NCTE

In Just Theory, David Downing offers an alternative history of critical theory in the context of the birth and transformation of the Western philosophical tradition. 

Rather than providing a summary survey, it situates the production of theoretical texts within the geopolitical economy of just two pivotal cultural turns: Cultural Turn 1 (roughly 450–350 BCE) looks at the Platonic revolution, during which a new philosophic, universalist, and literate discourse emerged from what had long been an oral culture; Cultural Turn 2 (roughly 1770–1870) investigates the Romantic revolution and its nineteenth-century aftermath up to the Paris Commune. 

While focusing on the quest for social justice, Downing situates the two cultural turns within deep time: Cultural Turn 1 gave birth to the Western philosophical tradition during the Holocene; Cultural Turn 2 witnessed the beginnings of the shift to the Anthropocene when the Industrial Revolution and the fossil fuel age began to alter our complex biospheres and geospheres. As described in the epilogue, the aftereffects of Western metaphysics have dramatically shaped our twenty-first-century world, especially for teachers and scholars in English and the humanities.

Based in the Inquiry Learning Plan (ILP), a flexible tool that allows students to engineer their own goals and create an authentic final assessment, this practical approach provides a clear, customizable experience for teachers looking to shift ownership of learning to the student, whether wholly or in part.

The transition from rote lessons, traditional pedagogy, and standardized tests begins with the belief that students need to learn how to learn—and learn to love learning. Great idea—but how do teachers actually implement a curriculum that gives students room to do this? Letting Go: How to Give Your Students Control over Their Learning in the English Classroom explores an inquiry approach in which students differentiate their own learning with the space to choose texts, develop questions, and practice skills that are unique to their individual needs. 

The authors—two classroom teachers and a school librarian—discuss strategies to scaffold the inquiry process while addressing the common pitfalls students encounter. Student examples of activities, reflections, and final products provide concrete models of how to use the strategies separately and how they relate. The authors break down the inquiry process and provide support for gradual release of responsibility and power to students. In doing so, they show that letting go is rewarding for both teachers and students because students realize what they are capable of and learn what they love. Student work showcases the impact these inquiry strategies have on students’ understanding of themselves, their skill development, and their content acquisition. A companion website features complete ILPs for a more holistic view of the process, as well as reproducible materials.

From synesthetic poems to questioning poems to the ghazal, Lightning Paths: 75 Poetry Writing Exercises has something fun or fascinating for every student and teacher as they explore the possibilities of poetry writing. 

The exercises teach and utilize technique while also focusing on and inspiring the intuitive and imaginative qualities of poetry. Each poem type includes an introduction explaining the exercise’s goal, detailed instructions, and a student example. The 75 activities are divided into three sections: 

• Exercises that focus on different types of imagery and ways to generate fresh imagery
• Exercises born out of unusual prompts and ideas that engage a writer’s experiences in the real world 
• Exercises related to what form might look like or how it might function 

This book demonstrates how researchers and practitioners in writing and rhetoric studies can engage in story work across differences in culture, language, locations, and experience. Based on an ethnographic study in Nepal spanning a decade, Author Katie Silvester speaks with and to the stories of Bhutanese women in diaspora learning English later in life during resettlement and in the context of waves of social change brought on by the end of their asylum. In the process, she demonstrates how researchers and practitioners in writing and rhetoric studies might:

• Engage in literacy work across differences in culture, language, location, and experience;
• Reconfigure and reformulate with others how we come to understand the literacy, hope, and violence in specific migrations; and
• Use the stories that students bring with them to the classroom about their backgrounds to promote literacy learning.

An expansive look at the discipline of writing studies, with a focus on serving and supporting first-year writing students and instructors at open access institutions.

There is a huge gap between perceptions of the field of writing studies and the material realities of those who teach in it. Materiality and Writing Studies: Aligning Labor, Scholarship, and Teaching argues for the centering of the field’s research and service on first-year writing, particularly the “new majority” of college students (who are more diverse than ever before) and those who teach them.

The book features the voices of first-year writing instructors at a two-year, open-access, multi-campus institution whose students are consistently underrepresented in discussions of the discipline. Drawing from a study of 78 two-year college student writers and an analysis of nearly two decades of issues of the major journals in the field of writing studies, Holly Hassel and Cassandra Phillips sketch out a reimagined vision for writing studies that roots the scholarship, research, and service in the discipline squarely within the changing material realities of contemporary college writing instruction.

About the CCCC Studies in Writing & Rhetoric (SWR) Series

In this series, the methods of studies vary from the critical to historical to linguistic to ethnographic, and their authors draw on work in various fields that inform composition—including rhetoric, communication, education, discourse analysis, psychology, cultural studies, and literature. Their focuses are similarly diverse—ranging from individual writers and teachers, to classrooms and communities and curricula, to analyses of the social, political, and material contexts of writing and its teaching.

