Introduction
As a teacher for many years in the field of language and literature, I have often been concerned with the heavy emphasis on the presentation and study of literature as a means to an academic end. Of course, there is nothing wrong with this emphasis, but I would argue that an emphasis on character development based on the presentation and study of literature is just as rewarding— if not more so— to the individual and to society as a whole. This concern that I have continues to grow because of the incongruities I face daily in trying to teach in particular curricularized ways. Given that most of my formal training has been in the developing and refining of skills which unearth the formal elements of a literary work - style, literary and linguistic elements and structures— I must admit that within the past ten years I have felt a strong pinch, a deep itch, a relentless desire; or maybe it is more fitting to identify this life movement as a "becoming." By this I mean a moving into alignment; a coming to oneness of my experiential, spiritual, and intellectual capacities. It is the growing awareness of this oneness that moves me to explore, to create and finally put into practice theories and concepts that have been traversing my mind for years.
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