Letters for the Living: Teaching Writing in a Violent AgeThis book takes up issues of violence in the lives of college students and looks for possibilities of teaching composition as an act of peace making. Through a variety of writings, the book illustrates students' experiences on the city streets of New York and in the small mining and steel towns of western Pennsylvania. One section of the book reports on a project that linked one author/educator's (Hurlbert) research writing class and the other author/educator's (Blitz) freshman composition II class. In the semester-long project, the classes researched and wrote about their own neighborhoods and the neighborhoods of their interstate partners. The book states that these two groups of students taught each other about the places in which they live and the ways in which they live there, and in many cases, what each learned about the other was "shocking." It also shares with the reader letters in which the two author/educators reflect upon their work as teachers, in an effort to understand the personal and cultural implications of what students write and say. (Contains 101 references.) (NKA). |
From inside the book
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Page 36
... asked them lots of questions about arguing . I asked them how they argued with parents , friends , teachers , brothers and sisters . I asked them how they distinguish between arguing and bickering , arguing and fighting . They seemed to ...
... asked them lots of questions about arguing . I asked them how they argued with parents , friends , teachers , brothers and sisters . I asked them how they distinguish between arguing and bickering , arguing and fighting . They seemed to ...
Page 56
... asked her what had happened . How could she , I wanted to know , ever have failed this writing class ? She explained to me that right near the end of the semes- ter , she had suffered a terrible tragedy . Her infant son had died in an ...
... asked her what had happened . How could she , I wanted to know , ever have failed this writing class ? She explained to me that right near the end of the semes- ter , she had suffered a terrible tragedy . Her infant son had died in an ...
Page 92
... asked . The class sat there with a stunned , horrified look on their faces . " Haven't you heard ? " one of them asked . " Heard what ? " I asked . " Jim died last night . Well , actually , he killed himself , jumped out of his dorm ...
... asked . The class sat there with a stunned , horrified look on their faces . " Haven't you heard ? " one of them asked . " Heard what ? " I asked . " Jim died last night . Well , actually , he killed himself , jumped out of his dorm ...
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