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1 – 10 of 44Life studies are a rich source for further research on the role of the Afro‐American woman in society. They are especially useful to gain a better understanding of the…
Abstract
Life studies are a rich source for further research on the role of the Afro‐American woman in society. They are especially useful to gain a better understanding of the Afro‐American experience and to show the joys, sorrows, needs, and ideals of the Afro‐American woman as she struggles from day to day.
I consider the following question: given my commitment to creating an inclusive classroom environment where students of all backgrounds and skill levels can feel comfortable…
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I consider the following question: given my commitment to creating an inclusive classroom environment where students of all backgrounds and skill levels can feel comfortable taking emotional and intellectual risks, how do I responsibly teach a course on American Life Writing in which students both read and write narratives of trauma, many of which stem from gender-based violence? With the rise of the #MeToo movement, especially, many survivors of this kind of violence feel compelled to share their stories as a way to heal themselves and to create communities of care and support. In some cases, this kind of disclosure can be restorative. But it is also important to recognize that sharing one's narrative of trauma does not always serve as a path to healing and wholeness. There is also power in choosing to tell part of one's story, sharing one's story only with a certain audience, or not disclosing one's story at all. The works that I assign in the seminar highlight these different paths to healing and model for students the ways in which a confessional model is not the only model for dealing with trauma. In this chapter, I first describe how feminist pedagogy shapes my teaching. Then I outline my approach to teaching life writing, focusing on how I teach texts that highlight trauma and how I teach the personal narrative assignment. Finally, I reflect on how these pedagogical practices might inform our larger conversations about gendered oppression, trauma, and healing.
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John H. Bickford III and Cynthia W. Rich
Middle level teachers, at times, link historical content with relevant English literature in interdisciplinary units. Elementary teachers periodically employ history-themed…
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Middle level teachers, at times, link historical content with relevant English literature in interdisciplinary units. Elementary teachers periodically employ history-themed literature during reading time. Interconnections between language arts and history are formed with developmentally appropriate literature for students. Historical misrepresentations, however, proliferate in children’s literature and are concealed behind engaging narratives. Since literacy and historical thinking are essential skills, children’s literature should be balanced within, not banished from, the classroom. Using America’s peculiar institution of slavery as a reference point, this article examines children’s literature, identifies almost a dozen areas of historical misrepresentation, and proffers rich primary source material to balance the various misrepresentations. We provide teachers with reason for caution when including such literature; but also model how to locate, use, and, at times, abridge primary source material within an elementary or middle level classroom. Such curricular supplements provide balance to engaging but historically-blemished children’s literature and enable educators to attain the rigorous prescriptions of Common Core.
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This study aims to investigate multimodal composition as an exercise or tool for teaching students theory building. To illustrate, an analysis of artifacts comprising a student’s…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate multimodal composition as an exercise or tool for teaching students theory building. To illustrate, an analysis of artifacts comprising a student’s multimodal composition, which was created in response to a multipart literacy assignment on theorizing Blackness, is analyzed.
Design/methodology/approach
Afrocentricity served as both theoretical moor and research methodology. Qualitative case study, focusing on the case of an individual student, was the research method used.
Findings
Multimodal composition was an effective exercise for surfacing the multidimensionality of a student’s complex knowledge while simultaneously placing the student in the powerful position of theorist. The process of composing multimodally integrated reading, writing and speaking skills while revealing the focal student’s need for targeted writing intervention.
Practical implications
The study evidences multimodal composition as a useful exercise for capturing students’ nuanced interpretations or students’ critical theorizing as well as meaningfully incorporating and assessing students’ literacy skills.
Originality/value
Exposure to preexisting theory alone relegates students to the realm of passive knowledge consumers. This undermines the emancipatory and justice-oriented objectives of critical education, which ideally contributes to social change by challenging dominant power structures and distorted perspectives of marginalized persons. To be empowered agentic learners, students need to be both taught how to theorize and engaged as theorists. This study shows how multimodal composition can be used as a liberatory literacy tool for those intertwined pedagogical purposes.
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When I was young, new students addressed me as “Miss Wheeler”; when I became middle‐aged, “Mrs. Wheeler,” while all around me they called men of all ages “Dr.” and “Professor.”…
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When I was young, new students addressed me as “Miss Wheeler”; when I became middle‐aged, “Mrs. Wheeler,” while all around me they called men of all ages “Dr.” and “Professor.” When I was middle‐aged, I involved myself in a civil rights action; the administrator in charge of my department was referred to as “that nice young man,” and I sometimes as “the old bat” — there was a year's difference in our ages. By way of introduction to the topic of aging and females, here are four concepts to consider:
Naomi Zigmond and David W Matta
This naturalistic observation study sought to identify the activities undertaken by the special education co-teacher in co-taught high school content subject classes in urban…
Abstract
This naturalistic observation study sought to identify the activities undertaken by the special education co-teacher in co-taught high school content subject classes in urban, rural, and suburban high schools, and to understand the contributions of the special education teacher, the value-added, to the educational experiences of the students in the class. The work focused on what is accomplished when ordinary special education teachers go about doing their assigned co-teaching jobs. We found that, as a group and across subject areas, special education co-teachers spent more time in contact with students than not, and most of their contact time helping individual students or small groups of students through an assigned task. There were substantial differences in the distribution of co-teacher activities across subject areas.
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John H. Bickford III and Molly Sigler Bickford
State and national education initiatives have significantly increased expectations of students’ non-fiction reading and writing. These initiatives provide the space for potential…
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State and national education initiatives have significantly increased expectations of students’ non-fiction reading and writing. These initiatives provide the space for potential interdisciplinary units in English/language arts and social studies/history centered on content area reading and writing. To do so, teachers must locate age-appropriate, historically representative curricular materials and implement discipline-specific writing prompts. To guide elementary teachers’ instruction, we select a novel, underused topic: the birth of the Republic of South Sudan. Age-appropriate children’s trade books are coupled with diverse informational texts—oral histories, current event news articles, and artwork—to extend the trade books’ narratives into the realm of current events. We suggest content area literacy strategies, share anecdotes from their application in the classroom, and recommend engaging, inquiry-based writing prompts that induce students to revisit understandings derived from close readings of the trade books and informational texts. In doing so, all texts and tasks explicitly are connected to different elements of the state and national initiatives in order to help teachers meet the rigorous standards.
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