Poetry for students

The Legacy of Poet Emily Dickinson

| By Sarah Robertson | When American poet Emily Dickinson died in relative obscurity on May 15, 1886, her groundbreaking body of work stood unpublished and unrecognized. Today, Dickinson is regarded as a pivotal figure in American poetry, and her works are celebrated for their departure from literary conventions and their challenge of societal norms. … Read more

Why We Celebrate Poetry

| By Sarah Robertson | Every April, we observe National Poetry Month as a time to reflect on the cultural significance of poetry.  Established in 1996, it encourages the celebration of poetry in the classroom, the library, and online. National Poetry Month aims to recognize the achievements of poets, inspire students and the general public … Read more

“The Road Not Taken”: Interpreting Frost’s Autumnal Setting

| By Sarah Robertson | Published in 1916, Robert Frost’s most popular poem, “The Road Not Taken” (Poetry for Students Volume 2 and Poetry for Students Volume 61), is conventionally understood to be a meditation on the choices we make when confronted with a fork in the road. Despite its popularity, the work is perhaps … Read more

The “Best Of” Novels for Students

| By Michelle Lee, Sr Content Developer | The Novels for Students series has been providing readers with a guide to understanding, enjoying, and studying novels for over 20 years.  The series, which has covered over 850 novels across 60 volumes, is specifically designed to meet the curricular needs of high school and undergraduate college … Read more

Celebrate African American History Month with Gale’s For Students Series

| By Sarah Robertson | In 1960, a woman who had been a writer and scholar all her life died in relative obscurity in a welfare home. Her remains were buried in an unmarked grave, where they were forgotten for more than a decade. Today, that woman is considered a central figure in African American … Read more

For Students to the Rescue! Fear Not the Required Readings for High School

| By Nicole Albrecht |

The look in my students’ eyes, when I would pass out the first set of novels for the school year, would convey an array of emotions from fear, apathy, excitement, genuine interest, and, my favorite, rebellion. Introducing a novel to a high school English class can be a teacher’s worst nightmare, but I enjoyed every minute of it because it was a challenge to me. A challenge to change their mind about not only reading in general, but how they see the world after they are finished reading a particular work. I didn’t always feel this way about introducing a novel to my students, in fact, in the beginning of my teaching career, I would lose sleep for several days prior to introducing a novel. I felt this way because I knew how it felt for students to “fear the novel” and I remembered how I felt when my own high school teachers would introduce one.

I grew up with a love for reading—it was a chance to experience life from another perspective, to walk in someone else’s shoes, and upon finishing the story, become a new person with a new way to look at the world. It wasn’t until I was in high school that I started to loathe reading novels and I actually stopped reading altogether during this time.

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Pellissippi State Community College Librarian Shares Why Gale Resources are Successful

|  By Jennifer Mezick, Acquisitions and Collection Development Librarian Pellissippi State Community College |

At Pellissippi State Community College (PSCC), our users have access to many Gale resources through the Tennessee Electronic Library (TEL). Through our TEL setup we are able to track only statistics for PSCC users. From our statistics, we know that Gale resources are heavily used by PSCC patrons and there are a few reasons behind this success:

In Class Instruction
Our students primarily use the resources shown to them during class. PSCC librarians provided research instruction to 137 classes this past fall semester. PSCC librarians and teaching faculty find that students who receive in-class research instruction achieve higher grades on their research assignments. One of the lessons we present to students is the importance of finding background information before searching for journal articles. Opposing Viewpoints In Context is our go-to database for demonstrating background research. All the “In Context” databases contain Topic Pages for select topics, which provide histories and explain the different viewpoints of those topics or issues.

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Faculty Outreach
Because not all of our faculty can find the time in a 5 to 16 week semester to have us in their classes, educating our faculty about our resources is the next best way to reach our students. Our faculty learn about Gale databases at our New Faculty Academy, where we introduce library resources, and at Faculty In-Service, where we demonstrate new databases or changes and new features to current databases. Librarians at PSCC are faculty and serve as subject liaisons. With this designation comes the responsibility to serve on campus academic committees and attend academic department meetings (and sometimes share after-work beers). Relationships with faculty are formed through these committees. I find that these relationships make faculty more comfortable talking with librarians about research assignments and available resources, which provides us the opportunity to recommend the most appropriate resources for their upcoming assignments (or their own research).

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Equip Students for National Poetry Month

 

Posted on March 22, 2016

By Candy Jones-Guerin

April 2016 marks the 20th anniversary of National Poetry Month.  Started in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets, it has become the largest literary celebration in the world.  Each year schools, publishers, libraries, booksellers and poets take time in April to celebrate how poetry has shaped our world and cultures.

Let’s begin the celebration with some of these great Gale resources.

Encyclopedia of American Poetry, 2nd Edition
December 2016
Encyclopedia of American Poetry, Second Edition is an indispensable guide to American poetry with more than 1,100 entries, ranging in length from 500 to more than 3,500 words. Part of the Companion to Literature series, this updated and invaluable resource explores the various writers, works, themes, and movements of this intriguing literary genre.

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