Synopses & Reviews
What happens when the teaching of literature and the teaching of writing intersect? How does instruction change when teachers apply composition theory and practice to the study of literature? In Art Young and Toby Fulwiler's collection of essays, twenty-three teachers of writing describe their experiences teaching literature, revealing some remarkable ideas and results.
When Writing Teachers Teach Literature shows how college English instructors apply composition strategies such as writing to learn, the composing process, collaborative learning, and portfolio assessment to literature. The contributors, all reflective practitioners, discuss how they teach literature and what it means to them. They examine:
- What writing teachers do differently when they teach literature
- How their approach differs from that typically taken by literature teachers
- What happens to the learners and texts when composition pedagogy is applied to literary study.
In brief interchapters contributors focus on professional and student texts as well as the learners who create them. Each demonstrates that the best teaching is the transmission not just of knowledge, but of the means and satisfactions of creating that knowledge.
These essays confirm the value of new voices in the canon and the classroom, of diverse theoretical perspectives that merge with interactive pedagogical practices, and especially of the emergence of writing along with reading as the central business of English studies.
Synopsis
In Art Young and Toby Fulwiler's collection of essays, twenty-three teachers of writing describe their experiences teaching literature, revealing some remarkable ideas and results.
Synopsis
What happens when the teaching of literature and the teaching of writing intersect? How does instruction change when teachers apply composition theory and practice to the study of literature? In Art Young and Toby Fulwiler's collection of essays, twenty-three teachers of writing describe their experiences teaching literature, revealing some remarkable ideas and results.
When Writing Teachers Teach Literature shows how college English instructors apply composition strategies such as writing to learn, the composing process, collaborative learning, and portfolio assessment to literature. The contributors, all reflective practitioners, discuss how they teach literature and what it means to them. They examine:
- What writing teachers do differently when they teach literature
- How their approach differs from that typically taken by literature teachers
- What happens to the learners and texts when composition pedagogy is applied to literary study.
In brief interchapters contributors focus on professional and student texts as well as the learners who create them. Each demonstrates that the best teaching is the transmission not just of knowledge, but of the means and satisfactions of creating that knowledge.
These essays confirm the value of new voices in the canon and the classroom, of diverse theoretical perspectives that merge with interactive pedagogical practices, and especially of the emergence of writing along with reading as the central business of English studies.
About the Author
Toby Fulwiler directs the writing program at the University of Vermont, where he also teaches composition and literature courses. Editor of The Journal Book (1987), Fulwiler is also author of College Writing: A Personal Approach to Academic Writing, Second Edition (1997) and coeditor, with Art Young, of Programs That Work: Models and Methods for Writing Across the Curriculum (1990) and Writing Across the Disciplines: Research into Practice--all published by Boynton/Cook.Art Young is Campbell Chair in Technical Communication, Professor of English, and Professor of Engineering at Clemson University. In addition to coordinating Clemson's writing across the curriculum program, he teaches courses in composition theory and pedagogy, technical writing, and Victorian literature. Young serves as a consultant and WAC workshop director to over fifty schools and colleges.
Table of Contents
Conflicts in the Contact Zones
Taking English, J. Trimbur 1a. Randall Friesinger on Composition Strategies
The Dinner Party, D. Holdstein 2a . Donna Reiss on Writing Before We Write 3 . One Teacher, Two Cultures, C. Moran 3a. Tracy Santa on Writing with Students
Motivating Writing Differently, J. Reither
Student Writing and Teacher Learning
We Wrote the Book on That, J. Trimmer 5a. Elizabeth Finch Hedengren on Sharing Writing
Textual Terror, Textual Power, L. Bloom 6a. Isabel Buck McEachern on Changing Contexts
The Rape of Clarissa, R. Murphy 7a. Beth Murray Walker on Conversing with Authors
The Reading Writing Connection, C. Glenn
Writing and Rewriting Literature
Canon and Community, W. Bishop 9a. Elizabeth Rankin on Rewriting and Retelling
Teaching Literature Through Performance, C. Schuster 10a. Mary Ann Rudy on Readers' Theatre
A Merging of Lives, B. Peters 11a. Barbra Morris on Writing for Seinfeld
Reading and Writing Back to the Future, D. George & S. Blanning 12a. Betsy Heard on Continuous Writing
Reinventing the Literary Text, B. Greene
Writing for Personal Knowledge
Breathing Life into the Text, P. Elbow 14a. Thomas Boghosian on Focused Freewrites 14b . Nancy VanArsdale on What Peter Taught Me
Reading People: The Pragmatic Use of Common Sense, T. Newkirk 15a. Ida Ferdman on Stepping Inside the Pages
Journal Writing and the Study of Poetry, D. Tedards 16a. Linda Thomas on Keeping a Journal
Using Journals to Redefine Public and Private Domains, C. Lovitt 17a . Sidney Poger on Writing Letters
New Technologies for New Majority Students of Literature, H. Schwartz
Writing for Critical Literacy
The English Literature Seminar, L. Peterson 19a. Art Young on Writing in the English Major
Multiple Literacies and Inquiry-Based Teaching: The Two-Year Campus Literature Course, J. Sommers 20a. Irena M. Levy on Bringing Multiple Literacies to College
Portfolios, Literacy, and Learning, K. Yancey 21a. Donald A. Daiker on Portfolios 21b. Pat Murray on What She Doesn't Only Do
Less as More, W. Coles, Jr. 22a. Christine Farris on Writing at the Center
Song of the Open Road: A Motorcycle Rider Teaches Literature, T. Fulwiler 23a. Art Young on Classroom Language
Afterword by Gerald Graff