Writing test scores indicate that boys have fallen far behind girls across the grades. In general, boys don't enjoy writing as much as girls. What's wrong? How can we do a better of job of creating boy-friendly classrooms so their voices can be heard? In Boy Writers: Reclaiming Their Voices Ralph Fletcher draws upon his years of experience as staff developer, children's book author, and father of four boys. He also taps the insights from dozens of writing teachers around the US and abroad. Boy Writers asks teachers to imagine the writing classroom from a boy's perspective, and consider specific steps we might take to create stimulating classrooms for boys. Topic choice emerges as a crucial issue. The subjects many boys like to write about (war, weapons, outlandish fiction, zany or bathroom humor) often do not get a warm reception from teachers. Fletcher argues that we must widen the circle and give boys more choice if we want to engage them as writers. How? We must begin by recognizing boys and the world in which they live. Boy Writers explores important questions such as: What subjects are boy writers passionate about, and what motivates them as writers? Why do boys like to incorporate violence into their stories, and how much should be allowed? Why do we so often misread and misunderstand the humor boys include in their stories? In addition, the book looks at: how handwriting can hamstring boy writers, and how drawing may help; welcoming boy-friendly writing genres in our classrooms; ways to improve our conferring with boys; and more. Each chapter begins with a thorough discussion of a topic and ends with a highly practical section titled: "What can I do in my classroom?" Boy Writers does not advocate promoting the interests of boys at the expense of girls. Rather, it argues that developing sensitivity to the unique facets of boy writers will help teachers better address the needs of all their students.
Why School? is a little book driven by big questions. What does it mean to be educated? What is intelligence? How should we think about intelligence, education, and opportunity in an open society? Drawing on forty years of teaching and research and "a profound understanding of the opportunities, both intellectual and economic, that come from education" (Booklist), award-winning author Mike Rose reflects on these and other questions related to public schooling in America. He answers them in beautifully written chapters that are both rich in detail and informed by an extensive knowledge of history, the psychology of learning, and the politics of education. This paperback edition includes three new chapters showing how cognitive science actually narrows our understanding of learning, how to increase college graduation rates, and how to value the teaching of basic skills. An updated introduction by Rose, who has been hailed as "a superb writer and an even better storyteller" (TLN Teachers Network), reflects on recent developments in school reform. Lauded as "a beautifully written work of literary nonfiction" (The Christian Science Monitor) and called "stunning" by the New Educator Journal, Why School? offers an eloquent call for a bountiful democratic vision of the purpose of schooling.
The true story of how one Muslim woman shaped her own fate and escaped her forced wedding. Sumaiya Matin was never sure if the story of the Shaytan Bride was truth or myth. When she moved at age six from Dhaka, Bangladesh, to Thunder Bay, Ontario, recollections of this devilish bride followed her. At first, the Shaytan Bride seemed to be the monster of fairy tales, a woman possessed or seduced by a jinni. But everything changes during a family trip to Bangladesh, and in the weeks leading to Sumaiya’s own forced wedding, she discovers that the story — and the bride herself — are much closer than they seem. The Shaytan Bride is the true coming-of-age story of a girl navigating desire and faith. Through her journey into adulthood, she battles herself and her circumstances to differentiate between destiny and free will. Sumaiya Matin’s life in love and violence is a testament to one woman’s strength as she faces the complicated fallout of her decisions. A RARE MACHINES BOOK
This practical book is full of quick and easy-to-use lessons that promote meaningful writing practice. Teachers will find strategies organized alphabetically and in a consistent format that will inspire students to plan, develop, and share their writing. The lessons allow teachers to choose what they need to meet the diverse needs of students in grades one through eight. Each independent lesson guides students through the writing process with information about a writing form, along with suggested literature sources. Tips throughout the book will help students successfully write to narrate, to inform, to entertain, to persuade, to respond, and to enjoy.
Based on the book by the same title, the Reclaiming Youth at Risk video workshop takes viewers inside two schools and two residential treatment centers that have experienced great success in creating environments that allow young people to transfrom crisis into opportunity and failure into success.
With passion, clarity, and rich examples, Reclaiming Writing is dedicated to reawakening the journeys that writers take as they make sense of, think about, and speak back to their worlds in this era of high-stakes testing and mandated curricula. Classrooms and out-of-school settings are described and analyzed in exciting and groundbreaking narratives that provide insights into the many possibilities for writing that support writers’ searches for voice, identity, and agency. Offering pedagogical strategies and the knowledge base in which they are grounded, the book looks at writing within various areas of the curriculum and across modes of writing from traditional text-based forums to digital formats. Thematically based sections present the pillars of the volume’s critical transactive theory: learning, teaching, curriculum, language, and sociocultural contexts. Each chapter is complemented by an extension that offers application possibilities for teachers in various settings. Reclaiming Writing emphasizes literacy as a vehicle for exploring, interrogating, challenging, finding self, talking back to power, creating a space in the world, reflecting upon the past, and thinking forward to a more joyful and democratic future.
The tenth volume in the Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage Series, this collection of essays reflects on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the project’s efforts to locate, identify, preserve and disseminate the literary contributions of US Latinos from the Spanish Colonial Period to contemporary times. Essays by scholars recalling the beginnings of the project cover a wide range of topics: origins, identity, archival research, institutional politics and pedagogy. From recollections about funding to personal reminiscences, the recovery of Jewish Hispanic heritage and the intellectual project of reframing American history and literature, these articles provide a fascinating look at twenty-five years of recovering the written legacy of the Hispanic population in what has become the United States. An additional nineteen scholarly essays speak to specific efforts to recover an extremely diverse Latino literary heritage. Historians and literary critics who research Spanish, English and Sephardic texts examine a broad array of subjects, including colonialism, historical populations, exile and immigration. This far-reaching book is required reading for those studying US Latino history and literature.