bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Engaging Intellectual Work: The Faculty’s Role in Assessment
Authors: Slevin James F.
Published: March 2024

Explores the place of faculty and faculty values in the process of assessing the work of higher education. Searches to find better ways to put the intellectual work of faculty and students at the center of the educational concerns and at the center of assessment models. Suggests that faculty should devote themselves to teaching the first-year course.
D. H. Lawrence and the Dialogical Principle: “The Strange Reality of Otherness”
Authors: Sargent M. Elizabeth , Watson Garry
Published: March 2024

Focuses on D. H. Lawrence and his being taken seriously as an original thinker. Notes that Lawrence is thought of primarily as a novelist. Suggests that readers should acknowledge Lawrence as an original thinker in an evolving history of the dialogical principle and in a continuing attempt to understand the dialogical and its political and ethical importance.
“More than Lessons in How to Read”: Burke, Freud, and the Resources of Symbolic Transformation
Authors: Quandahl Ellen
Published: March 2024

Argues that Kenneth Burke used “The Interpretation of Dreams,” as well as other works by Sigmund Freud, as a lesson on reading, taking over the central tropes of dreamwork and making them broadly dialectical rather than strictly psychoanalytic terms. Suggests that Freud’s “tropology” of dreaming is crucial for reading Burke.
OPINION: Ivory Arches and Golden Towers: Why We’re All Consumer Researchers Now
Authors: Wehner Pat
Published: March 2024

Considers how enterprising marketers quickly realized they had little to lose by supporting a goal of equal “representation.” Suggests that if the goal is to have a genuine impact in playing the popular culture game, now might be a prudent moment to take an interest in the kinds of research emerging from business schools.
Argument and Evidence in the Case of the Personal
Authors: Spigelman Candace
Published: March 2024

Opponents of expressivist writing pedagogy claim that encouraging the personal narrative in first-year rhetoric classis is a great disservice to students. Supporters of personal writing responded by making personal writing activities supplemental to traditional academic writings. Spigelman posits that personal narratives can actually serve the same purpose as academic writing and can accomplish serious scholarly work.
The Platteville Papers: Inscribing Frontier Ideology and Culture in a Nineteenth-Century Writing Assignment
Authors: Fitzgerald Kathryn
Published: March 2024

Examines the far-reaching cultural implications of a kind of writing not usually deemed culturally significant--school assignments. Studies 44 papers written in 1898 by senior class members of the Platteville Normal School in southwestern Wisconsin assigned to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Wisconsin’s statehood. Examines the cultural work accomplished by these student writers in their own time and place.
Standard English and Student Bodies: Institutionalizing Race and Literacy in Hawai‘i
Authors: Young Morris
Published: March 2024

Discusses the first comprehensive examination of the system of public education in Hawai‘i, conducted in 1920. Notes the great importance of the study since it not only evaluated Hawaii‘s educational system but also provided the territorial government some gauge of Hawaii‘s status as a United States territory and its success in meeting the ideals of America.
A Relative Pain: The Rape of History in Octavia Butler’s “Kindred” and Phyllis Alesia Perry’s “Stigmata.”
Authors: Long Lisa A.
Published: March 2024

Discusses two recent novels that employ techniques more familiar to science fiction than to historical fiction to probe questions of history and authenticity. Considers how these novels expose the way that those who attempt to bear witness to the history of slavery are ostracized, pathologized, and even institutionalized.
Drafting U.S. Literacy
Authors: Brandt Deborah
Published: March 2024

The author explores how World War II changed the rationale for mass literacy in the United States from a nineteenth-century moral imperative into a twentieth-century production imperative. She suggests that we are in a similar period of reevaluation today, and that, if the capacity to fuse older and newer ideologies is at its limit, the school may find itself running behind or even against the dominant cultural imperatives for literacy in a new world order.
OPINION: Mycopedagogy
Authors: Dworkin Craig
Published: March 2024

Taking the reader on a stroll through the woods to look for the elusive and unclassifiable mushroom, this essay suggests that avant-gardes can present a challenge to our familiar modes of communication in the classroom. The author argues that a truly radical pedagogic practice, corresponding to the theoretical critiques offered by recent trends in the study of rhetoric and teaching, might forestall the real danger represented by teaching the avant-garde, namely that it be domesticated and its radical potential neutralized.
Words Made Flesh: Fusing Imagery and Language in a Polymorphic Literacy
Authors: Fleckenstein Kristie S.
Published: March 2024

The author argues that constructions of literacy that suppress or omit nonverbal elements such as the visual and the tactile are limiting students’ potential. She traces the way the historical relationship between image and word has consistently privileged language, and offers instances from her experience with students and with her own children to argue for a more reciprocal dynamic and a polymorphic literacy that can increase the scope and power of our literacy and our literacy teaching.
REVIEW: Revealing Secrets: Experiments in Academic Genres
Authors: Eldred Janet Carey
Published: March 2024