The nature and tools of writing have changed. Today’s students compose and read chunks of webtexts and short text messages while they are on the move. If compositionists wish to be pedagogically relevant, they need to think more carefully about how their students read and compose texts and where they do so.

More and more young people are choosing to write a variety of texts in a variety of locations because technologies make it possible. As a result, educational scholars are developing new understandings of how to incorporate such technologies into the classroom. To that end, this book provides practical resources and assignments for writing instructors who are interested in a pedagogy that makes use of mobile technologies. Editor Claire Lutkewitte and her contributors explore both writing for and about mobile technologies and writing with mobile technologies. 

Coming at a time when instructors are pressured to be professionally innovative but are rarely provided ideal circumstances in which to do so, this book offers: 

• A starting point for instructors who haven’t yet used mobile technologies in the classroom
• Fresh ideas to those who have and proof that they are not alone
• And a call of reassurance that we can do more with less

In Nonfiction Writers Dig Deep, some of today’s most celebrated writers for children share essays that describe a critical part of the informational writing process that is often left out of classroom instruction. 

To craft engaging nonfiction, professional writers choose topics that fascinate them and explore concepts and themes that reflect their passions, personalities, beliefs, and experiences in the world. By scrutinizing the information they collect to make their own personal meaning, they create distinctive books that delight as well as inform. 

In addition to essays from mentor authors, the book includes a wide range of tips, tools, teaching strategies, and activity ideas from editor Melissa Stewart to help students (1) choose a topic, (2) focus that topic by identifying a core idea, theme, or concept, and (3) analyze their research to find a personal connection. By adding a piece of themselves to their drafts, students will learn to craft rich, unique prose. 

Featuring essays by Sarah Albee, Chris Barton, Donna Janell Bowman, Mary Kay Carson, Nancy Castaldo, Jason Chin, Lesa Cline-Ransome, Seth Fishman, Candace Fleming, Kelly Milner Halls, Deborah Heiligman, Susan Hood, Gail Jarrow, Lita Judge, Jess Keating, Barbara Kerley, Heather Lang, Cynthia Levinson, Michelle Markel, Carla Killough McClafferty, Heather Montgomery, Patricia Newman, Elizabeth Partridge, Baptiste Paul, Miranda Paul, Teresa Robeson, Mara Rockliff, Barb Rosenstock, Laura Purdie Salas, Anita Sanchez, April Pulley Sayre, Steve Sheinkin, Ray Anthony Shepard, Anita Silvey, Traci Sorell, Tanya Lee Stone, Jennifer Swanson, Stephen R. Swinburne, Don Tate, Laurie Ann Thompson, Pamela Turner, Patricia Valdez, Sandra Neil Wallace, Laurie Wallmark, Jennifer Ward, Carole Boston Weatherford, Lee Wind, Paula Yoo, and Karen Romano Young.

An insightful and informative guide for many of the situations and issues high school English Language Arts teachers face every day.

From four veteran teacher educators, On the Case in the English Language Arts Classroom offers twenty case narratives as well as a format for discussion, professional resources that can inform decisions, and a guide to constructing new case narratives that can expand the possibilities for developing powerful problem-solving strategies.

Being a high school English teacher is both rewarding and difficult. Although teacher education programs try to be thorough, they can’t prepare preservice teachers for every situation that might arise. For instance:

• How can an ELA teacher work with learners who have suffered significant trauma?
• How can a well-prepared literature instructor teach high school students the basics of reading?
• Should a teacher shy away from classroom conversations because they can become “too political”?
• How does a teacher contend with a crushing workload?

On the Case in the English Language Arts Classroom provides teachers at any point in their career the opportunity to analyze potential situations and problems that commonly confront teachers through case studies that prompt extensive, stimulating discussion and invite written responses.

Rob and Amanda Montgomery provide practical guidance and activities for K-12 teachers to get students out of the classroom and writing in real-world settings.

A Place to Write provides a comprehensive view of how place-based writing can be incorporated into the K–12 curriculum for a range of often transformative student writing experiences and classroom purposes, offering both a rationale for moving students out of the classroom to write in real-world spaces and a how-to guide to help teachers develop their own place-based writing activities. Each chapter explores opportunities for writing in a different real-world setting such as museums, schools, public places, natural places, and even virtual places by detailing a range of practical classroom activities in a variety of commonly taught genres.

Each activity is accompanied by considerations for teachers who may want to forge interdisciplinary connections and/or add authentic audiences to their students’ work. Rob and Amanda Montgomery also suggest adaptations and scaffolding for students with special needs and English language learners.

While encouraging environmental advocacy, the book also encompasses issues of equity and social justice, school safety, and culture and identity, as well as accessible ideas for teaching common genres such as personal narrative, argumentation, and authentic forms of inquiry.