CONTENTS

PUBLISHER’S FOREWORD ...... ii

AUTHOR’S FOREWORD ...... iii

BACKGROUND FOR TEACHING THE HUMANITIES TO GIFTED STUDENTS ...... 1 EXCERPTS FROM HUMANITIES EDUCATION FOR GIFTED CHILDREN (1984) ...... 2 EXCERPTS FROM TEACHING SHAKESPEARE TO GIFTED STUDENTS (1990) ...... 9

GREAT WRITERS AND THINKERS IN THE HUMANITIES ...... 13 LITERARY CRITIC AND GENERALIST EXTRAORDINAIRE: EDMUND WILSON...... 14 ARCHITECTURE AND THE GIFTED CHILD'S SENSIBILITY...... 15 A TRIBUTE TO BARBARA TUCHMAN, HISTORIAN: 1912-1989 ...... 16 SPINOZA AND JEFFERSON: A STUDY IN CULTURAL LITERACY ...... 17 REFLECTIONS UPON VISITING THOMAS WOLFE'S HOME...... 19 CARL SANDBURG: POET OF HUMANITY AND AMERICA...... 20 PORTRAIT OF JACK LONDON: ENVIRONMENTALIST, HUMANIST AND MASTER STORYTELLER ...... 21 AMOS OZ, AUTHOR: EXEMPLAR OF THE SENSIBILITY OF GIFTEDNESS ...... 23 JAMES MICHENER: EPIC NARRATOR OF ECOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE...... 24 MARTIN BUBER, PAUL McCARTNEY AND GIFTED EDUCATION ...... 25 THE STUDY OF GREAT AMERICAN NATURE WRITERS AND THE GIFTED ...... 27 WALLACE STEGNER, WRITER AND TEACHER...... 29 WALT WHITMAN (1819-1892) AND THE SPIRIT OF ICELAND ...... 31 MARBLE AND MUD: A COMPARISON OF TWO GREAT HORROR STORY WRITERS ..... 32 THE WORK OF AGATHA CHRISTIE: AN EXCITING EXCURSION INTO GIFTEDNESS AND MYSTERY WRITING...... 33 JOHN STEINBECK (1902-1968): A LITERARY PHOTOGRAPHER ...... 34 WILLA CATHER (1873-1947): THE "DOER" AND GIFTED WOMEN ...... 35 MARY SHELLEY (1797-1851): THE JOYS OF ENCOUNTERING A GREAT WOMAN NOVELIST...... 37 C. S. LEWIS (1898-1963): A STUDY IN GIFTED SENSIBILITY ...... 38 MARK TWAIN, DISNEY'S AMERICA AND THE GIFTED...... 40 TRIBUTE TO A GREAT AMERICAN HUMORIST, JAMES THURBER (1894-1961) ...... 41

IDEAS AND CONCEPTS IN THE HUMANITIES ...... 43 HUMAN GENIUS VERSUS DECONSTRUCTIONISM ...... 44 THE IMPORTANCE OF STUDYING SPANISH LITERATURE IN A DIFFERENTIATED CURRICULUM...... 44 DISCUSSION OF TWO MODERN PLAYS FOR THE GIFTED STUDENT'S SENSIBILITY: GALILEO AND SAINT JOAN...... 46 OL' MAN RIVER AND THE EDUCATION OF GIFTED STUDENTS...... 48 MULTICULTURALISM AND THE GIFTED STUDENT ...... 49

BOOK REVIEWS IN THE HUMANITIES AND RELATED TOPICS ...... 51 WHAT CURRENT BRAIN RESEARCH TELLS US ABOUT GIFTEDNESS ...... 52 THE JOY OF READING: 210 FAVORITE BOOKS, PLAYS, POEMS, ESSAYS, ETC. WHAT’S IN THEM, WHY READ THEM ...... 52 CULTURAL LITERACY: WHAT EVERY AMERICAN NEEDS TO KNOW ...... 53 THE CLOSING OF THE AMERICAN MIND ...... 55 THE LAST INTELLECTUALS ...... 56 OUT OF STEP: AN UNQUIET LIFE IN THE 20TH CENTURY...... 57 APOLLO 13: A SPACE MISSION IN GIFTEDNESS...... 59