Reviewed are: A Communion of Friendship: Literacy, Spiritual Practice, and Women in Recovery, by Beth Daniell; Naked in the Promised Land: A Memoir, by Lillian Faderman; and Gut Feelings: A Writer’s Truths and Minute Inventions, by Merrill Joan Gerber.
Sexual Outlaws and Class Struggle: Rethinking History and Class Consciousness from a Queer Perspective
Authors: Libretti Tim
Published: March 2024

The essay argues that the homophobia that persists in some leftist thinking results in an impoverished and undialectical understanding of class and class consciousness. Through attention to works by John Rechy and James Baldwin, the author illustrate that categories of oppression such as class, gender, sexual orientation, and race cannot be used as analogies of one another but rather are mutually imbricated and mutually constitutive.
Review: Postcritical Perspectives on Literacy Technologies
Authors: Selber Stuart A.
Published: March 2024

Reviewed are Teaching Writing with Computers: An Introduction, edited by Pamela Takayoshi and Brian A. Huot, and Silicon Literacies: Communication, Innovation and Education in the Electronic Age, edited by Ilana Snyder.
The Joyous Circle: The Vernacular Presence in Frederick Douglass’s Narratives
Authors: Babb Valerie
Published: March 2024

Tracing the revisions Frederick Douglass made as his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845) metamorphosed into My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) and ultimately into the Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881, 1892), the author suggests that, while much attention has focused on Douglass’s seizing a “forbidden literacy” in transforming himself from object to subject, the crucial, and ever-increasing, role of African American vernacular traditions in his writing should be recognized.
Blind Skepticism versus a Rhetoric of Assent
Authors: Booth Wayne C.
Published: March 2024

Booth and Elbow engage in a dialogue about what has become even more important in recent years, namely how we come to believe what we believe and convince others to believe with us. Booth speculates that one needs to commit oneself to combating both dogmatism and skepticism by embracing the rhetoric of assent, and offers rules to help us “learn how to listen”; Elbow agrees with Booth on a number of points but argues for the special value of dissent, perhaps even “unreasonable” dissent, before going on to offer specific classroom practices that can advance their common goal of critical thinking.
Materializing the Sublime Reader: Cultural Studies, Reader Response, and Community Service in the Creative Writing Workshop
Authors: Green Chris
Published: March 2024

Seeks to add another vocabulary to the pedagogy of the creative writing workshop: the language of use and action, of practice and implementation. Investigates how to reform the discursive walls between creativity and theory and ends by suggesting how educators might bring classrooms and communities together.
Re-Writing the Subject: Psychoanalytic Approaches to Creative Writing and Composition Pedagogy
Authors: Harris Judith
Published: March 2024

Suggests that the teaching of both composition and creative writing would benefit from focusing less exclusively on the writing process and products and more on the writing subject. Claims that focusing on the writing subject through the lens of psychoanalysis provides several potential benefits. Concludes psychoanalysis can be a filtrate for the creative writing or composition teacher.
Surprising Ourselves: Toward Truly Democratic Literacies and Methodologies
Authors: Roop Laura J.
Published: March 2024

Considers new roles for English educators working toward advocacy, toward truly new knowledge, toward collaborative readings of culture and context, and away from hierarchies. Notes that educators must recognize that it will take everyone to create the educational systems that lead to truly democratic literacies.
Beginning Words: The Ethics of Our Charge as English Educators
Authors: Fleischer Cathy , Fox Dana L.
Published: March 2024

Accountability is the common bond between the university and K-12 levels, causing us to lose sight of the goal of helping students to become passionate about the spoken and written word and to help them become capable, critical thinking individuals. The authors in this issue reflect on the ethics of working with students and remind us of the necessity of crating a teaching space in which students, not curriculum or testing - are at the center.
Is It Too Late to Get a Program Change?: The Role of Oppositionality in Secondary English Education
Authors: Philion Thomas
Published: March 2024

Perhaps the most compelling pedagogical problem for both beginning and experienced teachers alike is the issue of how to respond to adolescent language and behavior that falls outside expected boundaries. In this essay, Philion suggests that oppositional adolescent language and behavior is result of adolescent attempts to challenge power systems in the classroom and to make the systems more livable, and notes that critical reading of this oppositional narrative can shift perspectives and have the potential to produce positive, substantial changes within the power system. While there are several strategies for working with oppositional discourse, narrative storytelling, he advocates, enhances not only an awareness of the roots of oppositionality, but also one’s own role in the creation of disadvantageous educational conditions. Samples from one of his student’s journals illustrate the reflective and transformative power of storytelling.
How Classics Create an Aliterate Society
Authors: Gallo Donald R.
Published: March 2024

Argues that “love of reading” should be listed as the top goal of the English curriculum, but that teaching the classics has the opposite effect. Argues that reading and analytical skills can be taught using contemporary teenage fiction that holds students’ interest, helps them feel understood, and teaches them about life. Lists numerous books written for teenage readers.
Some Teens Prefer the Real Thing: The Case for Young Adult Nonfiction
Authors: Sullivan Ed
Published: March 2024

