Books for the Teenage Reader: Young-Adult Literature: A Good Mix

From Tripod to Cosmos: A New Metaphor for the Language Arts

“…Unlike the recentlyreleased standards document, a teacher could easily remember its three components-language, literature, and composition-and could arrange instruction so that all three components were included in the course. Predictably, the tripod model grew out of favor because it was perceived to be a rigid structure which isolated the English curriculum into distinct parts (Bushman and Bushman 1994;Grommon 1991;Simmons, Shafer, and West 1976). According to Stephen Tchudi (1989), "In practice, it was found that most teachers taught each leg of the tripod as if they were mutually exclusive components" (351).…”