i PAGE 61

INDEX

A Distant Mirror 17 Bellow, Saul 11, 45, 55 Chile 45 A Grief Observed 39 Bergland, Richard 52 Chinese Communist Party 47 A Vindication of the Rights of Bettelheim, Bruno 55, 57 Chinese Communists 17 Woman 37 Bierce, Ambrose 41 Chinese Nationalists 17 Abbey, Edward 27-28 Biographies 20 Chomsky, Noam 54 Adams, Henry 53 Black Africans 24 Christians 24 Adler, Mortimer 52-53, 57 Black inner-city 4 Christie, Agatha 33-34 Adorno, Theodore 56 Black inner-city child 5 Churchill, Winston 8 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Black male 3 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 37 48 Bloom, Allan 55-56 Colorado 24 Aeschylus 53 Bloom's Taxonomy 9 Columbia 45 African art 49 Blue Grass 48 Communitas 25 African folk art 49 Blues 48 Conant Report 2 African influences 45 Bohemians 56 Concern for humanity 25 African sculptures 49 Book of Psalms 7 Cornhuskers 20 African-American singer 48 Borges, Jorge Luis 45 Cosby, Bill 41 Afrikaners 24 Boswell, James 53 Country 48 Afro-American folk tale 41 Bradbury, Ray 30 Coward, Noel 41 Age of Enlightenment 18 Branagh, Kenneth 38 Crichton, Michael 37 Ahistoricism 55 Brancusi, Constantin 49 Cuba 45 Algonquin Hotel 41 Brecht, Bertolt 47 Cultural and ethnic concerns 45 Algonquin Round Table 41 Brontë, Charlotte 37 Cultural diversity 45 Aliteracy 55 Bronx, New York 10, 39 Cycladic art 49 Allen, Woody 55 Brooks, Van Wyck 14 Da Vinci, Leonardo 26 American history 14 Brown, Rita Mae 36 Dante 44, 52 American patriotism 58 Bruner, Jerome 2 Dario, Ruben 45 American cartoon tradition 41 Buber, Martin 4, 23, 25-26, 55, 56 Darwin, Charles 7-8 American civilization 48 Burke, Edmund 32 De Burgos, Julia 45 American Humanities scholars 16 Cambridge 38 De la Cruz, San Juana 45 American literature 34 Camden, New Jersey 31 De Vries, Peter 41 American music 48 Campbell, Joseph 16 Dead Sea Scrolls 14 American soul 60 Camus, Albert 53 Dead white European males 49 Amusing Ourselves To Death 54 Capitalism 23 Death Comes for the Archbishop Anderson, Hans Christian 7 Caribbean areas 45 36 Anna Karenina 22 Carl Sandburg 20 Death on the Nile 34 Aphorisms 27 Carnegie Hall Children’s Declaration of Independence 17 Apollo 13 59 Concerts 49 Deconstructionism 44 Apollo 13 60 Carnegie, Andrew 35 Democritus 57 Appointment with Death 34 Carroll, Lewis 53 DeNiro, Robert 38 Arabs 24 Carson, Rachel 57 Desert Solitaire 28 Architecture 15 Cather, Willa 11, 35, 36 Dewey, John 54, 57 Argentina 45 Centennial 24 Diaspora Jew 23 Aristotle 53 Central America 45 Dickens, Charles 11, 34, 45 Asheville, North Carolina 19 Cervantes 45, 53 Dickinson, Emily 53, 59 Asian art 49 Characteristics of the gifted 6 Differential education 10, 52 Aswan Dam 34 Charles Van Doren 52 Differentiated humanities Atlas, James 44 Chicago 50 curriculum 16 Austen, Jane 11 Chicago Daily News 20 Differentiated curriculum 58 Bacon, Francis 4 Chicago Poems 20 Dillard, Annie 11, 28 Balanchine, George 50 Chicago Public Schools 10 Dinesen, Isak 53 Bankhead, Tallulah 41 Chicago race riots 20 Disney, Walt 41 Barzun, Jacques 8 Children's sensibility 5-6 Disney's America 40 PAGE 62