Argues that English teachers should remember that nonfiction is the preferred reading choice of many of their students, and can be a “good read” and have superb aesthetic qualities. Offers guidelines to help educators design strategies to elicit student responses about nonfiction in the classroom. Describes 25 recently published outstanding nonfiction titles for young adults.
What about Our Girls? Considering Gender Roles with Shabanu
Authors: Ruggieri Colleen A.
Published: March 2024

Argues that the young adult novel “Shabanu” by Suzanne Fisher Staples is a book that can capture students’ interest, allow them to experience a strong female protagonist, address social issues around the roles of women, and provide teachers with a rich resource for discussing and cultivating positive views toward women.
Bringing Us the Way to Know: The Novels of Gary Paulsen
Authors: Wood Susan Nelson
Published: March 2024

Describes how Gary Paulsen’s novels for young adults transformed the author’s teaching, and caused her eighth-grade reluctant readers to read as if inspired. Relates how Paulsen’s stories about his adventures and misadventures in education and in life stirred students to become active participants in the reading process. Offers a select bibliography of some of his most recent books.
What’s the Big Idea? Integrating Young Adult Literature in the Middle School
Authors: George Marshall A.
Published: March 2024

Relates stories of three middle and high school teachers to describe how teachers can effectively integrate young adult literature into the curriculum. Notes a variety of strategies, including the particularly effective use of multiple genre thematic units, where a variety of texts are linked by some common theme, allowing students to use literature as a means of exploring “big ideas.”
YA Authors’ Insights about the Art of Writing
Authors: Carroll Pamela Sissi
Published: March 2024

Collects and presents comments made by authors of young adult literature about their writing and about literature. Discusses how writing for young adults and teaching young adults might be related; why write books for adolescent readers; what their goals are as writers of young adult literature; and how they move from a blank page to a finished book.
Standard English and the Migrant Community
Authors: Shafer Gregory
Published: March 2024

Describes how the author, teaching at a South Florida high school with many children of Mexican-American migrant workers, shaped his English instruction in scenarios that reflected students’ lives and cultures. Shows how class discussions and assignments probed the worthiness of the language used and the reason why it was successful. Argues that the key is not inculcation but participation.
Young Adult Literature: Let It Be Hope by Kristen Downey Randle
Authors: Crowe Chris
Published: March 2024

Argues against using literature with high school students that is relentlessly dark, depressing, and self absorbed, which English instructors often find Deeply Significant, and which many students find repulsive. Argues that what many young readers want now is a literature of hope. Recommends 20 such books. Offers brief descriptions of 10 new or overlooked young adult books.
Bridging the Gap: Connecting School and Community with Service Learning
Authors: Edwards Sarah K.
Published: March 2024

Describes how the author’s eighth-grade language arts inquiry-based instruction blossomed into student-based community learning, with students defining and seeking their own relevant goals, bringing the community to school with an art exhibit of tolerance, volunteering at a nearby elementary school, creating community gardens to fulfill a neighborhood need, and creating a new desert habitat community park bringing school and neighborhood together.
Teaching Thinking and Writing for a New Century
Authors: Johannessen Larry R.
Published: March 2024

How can we design writing instruction to help students develop the traits needed to function in a competitive high-performance work environment? Students will need to develop critical, independent thinking skills, the ability to work with others, and the capacity to understand multiple perspectives. Johannessen recommends instructional methods to meet these goals—including collaborative workgroups and inquiry—and includes examples that illustrate each principle.
Hope and Irony: Annie on My Mind
Authors: Broz William J.
Published: March 2024

A personal account of the authors realization of the importance of being aware of gay and lesbian adolescent literature, Broz shares his experiences while attending a committee meeting challenging the book, Am I Blue, which contains a lesbian scene in a story. This encounter prompted him to read, Annie on My Mind. But it was an experience with one of his students which reinforced his growing sensitivity towards the needs of gay and lesbian teens.
In the Wake of Harry Raines
Authors: Gerlach Jeanne Marcum , Greenlee Ted , Johnson Tracey J.
Published: March 2024

This article could also be called “Death of a Traditionalist: A Play in One Act.” Teachers at various stages in their career reflect on their friend and colleague. Although not a perfect teacher, he influenced their careers by compelling each of them to think about their own roles in the profession.
Recomposing the AP English Exam
Authors: Jones Joseph
Published: March 2024

The Advanced Placement Program (APP) presents a number of compelling assessment issues. Providing a history and critique of the program,Jones notes that the implications of the practices in the APP reveal much about English education and assessment in the last half-century.Reconfiguring the APP English exam to include portfolios, he continues, has the potential to improve writing instruction in all high school English classrooms.
Diplomas Dubiously Denied: A Taxonomy and Commentary
Authors: Zorn Jeff
Published: March 2024

Zorn organizes a confusing array of arguments and negotiates between two camps: those who favor standards reform and high stakes tests and those who argue against them. Concludes that neither holds the key to school reform and present a third camp - one that favors intellectual growth above all else.
Speaking My Mind: Hidden Dangers of the AP English Exams
Authors: Markham Jeffery C.
Published: March 2024

