Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Proulx, Annie - Vicky Greenbaum (essay date December 1997)

1. Printable Version
2. Download PDF
3. Cite this Page
4. Tweet This

Vicky Greenbaum (essay date December 1997)

SOURCE: Greenbaum, Vicky. “Beyond the Bookroom: Modern Literature, Modern Literacy, and the Teaching of E. Annie Proulx's The Shipping News.” English Journal 86, no. 8 (December 1997): 17–20.

[In the following essay, Greenbaum discusses the role of teachers in establishing and perpetuating the literary canon and offers strategies for teaching The Shipping News, a novel that Greenbaum proposes as a notable contribution to recent fiction.]

My path as literary explorer reaches back to my first day on the job. On my first teaching assignment, twelve years ago, my friendly and sympathetic department chair spent a late August day touring me around the school site from my classroom to the cafeteria to the (then vital!) ditto machine. Our final stop, the bookroom, sat behind an unmarked door. This bookroom seemed bathroom-sized, with a similar musty-damp smell. Rickety shelves loomed,...

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass

1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Loree Rackstraw (review date September 1989)
   2. Frederick Busch (review date 12 January 1992)
   3. William Green (review date 18 July 1993)
   4. Sandra Scofield (review date 1 August 1993)
   5. John Whitworth (review date 4 December 1993)
   6. John DeMont (review date 25 April 1994)
   7. Verlyn Klinkenborg (review date 30 May 1994)
   8. Ronald Rompkey (review date September 1994)
   9. Jane Gardam (review date 25 March 1995)
   10. B. A. St. Andrews (review date spring 1995)
   11. Ellen Akins (review date 30 April 1995)
   12. Sybil Steinberg (essay date 3 June 1996)
   13. Bharati Mukherjee (review date 9 June 1996)
   14. Ellen Akins (review date 23 June 1996)
   15. Celia McGee (review date 24 June 1996)
   16. Phoebe-Lou Adams (review date July 1996)
   17. J. Z. Grover (review date September 1996)
   18. John Sutherland (review date 7 October 1996)
   19. Caroline Moore (review date 12 October 1996)
   20. Helen Carr (review date 18 October 1996)
   21. Mark Shechner (review date winter 1997)
   22. Vicky Greenbaum (essay date December 1997)
   23. Louise Flavin (essay date spring 1999)
   24. Merle Rubin (review date 3 June 1999)
   25. Dean Bakopoulos (review date September 1999)
   26. Rita D. Jacobs (review date spring 2000)
   27. Hilary Mantel (review date 11 May 2000)
   28. Erin McGraw (review date summer 2000)
   29. John Noell Moore (review date September 2000)
   30. Michael Kowalewski (review date winter 2001)
   31. Karen L. Rood (essay date 2001)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright