaching Utopias, Dystopias, and the American Dream This article published in Teaching American Literature: A Journal of Theory and Practice in 2011 examines the advantages and pitfalls of democracy in the classroom. The author, Rebeccah Bechtold, tells of her attempt to create a utopian classroom by enabling students to design and implement their own syllabus. The class was designed so students were included in deciding "a majority of the

Even when has the opportunity to make things better, he does not act. He refuses Charley's job offer because it seems easier to ask for money than it is to do something other than sell. He would rather see the family suffer than try to work at something else for a little while. After he is gone, she tells the kids, "First time in thirty-five years we were just

" (Anon.) Sentiments, such as these, are widespread. Philosophies such as behaviorism assert that the environment compels the nature of a child. Biological perspectives believe that the child may be evolutionarily ingrained to act in a certain manner. My philosophy is that the educator is a necessary component in a child's life and that, as remarkable educators have taught us again and again -- such as Marva Collins who created her own