The number of students taking the College Board’s AP exams has nearly doubled in the last ten years, and many English departments now seem to equate the success of their curriculum with the number of students taking the AP. While these tests receive seemingly universal support, Markham says, there are a few reasons to be wary. By identifying some of the reasons here, Markham questions the validity of these tests.
Insights for Interns
Authors: Bruner Jennifer , O'Donnell-Allen Cindy
Published: March 2024

Bruner, a beginning teacher, questions how to teach mandated curriculum without losing her own beliefs and sense of integrity. O-Donnell-Allen replies with some helpful advice.
“Challenge Us; I Think We’re Ready”: Establishing a Multicultural Course of Study
Authors: Robinson Nancy W.
Published: March 2024

When changing standards forced the faculty of a predominantly white, white-collar secondary school in suburban Philadelphia to address multicultural education to include more minority writers, the teachers were up to the task. Here, Robinson outlines the multicultural literature program, which includes an author lecture series. She describes the progress thus far and the plans for the future, noting that taking a global perspective of literature provides students with a complete picture of the real world.
Grammar without Grammar: Just Playing Around, Writing
Authors: Dean Deborah
Published: March 2024

Bored and discouraged by workbook style grammar instruction, Dean took example from the past and implemented sentence imitation in her classroom. In this article, she explains how she uses passages from literature for grammatical patterns and allows her students to apply their creativity in writing sentences imitating the same form. The method has many benefits, says Dean. Students get to practice grammatical structure without being weighed down by grammatical terminology, and they gain an understanding of how to look at what they read as a model for what they want to say.
An Attitude Adjustment: How I Reached My Reluctant Readers
Authors: Gutchewsky Kimberly
Published: March 2024

Gutchewsky tells how she incorporated researched approaches to reading in her classroom
For Fun: Same Name Fame Game
Authors: Sniderman Stephen
Published: March 2024

Answers can be found in this issue at the end of “English in the News.”
Young Adult Literature: 2000 Honor List: A Hopeful Bunch
Authors: Crowe Chris
Published: March 2024

This month’s column features the 2001 honor list of new YA books.
The Use of Slave Narratives in a High School English Class
Authors: Jolley Susan Arpajian
Published: March 2024

Like most English teachers, Susan Jolley has “spent [her] career teaching fiction and poetry. However, realizing that most people read more nonfiction than fiction in their academic careers and personal lives,” she has “made the effort in recent years to incorporate nonfiction works into every curriculum” she teaches. Jolley feels that “nonfiction connections [like slave narratives] can bring an immediacy and relevance to the study of any novel.”
The Bible: Still a Classic Worldwide Bestseller
Authors: Carter Maridella
Published: March 2024

Suggests educators should help students read religious texts such as the Bible, the Torah, and the Koran and that they should teach ways to reflect critically on these texts. Discusses ways to teach the Bible.
Using Literature to Teach Global Education: A Humanist Approach
Authors: Bender-Slack Delane
Published: March 2024

Believes that students must be able to make a basic connection to the collective humanity. Notes that teenagers especially care about injustice and through exploring the global picture of human rights violations, they become aware and have desire to act on that awareness. Uses the humanistic approach to make 16th- to 20th-century British literature more accessible to students.
Making Assessment Matter: Using the Computer to Create Interactive Feedback
Authors: Krucli Thomas E.
Published: March 2024

Using tools available in common word-processing programs and widely available technology, high school teacher Thomas E. Krucli has created a more effective method of responding to students’ papers. Student response has been positive, and assessment has become a powerful tool for instruction and student self-reflection
Making Meaning in a Dialogical Discourse Diary
Authors: Shosh Joseph M.
Published: March 2024

Dissatisfied with his method of teaching composition to high school seniors, Joseph M. Shosh sought ways to move from teaching as transmission to teaching as transaction. Asking students to use a dialogic discourse diary resulted in improved thinking and writing. He offers the assignments he gave and documents students’ reactions and growth.
Reading the Writer’s Craft: The Hemingway Short Stories
Authors: Garrigues Lisa
Published: March 2024

The power of apprenticeship was realized by high school juniors who spent five weeks studying the style and craft of Ernest Hemingway. Lisa Garrigues provides details of several assignments that helped students analyze Hemingway’s work and learn from this “master craftsman.”
New Voices: Teaching IS Revision
Authors: Hunt Tiffany J. , Hunt Bud
Published: March 2024

“New Voices” raises questions, offers insights, and provides a forum for novice teachers to engage in the professional conversation surrounding the teaching of English.
Professional Links: Writing Matters
Authors: Zitlow Connie S.
Published: March 2024

“Professional Links” reviews professional books and materials, linking them to complementary software and appropriate Web sites.
Bold Books for Innovative Teaching: The Boldest Books
Authors: Gallo Don
Published: March 2024

“Bold Books for Innovative Teaching” provides dynamic, informative viewpoints on important issues in publishing and teaching contemporary literature, especially literature for adolescents. Reviews of young adult literature will also appear in this column.
Of Questioning Assumptions, Crap Detecting, and Splinters of Ice in the Heart
Authors: Karl Herb
Published: March 2024

