english literature

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 The Gods

of the

Copybook Headings

Rudyard Kipling

1919

~

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all. 

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind. 

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been
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Comic books and graphic novels – once derided by “experts” as being the bane of adolescence and moral society in general – are now receiving praise for encouraging a love of reading while also greatly increasing the range of vocabulary in children.

According to a new study published in the journal School Library Monthly, comic books are just another form of literature that demands the same amount of reading comprehension as traditional novels or any other written material. Professor Carol Tilley of the University of Illinois notes that…

“Although they’ve long embraced picture books as appropriate children’s literature, many adults – even teachers and librarians who willingly add comics to their collections – are too quick to dismiss the suitability of comics as texts for young readers. Any book can be good and any book can be bad, to some extent. It’s up to the reader’s personality and intellect.

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A high school English teacher and football coach in Alabama is using the first three Star Wars movies in his classroom to teach students about the aspects of epic literature.

Luke Skywalker is not just a character in a series of films to David Golden, an English teacher and football coach at Hazel Green High School. The Jedi knight is an epic hero, whose rise, fall and redemption are part of a story rife with classic archetypes we all know through our collective unconscious as described by the psychologist Carl Jung.

Seriously.

Each semester, Golden’s ninth-grade students watch the original trilogy of the Star Wars movies, with Golden pointing out the situational, character and symbolic archetypes as well as literary elements.

n the cave scene in “Return of the Jedi,” Luke faces off against Darth Vader (which means dark knight in German, Golden told his students).

“It’s foggy, dense,” Golden

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