Get connected.             An on-line forum for educators and students. Academic      Exchange June 2000             Who we are... News from the Profession Symbolic Meaning of Safety Measures Do high schools manufacture students or prisoners? The Columbine High School shootings in Littleton, Colorado pressed into the minds of Americans that the presence of violence in our high schools is real, and if not dealt with effectively, will continue to plague the secondary school system... full text Editor's Note                 Faculty Syllabus EDHP 503 & WR 140 Reality Check Student Voice Maureen's Books Creative Writing &                Short Fiction Literary Criticism Critical Approaches to Literature: Not for Undergraduates After discovering that I had just completed Critical Approaches to Literature (an English course at the University of Northern Colorado designed to expose students to the underlying theories of various types of critical analysis), someone in the English Department asked me what I thought of the course... full text As I see it Cultivating Academic Skills through Applied Ethics In the introduction to the special issue of _Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines_ on critical thinking and composition, guest editor Bill Klein notes that "composition and critical thinking appear all too ignorant of what they can offer each other at both theoretical and practical levels"... As someone with a double degree in literature and philosophy, this antagonism is puzzling to me; as an instructor of both Composition and Philosophy, it is incomprehensible... full text You are invited to join AE Extra staff!    Send your ideas and/or writing sample to Editor-in-chief:  Athena Perrakis Instructional Coordinator & Assistant Lecturer The Writing Program, University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA 90089