Herb Karl, a longtime colleague of Charles Weingartner, traces the lasting influence of the collaboration between Weingartner and Neil Postman.
Walking into the Unknown: Inquiry-Based Learning Transforms the English Classroom
Authors: Brown Heather
Published: March 2024

When high school teacher Heather Brown created “space to learn with the students,” she found her classroom transformed. In advocating for inquiry-based learning, she details a research project that fully engaged her Native American students.
“Sturdy Black Bridges”: Discussing Race, Class, and Gender
Authors: Hinton KaaVonia
Published: March 2024

Employing black feminist theory to analyze works of adolescent literature allows teachers to initiate discussions of race, class, and gender. Using this theory also offers “a culturally specific lens” for “reading and teaching literature about parallel cultures, especially African American,” according to teacher educator KaaVonia Hinton.
Literature for Today’s Gay and Lesbian Teens: Subverting the Culture of Silence
Authors: Norton Terry L. , Vare Jonatha W.
Published: March 2024

University professors Terry L. Norton and Jonatha W. Vare recommend several books that provide positive, hopeful portrayals of contemporary gay and lesbian adolescents, their friends, and their families. They contend that using books such as these that depict the diversity of the population may lead to greater understanding and inclusion.
English in the City: Teaching the Difficult
Authors: Hamilton Greg
Published: March 2024

“English in the City” focuses on the particular challenges, choices, and celebrations relevant to teaching in an urban setting.
Personal Reading: All Other Ground Is Sinking Sand
Authors: Null Linda , Alfred Suellen
Published: March 2024

“Personal Reading” contains reviews of fiction and nonfiction books, with a special interest in multicultural works.
High School Students Need More Than Mandated Phonics Instruction
Authors: Wickstrom Carol D.
Published: March 2024

Scripted reading programs promise much but, when they meet individual students and teachers in real classrooms, the one-size-fits-all approach may succeed for no one. Still, teachers are required to use programs that districts buy. Carol D. Wickstrom addresses this dilemma by describing the efforts of one ninth-grade teacher to negotiate the demands of the mandated program while meeting the needs of her students.
Bold Books for Innovative Teaching: Hearing Zach: Matching Reluctant and Struggling Readers with Books
Authors: Gallo Don
Published: March 2024

“Bold Books for Innovative Teaching” provides dynamic, informative viewpoints on important issues in publishing and teaching contemporary literature, especially literature for adolescents. Reviews of young adult literature will also appear in this column.
Speaking My Mind: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Standardized Testing
Authors: Moxey Tim
Published: March 2024

“Speaking My Mind” invites readers to speak out about controversial issues relevant to the teaching of English language arts.
Teacher as Machine: The Cost of Objectivity
Authors: Narter David
Published: March 2024

Objective grading techniques and disciplinary procedures are increasingly employed in schools to provide a safe and fair educational environment. However, high school teacher David Narter argues that such mechanistic procedures can never be truly objective and that they will result in more harms than benefits.
Forgiving Ourselves and Forging Ahead: Teaching Grammar in a New Millennium
Authors: Nunan Susan Losee
Published: March 2024

While studies show the ineffectiveness of direct grammar instruction to produce better writers, high school teacher Susan Losee Nunan finds that explaining grammar rules provides students with tools for building complex thoughts and expressing themselves more elaborately.
Fighting Forward: Why Studying Standardized Tests with Our Students Is Important
Authors: Kraemer Don J.
Published: March 2024

Don J. Kraemer argues that helping students intelligently critique standardized tests is a necessary form of test preparation. His detailed analysis of typical questions reveals what students are truly asked to do on the tests.
Mentoring and Self-Mentoring: Coaching Ourselves and Others
Authors: Wilcox Bonita L.
Published: March 2024

Mentoring/coaching is the subject of much professional discussion these days.
PROFILE: James Ransome, Visual Storyteller
Authors: Kitagawa Mary M.
Published: March 2024

In this issue’s Profile, Kitigawa presents an interview with children’s book illustrator James Ransome.
Alma’s Unfinished Play: Bilingual Playwriting in a Summer School Program
Authors: Waldschmidt Eileen Dugan
Published: March 2024

In this article, Waldschmidt discusses one fourth-grade student’s attempt to write a bilingual script, based upon a story told to her by her father, within the context of a bilingual playwriting project.
Roundtable On Books
Authors: Dorsey-Gaine Catherine , Allen Deborah , Huber Lynn Lenhoff , Lenhoff Rosalyn , Gaines James Y. , Dorsey Geraldine Glover , Williams Adrienne
Published: March 2024

This issue’s Roundtable on Books review team presents a list of books whose subjects range from elementary school pen-pal programs to a discussion of literacy in African American communities to the study of family histories and family trees.
Editors’ Pages
Authors: Murphy Sharon , Dudley-Marling Curt
Published: March 2024

Reflects on the Mass Observation Project, an archive of written observations written by British citizens on various topics, which began in the 1930s and continuing to the present. Language Arts, too, is an archive of trends and a record of enduring issues. In this, their final issue, the editors urge readers and writers to change the way they look at Language Arts, the journal, and language arts.
Thoughts from the Editors
Authors: Short Kathy G. , Schroeder Jean , Kauffman Gloria , Kaser Sandy
Published: March 2024

