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 26
... believe their hope is unfounded . Can I do enough for them ? Can I do the right things for them ? I know we try hard to figure out what we're doing , but as we examine aca- demic life and our various roles in it , too often I feel like ...
... believe their hope is unfounded . Can I do enough for them ? Can I do the right things for them ? I know we try hard to figure out what we're doing , but as we examine aca- demic life and our various roles in it , too often I feel like ...
Page 51
... believe us ? How can it be that there are so many tales of violence and pain in our classrooms ? Even statistically speaking , how can it be ? Sometimes we can hardly believe it ourselves . But that is ex- actly the right first question ...
... believe us ? How can it be that there are so many tales of violence and pain in our classrooms ? Even statistically speaking , how can it be ? Sometimes we can hardly believe it ourselves . But that is ex- actly the right first question ...
Page 74
... believe this only happens when their teachers believe they will ; when their teachers know something remarkable is about to happen ; when their teachers haven't learned to stop looking for the remarkable , to stop hearing it when it ...
... believe this only happens when their teachers believe they will ; when their teachers know something remarkable is about to happen ; when their teachers haven't learned to stop looking for the remarkable , to stop hearing it when it ...
Common terms and phrases
Act of Hope African American American asked Bed-Stuy bell hooks boyfriend Bronx brother building change the world classroom composing composition class composition teachers course culture Daina death discussion drafts drugs English English Studies experience father feel friends going grade Greg guess happened hear Here's high school housing projects Hurlbert idea imagine John Jay College kids kind letters listen lives look Mark Mark mean Michael Mark Michael Michael mother neighbor neighborhood night pain peace pedagogy poem poetry Portsmouth problems questions remember respond rhetorical seems semester sense share Sharon social someone sometimes Spanish Harlem stories strange street Stuckey's student wrote Studies talk teaching tell Theresa things told town Vicente Huidobro violence walk wonder words workshop writing class York York City young