Don Quixote 45 Gifted Shakespeare curriculum 10 Israelis 24 Dos Passos, John 17 Ginsburg, Alan 31 Ivanhoe 37 Douglass, Frederick 54 Goethe, Johann 26, 52, 54 Jacoby, Russell 56-57 Drama 46 Golden, Harry 20 James, Henry 53 Dumb-brights 2 Goodman, Paul 8 Jane Eyre 37 Durant, Will 6-7 Gould, Stephen Jay 57 Jazz 48 Dutch and English settlers 24 Gracian, Baltasar 57 Jefferson, Thomas 15, 17, 53 Educators of the gifted 21 Greek philosophers 57 Jerusalem 23 Egyptian period 34 Greerrwich Village 56 Jewish culture 23 Einstein, Albert 7-8, 52 Guilford, J.P. 2 Joan of Arc 47 Eliot, T.S. 41 Halldor Laxness 31 John Barleycorn 22 Elitism 11 Hamilton, Edith 4 Johnson, Samuel 9 Elizabethan society 11 Hammerstein, Oscar 48 Jordan 34 Emerson, Ralph Waldo 14, 28, 56, Harvard University 25 Joy of reading 53 57 Hawaii 25 Joyce, James 26 English language 34 Hawthorne, Nathaniel 32 Julius Caesar 54 Erasmus 16 Hazlitt, William 10 Jurassic Park 37 Euclid 53 Hebrew language 23 Kant, Immanuel 7 Euripides 53 Hellenic period 7 Katherine Anne Porter 48 Excellence in education 2 Hellman, Lillian 17 Kaufman, George S. 41 Experiment in Criticism 38 Hemingway, Ernest 17, 40, 45, 49, Keats, John 49 Fadiman, Clifton 52-53 50, 54 Keillor, Garrison 41 Falstaff 34 Hendersonville, North Carolina 20 Kelly, Walt 56 Faraday, Michael 37 Henry V 10 Kennedy, John F. 57, 60 Faulkner, William 40, 48, 54 Highet, Gilbert 8 Khmer sculptures 49 Faust 54 Hirsch, E.D. 53-54 Kibbutz 23 Ferber, Edna 41, 48 Historicism 55 King, Stephen 32 Fielding, Henry 45 History 20, 58 Klondike 22 Fisher Assessment of Giftedness 33 Hitler, Adolf 41 Krutch, Joseph Wood 28 Fisher, Maurice 12, 31 Hoffer, Eric 58 Lardner, Ring 41 Flaubert, Gustave 22 Holmes, Jr., Oliver Wendell 14, 16 Laxness, Halldor 31 Foreign Language Studies 7 Hook, Sidney 8, 44, 57, 58 Leaves of Grass 31 Frames of Mind 2 Hoover Institution 58 Levant, Oscar 41 Frank Lloyd Wright 15 Houston Spacecraft Center 59 Levi-Strauss, Claude 7 Frankenstein 37, 37-PAGE 38 Howells, William Dean 40 Lewis, C.S. 38-39 Franklin, Benjamin 37 Huck, Charlotte 35 Lewis, Joy Davidman 39 French Impressionistic painters 34 Huckleberry Finn 40 Life on the Mississippi 48-49 French literature 35 Hughes, Langston 17, 41 Lincoln, Abraham 20, 54 Freud, Sigmund 7, 39, 52, 53, 56 Human genius 44 Lincoln, Nebraska 35 Froebel, Frederick 15 Humanities 45 Literary photographer 34 Fromm, Erich 56-57 Humanities curriculum 16, 54 Liverpool 26-27 Frost, Robert 53 Hunchback of Notre-Dame 15, 16 LoGiudice, James 54 Frye, Norththrop 54 I-Thou 4-5, 9, 26 London, Jack 21-22 Fuentes, Carlos 45 Iberian peninsula 45 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth 28 Fuller, Thomas 17 Iceland 31 Look Homeward, Angel 20 Galileo 46, 47 Icelandic language 31 Lorca, Ferdinand Garcia 45 Galvani, Luigi 37 Illinois 20 Lord Byron 45 Gardner, Howard 2, 28, 57 Independent thinkers 56 Lost Moon 60 Geneva, Switzerland 37 Intellectual and moral gadfly 57 McCartney, Paul 26-27 Genius 9 Intellectual disarmament 58 Madame Bovary 22 German Connection 55 Intellectual generalists 14 Malraux, Andre 17 Gifted Education Press Newsletter Intellectual thought 56 Manassas, Virginia 40 57 Irving, Washington 22 Marble and mud 32 Gifted child's sensibility 15 Israel 23 Marple, Jane 34 Gifted sensibility 39 Israeli Culture 23 Marquez, Gabriel Garcia 45 PAGE 63