We believe that building a sense of professional community within our specific educational contexts as well as across the broader field is essential to our survival, both personally and professionally. In this issue, teachers and teacher educators write about why being part of a professional community matters, how that community can be built, and how it can be maintained.
Profile: Jack Gantos: Journal Keeper Extraordinaire
Authors: Giorgis Cyndi
Published: March 2024

Presents an interview with author Jack Gantos, whose career spans almost 25 years. Notes how he spoke passionately about his craft and about supporting emerging writers. Discusses how avid journaling is one technique that he uses that could benefit anyone.
History in the Making
Authors: Edelsky Carole
Published: March 2024

Carole Edelsky connects the story of her grandmother to her own story and to the recognition that we live in history. She argues that the current debate about high-stake testing could be the beginning of a larger movement for educational rights and urges us to make history by taking action for social justice. She has also compiled a list of professional readings on critical literacy and social justice for this issue.
Reading Corner for Children: Choosing the Best in Nonfiction: The Orbis Pictus Award Winners
Authors: Lott Carolyn , Avery Carol , Hadaway Nancy L. , Louie Belinda Y. , Thompson Deborah L. , Valle James P. , Wilson Sandip L.
Published: March 2024

This article identifies the books honored as the best among children’s nonfiction published in 2003.
Editors’ Introduction: Classroom Performances
Authors: Smagorinsky Peter , Smith Michael W.
Published: March 2024

Argues that what matters in being a good student is not an innate set of skills and dispositions but an understanding of what, where, when, and how to perform through particular situations. Teachers set the ground rules for what kinds of performances are acceptable in the classroom, and a classroom is a contact zone in which different sets of values, skills, and expectations coexist. The articles in this issue demonstrate how teachers and students manage to negotiate this contact.
Tributes to Stephen P. Witte
Authors: Bracewell Robert , Brandt Deborah , Chin Elaine , Daly John , Flower Linda , Freedman Sarah Warshauer , Gutierrez Kris , Hull Glynda , Rose Mike , Smagorinsky Peter
Published: March 2024

Last spring our profession lost one of its leading voices—Stephen P. Witte, Knight Professor of Rhetoric and Composition at Kent State University. Here, a few of his close friends and colleagues remember Steve and his many contributions to our field.
The National Center for Community College Education: A Doctoral Program with Difference
Authors: Salmon Victoria N.
Published: March 2024

Describes the National Center for Community College Education (NCCCE) at George Mason University, which links courses about the history, philosophy, and doctoral student's teaching discipline to prepare community mission of the American Community College with courses within the college professionals. Discusses the university environment, the faculty of NCCCE, the English department and NCCCE, and scholarship and NCCCE graduates.
An Interview with Robert Wylie
Authors: Matthews Michael
Published: March 2024

Offers an interview with Robert Wylie, a distinguished two-year college English teacher for almost 50 years. Discusses how important it is for an English teacher to write, important issues in the profession, his views on the best ways to help students improve as writers, his observations about writing assignments, liking students, teaching standards, and his observations as a writer.
Voices of the Holocaust: A New Course
Authors: Cohen Laurie Warshal
Published: March 2024

Presents a Holocaust literature class that brings new voices to the community college literature curriculum. Describes a course that involves reading five survivors' autobiographies, hearing four survivor speakers, one of whom was one of the authors, and hearing a speaker who had researched the murder and victimization of her family during the Holocaust.
“Who's in charge here?”: Teaching Narrative Voice in Frank O'Connor's “My Oedipus Complex”
Authors: Wentworth Michael
Published: March 2024

Considers how Frank O'Connor's “My Oedipus Complex” provides a good introduction to the subtleties of narrative voice and control. Concludes by considering the notion of control and its relation to the narrative point of view in O'Connor's story and how it bears directly upon the value of reading literature and the reader's role.
The Process of Change in a Community College Writing Program
Authors: Shafer Darin
Published: March 2024

Shafer recalls the process he and his colleagues in a community college writing program experienced in setting out to define their writing program and the theoretical framework upon which it was based. He reviews the literature that led the department to adopt a more process oriented, student centered curriculum.
Official Feasts and Carnivals: Student Writing and Public Ritual
Authors: Heilker Paul
Published: March 2024

Using Bakhtin’s comparison of the two basic kinds of medieval festivals - official feasts and carnivals - as seen in “Rabelais and His World,” Heilker identifies two ways to teach the ritual of writing. First, students are trained to practice only one kind of writing - the official feast of thesis and support writing. But there is also an opposing and complementary public writing ritual - the carnival - that allows for liberation from accepted conventions and the freedom for students to reinvent themselves and their worlds. Students should be prepared not only to practice the official feast, Heilker says, but also to engage in carnivalesque writing as well.
REVIEWS
Authors: Long Maxine M. , O’Hara Eileen , Giberson Gregory A.
Published: March 2024

