English language--Study and teaching

She's the author of the new memoir, Brief Intervals of Horrible Sanity: One Season in a Progressive School. It's about her brief stint as a midyear replacement English teacher in Queens, N.Y. Gold teaches writing at several branches of the City University of New York.

William Labov teaches at the University of Pennsylvania discusses Ebonics. He's been studying Black English for 30 years and traced the rules governing Black and White English. He also examined the differences between the two and explored the roots of the changes taking place in the languages.

Linguist Geoff Nunberg looks at the current debate surrounding black vernacular in school, which the Oakland school board has dubbed "Ebonics."

Teacher Jessica Siegel and reporter Samuel Freedman. Freedman wrote an account of a year in Siegel's classroom.

Critic Maureen Corrigan reviews books by Wayne C. Booth and Robert Coles, writers who, while offering different solutions, both believe that the teaching of literature deserves a greater place in colleges and universities.