Marti, Jose 45 Oakland, California Public Library Republic of letters 14 Marxism 14 22 Reykjavik 31 Marxist scholars 57 Ode on a Grecian Urn 49 Rhodes Scholar Program 4 Maslow, Abraham 10 Ol' Man River 48 Robeson, Paul 48 Maslow's Self-Actualization Old Man 48 Rocky Mountains 24 Theory 10 Old Norse 31 Rodin, August 49 Matisse, Henri 50 Old Testament 7 Rogers, Will 41 Mead, George Herbert 7, 54 Olivier, Laurence 12 Roosevelt, Fraanklin 21 Melville, Herman 28, 48 On Shakespeare and Milton 10 Roosevelt, Theodore 22 Mencken, H.L. 14, 41, 57 On teaching and the ideas of great Russia 50 Mestizo civilization 45 thinkers 9 Sabra 23 Michelangelo 26 One of Ours 35 Sacks, Oliver 57 Michener, James 24-25, 60 Orient Express 34 Sagan, Carl 57 Mickey Mouse 41 Orwell, George 7, 17, 58 Saint Joan 47 Middle East 23, 24 Owen, Wilfred 2 Saint Teresa 45 Millay, Edna St. Vincent 53 Oxford 38 Salem's Lot 32-33 Mills, C. Wright 56 Oz, Amos 23 Sandburg, Carl 20-21, 31, 54 Milton, John 18, 38, 39 Paradise Lost 38 Santo Domingo 45 Minority of one 57 Paris 50 Sayonara 24 Miss Marple 34 Parisian art 49 Scott, Walter 37 Mississippi River 48 Parker, Dorothy 41 Self-Actualization Theory 10 Mistral, Gabriela 45 Pasternak, Boris 14 Sensibility 9, 11, 12 Modernity 23 Percy, Walker 26 Sensibility of gifted students 10 Montaigne 14, 38 Philadelphia 31 Sensibility of giftedness 23, 38 Montessori, Maria 11 Photography 34 Sensibility of the gifted reader 38 Morganthau, Jr., Henry 17, 17 Piaget, Jean 11-12, 54 Shadowlands 38 Mourning and Melancholia 39 Picaresque novel 45 Shakespeare 4, 11, 34, 45, 54 Multiculturalism 49 Picaro 45, 45 Shakespeare and the sensibility of Mumford, Lewis 56-57 Picasso 35, 50 gifted students 11 Murder on the Orient Express 34 Pilgrim at Tinker Creek 28 Shakespeare's giftedness 9 Museum of Modern Art 49 Pittsburgh 35-36 Shaw, George Bernard 47 My Mark Twain 40 Plato 26 Shelley, Mary 37-38 Mystery! Theatre 34 Plato's Academy 53 Shelley, Percy Bysshe 37 Nabokov, Vladimir 35 Plessy versus Ferguson 40 Ship of Fools 48 Naiman, Yossel 10 Poe, Edgar Allan 26, 54 Show Boat 48 Nature 27-28 Poems 21, 52, 59 Simon, Neil 41 Nazi persecution 55 Poet(s) 2, 9, 14, 20, 27, 29, 31, 37-39, Sinclair, Upton 35 Nebraska 35 41, 45, 53 Smithsonian Institution 4 Neo-Freudian 56 Poetry 6-7, 20, 21, 26-27, 29, 31-32, Smollett, Tobias 45 Neruda, Pablo 45 44-45, 53 Social-studies field 24 New England 28 Pogo 56 Socialism 23 New York City 49, 56, 58 Poirot, Hercule 34 Socrates 57 New York City Public Schools 7, Poland 24 Socratic temperament 56 44 Postman, Neil 54 Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr 7, 41, 58 New York University 58 Practicing History 17 Sophie's Choice 40 Nicaragua 45 Pre-Socratic sculpture 49 South America 45 Nijinsky, Vaslav 50 Profiles in Courage 57 South Pacific 48 Nile Delta 34 Public intellectuals 57 Southern Spain 45 Nile River 34 Pudd'nhead Wilson: A Tale 40 Soviet Union 23 Nobel Prize for Literature 50 Puerto Rico 45 Spain 45 Nobel Prize winners 54 Pythagoras 26 Spanish Literature 45 North Africa 45 Ragtime 48 Spanish conquistadors 45 North Carolina 21 Rappaccini's Daughter 33 Spanish literature 44 O Pioneers! 35 Red Cloud High School 35 Spanish speaking world 45 Oak Park, Illinois 50 Renaissance artists 26 Spender, Stephen 17 PAGE 64