A Group of Their Own: College Writing Courses and American Women Writers, 1880–1940, by Katherine H. Adams; Everyone Can Write: Toward a Hopeful Theory of Writing and Teaching Writing, by Peter Elbow; Teaching Composition as a Social Process, by Bruce McComiskey.
The Silent Scream: Students Negotiating Timed Writing Assessments
Authors: Albertson Kathy , Marwitz Mary
Published: March 2024

Discusses how current scholarship argues against one-shot, high-stakes writing tasks. Presents work from students that were part of a team-taught curriculum that coordinated writing and reading classes. Designs activities that would provide a core of material for students to draw on in their final testing situations.
Thinking Differently about Difference: Multicultural Literature and Service-Learning
Authors: Grobman Laurie
Published: March 2024

Combining service-learning with multicultural literature study in a general education first-year course can encourage students to theorize difference from multiple perspectives.
Teaching: First Impressions First, or Choosing Atmosphere over Method and Management
Authors: Levy Aaron
Published: March 2024

As a writer who teaches and a teacher who writes, the author offers creative ways of producing a positive first impression on the first day of school.
Two-Year College English Faculty and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: The Journey Awaits
Authors: Sommers Jeffrey
Published: March 2024

Many two-year English faculty are already engaged in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.
Instructional Note: On Keeping an Academic Journal
Authors: Gee Michael A.
Published: March 2024

It could very well be that the unexpected minor occurrences in a classroom are the most precious educational pearls for a teacher to record and preserve.
Writing Reconsidered: Redefining Composition Scholarship in the Corporate University
Authors: Latta Susan
Published: March 2024

Composition has had a strong commitment to the scholarship of application.
Building a Two-Year College Teacher-Scholar Community: A Primer
Authors: Reynolds Mark
Published: March 2024

The author offers basic suggestions for faculty to become active teacher-scholars within the two-year college professional community.
Editor’s Message: Contextualizing Grammar
Authors: Beers Kylene
Published: March 2024

In this issue, we take the stance that grammar and usage instruction do belong in the middle school. The question isn’t Do we teach grammar, but instead How do we teach grammar in context?
A Hand Up: Good Grammar, Bad Ideas
Authors: Crutcher Chris
Published: March 2024

Negative statements about children may be grammatically correct, but incorrect in every other sense.
The View from the Middle: Simply Irresistible: Letting Our Reading Inform Theirs
Authors: Mallineaux Bill
Published: March 2024

Watch and listen for clues that tell you that students are giving up on reading, and find ways to help them develop lifelong literacy skills.
Sipping Applejack with Steinbeck
Authors: Abrahamson Richard F.
Published: March 2024

Describes how the author helps his students understand the power of books and the impossibility of predicting what book will profoundly affect a person, by asking two questions: “What book made the biggest difference in your life?” and “What was that difference?” Describes the profound impact on the author’s life of John Steinbeck’s book “Travels with Charley.”
Books for Struggling and Reluctant Readers
Authors: Jones Patrick
Published: March 2024

Youth Services consultant and writer Patrick Jones provides his list for struggling readers.
When Gifted Readers Hunt for Books
Authors: Olenchak F. Richard
Published: March 2024

Presents brief descriptions of 24 books that are likely to interest gifted readers in the middle grades. Notes that such literature can serve to bolster their overall development and also enhance appropriate self-advocacy for their talents.
Information Please: Books to Inform and Entertain
Authors: Sullivan Ed
Published: March 2024

Offers brief descriptions of 17 books of nonfiction that will inform and entertain, and that middle schoolers will enjoy when they want some information and want to know about the workings and wonders of the world and the people in it.
FROM STUDENT TO STUDENT: Hope Springs Eternal
Authors: Ford Kim
Published: March 2024

Presents annotations of 12 novels for young adults. Encourages teachers to give their students books to read because it often makes a difference.
Book Talk: Embracing the Diversity in Books
Authors: Lesesne Teri S.
Published: March 2024

Every teacher has a “comfort zone” when it comes to literature, but your students represent a wide variety of “comfort zones.” Here is a list of newer YA books with a little something for everyone.
Clemency Pogue: Fairy Killer
Authors: Petty J. T.
Published: March 2024

This young adult author claims his most enjoyable task as a writer is “intellectual danger, getting into other people’s trouble.” He asks his readers not to trust him, and then, as evidence, tempts us with a look at a chapter from Clemency Pogue: Fairy Killer.
Jude
Authors: Morgenroth Kate
Published: March 2024

Morgenroth recognizes the isolation writers must endure, as well as the fickleness of the process by which words flow onto a page. She has found that, for her, every book emerges through a slightly different process. We can only conclude that whatever she does, works. The chapter of Jude that follows proves it.
Middle Level Section News
Authors: Miller Howard M.
Published: March 2024

This column brings you the latest from the Middle Level Section by way of the Section Chair, including notices about policies, initiatives, events, elections, and awards.
Voices
Authors: Burke Jim
Published: March 2024

