|Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute||Home| The seminar set out to
track down the figure of the stranger, in various settings and
various guises, in modern literature. We faced the question of
how to teach authors like William Blake, William Faulkner, Amiri
Baraka, Robert Heinlein, and Ntozake Shange in a single
framework; and we faced the problem of how to introduce their
works at the early levels, and sustain them at the later levels
of secondary education. At the outset our project seemed
necessary, finite, and likely to be fun. Succeeding weeks were
to confirm its importance and appeal, while at the same time
revealing its tendency to radiate outward toward infinity; we
actually added a text or two during our sessions. We concluded
that the versatility of our theme was all to the good, since it
gave both a definite focus for the group and also room for a
great diversity of individual interests. The participants in the
seminar responded vigorously in such a context. Their units deal
with the stranger from vi