Spenser, Edmund 39 The Prince and the Pauper 40 United States Postal Service 41 Spinoza, Baruch 14, 17-18 The Raven 54 University of Nebraska 35 Sputnik 2 The Red Pony 34 University of Northern Colorado Stalin, Joseph 41 The Rime of the Ancient Mariner 24 Stanford University 29, 58 37 Updike, John 11 Stegner, Wallace 29-30 The Rite of Spring 50 Utopian future 58 Steichen, Edward 20 The Screwtape Letters 39 Van Doren, Charles 53 Steinbeck, John 34 The Sea-Wolf 22 Vietnam War 58 Stilwell and the American The Source 24 Virginia 4, 40 Experience in China 17 The Spectator Bird 29 Voltaire 14 Stravinsky, Igor 49-50 The Story of Philosophy 6 Walden 27, 29 Styron, William 40 The Tell Tale Heart 54 Ward, Virgil 56 Switzerland 50 The Troll Garden and Selected Washington, George 54 Teacher selection and training 5 Stories 36 Western civilization 44 Teaching Shakespeare to gifted The University 56 Western civilization 45, 56 students 9 The Wild Palms 48 Western culture 45 The Guns of August 17 The Zimmerman Telegram 17 White Fang 21-22 The Last Intellectuals 57 Theodore Roosevelt 23 White, E.B. 41, 53 The March of Folly 17 Third World countries 44 Whitman, Walt 31, 53 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 48 Thomas, Lewis 57 Wilson, Edmund 14, 41, 56-57 The Andromeda Strain 37 Thoreau, Henry David 5, 27-29, 57 Wilson, Woodrow 57 The Bear 54 Thurber, James 41 Winchester, Virginia 35 The Call of the Wild 22 Tienanmen Square 47 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 54 The Chronicles of Narnia 39 To Build a Fire 22 Wolfe, Thomas 19-20 The Confessions of Nat Turner 40 To Know a Woman 23 Wollstonecraft, Mary 37 The Confidence-Man 48 Tolstoy, Leo 22 World War II 17, 41 The Covenant 24 Tom Jones 45 Yevtushenko, Yevgeny 31 The Desert Year 28 Totalitarian fanatics 58 Yiddish 10 The Diary of Anne Frank 54 Tuchman, Barbara 16-17 Yukon 22 The Emperor's New Clothes 7 Twain, Mark 11, 40-41, 45, 49, 53 Yuppie generation 57 The Expedition of Humphrey U.S. News & World Report 25, 55 Zelig 55 Clinker 45 Zionist Halutzim (pioneers) 23 The Fabric of Mind 52 The Firebird 50 The Gates of Hell 49 The Great Books 53 The Great Quillow 41 The House of the Seven Gables 32 The Jungle 35 The Kiss 49 The Legends of the Alhambra 22 The Male Animal 41 The March of Folly 16 The Mousetrap 34 The Nation 17 The New Yorker 41 The Old Man and the Sea 49-50, 54 The People of the Abyss 22 The People, Yes 20 The Philosophy of Martin Buber 26 The Praise of Folly 16