The March 2005 issue of Voices from the Middle is a tribute to the life and work of Louise M. Rosenblatt, a pioneer in reading theory and the teaching of literature, who died on February 8, 2005, at age 100. Through her groundbreaking books, Literature as Exploration (1938) and The Reader, the Text, the Poem (1978/1994), and her years as a teacher, researcher, and speaker, Dr. Rosenblatt affected the thinking and teaching of generations of teachers. These pages are filled with stories and perspectives from those who knew her and learned from her, articles from those whose work has been indelibly imprinted with the principles of her theories, and excerpts from Rosenblatt’s own writing over 70 years of publishing. There is even a poignant piece from her son, Jonathan Ratner. A selected bibliography is included to encourage deeper reading.
Readers Matter
Authors: Coskie Tracy L. , Johnson Nancy J.
Published: March 2024

The March 2005 issue of Voices from the Middle is a tribute to the life and work of Louise M. Rosenblatt, a pioneer in reading theory and the teaching of literature, who died on February 8, 2005, at age 100. Through her groundbreaking books, Literature as Exploration (1938) and The Reader, the Text, the Poem (1978/1994), and her years as a teacher, researcher, and speaker, Dr. Rosenblatt affected the thinking and teaching of generations of teachers. These pages are filled with stories and perspectives from those who knew her and learned from her, articles from those whose work has been indelibly imprinted with the principles of her theories, and excerpts from Rosenblatt’s own writing over 70 years of publishing. There is even a poignant piece from her son, Jonathan Ratner. A selected bibliography is included to encourage deeper reading.
Lessons from Louise: The Person, the Theory, the Practice
Authors: Claggett Fran
Published: March 2024

The March 2005 issue of Voices from the Middle is a tribute to the life and work of Louise M. Rosenblatt, a pioneer in reading theory and the teaching of literature, who died on February 8, 2005, at age 100. Through her groundbreaking books, Literature as Exploration (1938) and The Reader, the Text, the Poem (1978/1994), and her years as a teacher, researcher, and speaker, Dr. Rosenblatt affected the thinking and teaching of generations of teachers. These pages are filled with stories and perspectives from those who knew her and learned from her, articles from those whose work has been indelibly imprinted with the principles of her theories, and excerpts from Rosenblatt’s own writing over 70 years of publishing. There is even a poignant piece from her son, Jonathan Ratner. A selected bibliography is included to encourage deeper reading.
Bibliotherapy as an adjuvant tool in the treatment of emotional challenges in early schoolchildren
Authors: Caicedo Girón Jonathan , Salgado Carlos Hernando , Ortega Castillo Jenny Paola , Hernández Triana Alejandra , Camacho Gutiérrez Sarita Juliana , Socha Niño Alejandra
Published: March 2024

Bibliotherapy, known as bibliomania, literary, or reading therapy, is based on reflective and pedagogical exercises that use reading-aloud practices to promote introspective reflections for personal growth to strengthen problem-solving, the treatment of traumatic life situations and emotional health well-being. At the Corporación Universitaria Minuto de DIOS - UNIMINUTO, specifically in the ILVIC (Infancias, Lecturas y Vida Cotidiana, 2023) seedbed, a group of students and teachers used this work method with children from the Fundación de Cristo Rey, in the city of Bogotá. The class sessions revealed processes of teaching reading to infants between eight months and four years of age. The exercises were worked with disruptive and fraternal pedagogical purposes, concomitance with a participatory action-research methodology with a qualitative approach. This allowed students and teachers to systematize their practices through the instruments applied in the various class workshops. This diversified knowledge broadened the possibilities of teaching children's literature and forked paths in forming readers from childhood.
El principio de concentración frente al concurso ideal de infracciones
Authors: Maridueña Benítez Dalton Steve , Villacis Mogrovejo Francisco David
Published: March 2024

El principio de concentración se positiviza en el Código Orgánico Integral Penal, que al materializarse involucra principios de legalidad y proporcionalidad de la pena, dando a lugar a la aplicación de un estudio aritmético que brinda a la persona privada de libertad una sanción justa, propia de un Estado Constitucional de Derechos y Justicia del Ecuador. Este principio es de suma importancia para garantizar el debido proceso y proteger los derechos de las personas privadas de libertad, sin embargo la falta de aplicación del concurso ideal de la infracción hace que el principio de acumulación de penas no cumpla la esencia para el que fue creado, dando lugar a procesos inconclusos, sanciones excesivas, sentencias por el mismo delito y sobrepoblación carcelaria; bajo este problema es imposible evitar que el sistema de penas sea arbitrario y desproporcional, surgen cuestionamientos al existir disposiciones normativas sobre la acumulación de penas, lo cual se puede tornar contradictorio al orden constitucional y legal. En tal razón, la investigación plantea como objetivo general de la investigación analizar la concurrencia del principio de concentración frente al concurso ideal de infracciones. La metodología de la investigación tuvo un enfoque cualitativo, de tipo descriptivo y explicativo, que se desarrolló mediante la aplicación del método bibliográfico-documental y analítico; lo dicho, mediante el análisis del Caso N.º 21-22-CN, resuelto por la Corte Constitucional del Ecuador.