A state-of-the-art compendium of resource materials and current practice that answers two basic questions: "What is literacy?" and "How do individuals become literate?" Not long ago, literacy simply meant knowing how to read and write. Today, the study of literacy is a complex field encompassing many different areas, from computer literacy to geographic literacy, and including several degrees of competence such as functional, pragmatic, and cultured. In addition there are six kinds of readers: the submissive, the active, the semiotic, the subjective, the psychoanalytic, and the interpretive community reader, and at least two distinct ways of reading: aesthetic reading and rational reading. In this comprehensive, accessible volume, two literacy experts not only help readers understand the latest theories and the heated controversies in this exciting field, they also show readers how this vast new knowledge is being applied in successful literacy programs. Detailed discussion of reader response theory and the different types of readers Contact information for a variety of literacy organizations along with a list of websites offering lesson plans, teaching resources, and literacy research

This book provides not only educators, but parents and caretakers with a variety of engaging instructional strategies for K-8 students. These approaches enable all students to read easily and enjoyably by utilizing different styles and approaches. None typically are used in conventional classrooms, but children who either have not mastered-or who do not enjoy-reading, become involved in and energized with active participation. When these activities are introduced, many children will begin recognizing words, stringing them together, increase vocabulary, and reading within the first four months of beginning_if not earlier.

Examines public and private writings of low-income urban, pre-adolescent girls, illuminating ways that girl's voice are often silenced in schools and society.

She Say, He Say reveals the development of fifth grade urban girls' voices through their own writing in the classroom. This book underscores the importance of including all of the girls' voices into the curriculum where their voices can be nurtured, cultured, and responded to in potentially productive ways.

Through an exploration of two major writing contexts, the public and the private, Brett Elizabeth Blake chronicles how the girls learned through their writing not only how to name issues salient to them, such as domesticity and racism, but also how to resist the underlying notions of such important issues. The girls' stories are based on nearly three years of study, and the traditional notion of a process approach to writing is challenged by addressing how such an approach must become a site for significant tension and struggle over issues like ownership and voice. Blake suggests several curricular strategies, such as reader response techniques and a violence-prevention unit, as additional approaches that support girls' voices. This book explores and challenges us to look more closely at how the intersection of gender, race, and class is crucial for understanding not only how and what girls write about, but also why they write so deliberately and poignantly about their lives.

Becoming a Teacher revisits the concept of Teacher Lore (Schubert and Ayers, 1992), by providing a cross-disciplinary approach linking elements of narrative theory to all aspects of pre- and in-service teaching. In essence, it embraces the notion that what teachers say matters. The rationale behind this text is the idea that narrative can not only be a conceptual lens through which a particular discipline can be re-examined, but also an aid to help preservice teachers understand the potential importance of personal experience and reflective ways of knowing as they learn to become teachers. In addition, this book serves as a reminder to those of us in teacher education that the very mandates that control so much of our curricula, funding, and publishing decisions can be reconstructed to reflect what we know is good teaching - and what we know works, in spite of standardized testing and accountability measures that declare the opposite.

A Road Less Traveled: Critical Literacy and Language Learning in the Classroom, 1964-1996 takes us through what Robert W. Blake calls the "jaunty journey" of the English/English Language Arts classroom from its linguistic and literature foundations, to emphases on close reading techniques and structures to composing and responding to literature. A Road Less Traveled heads bumpily into the path of learning how to work with "non-native speakers" and other "basic" students toward a (re)-burst of a renewed interest in poetry and drama, reader response, a process approach to writing, and the diverse student, showing through the often winding and blurry road along the journey of our literacy travels over 30 years, that what we understood best about reading and writing has stood the test of time.

A Road Less Traveled: Critical Literacy and Language Learning in the Classroom, 1964-1996 takes us through what Robert W. Blake calls the "jaunty journey" of the English/English Language Arts classroom from its linguistic and literature foundations, to emphases on close reading techniques and structures to composing and responding to literature. A Road Less Traveled heads bumpily into the path of learning how to work with "non-native speakers" and other "basic" students toward a (re)-burst of a renewed interest in poetry and drama, reader response, a process approach to writing, and the diverse student, showing through the often winding and blurry road along the journey of our literacy travels over 30 years, that what we understood best about reading and writing has stood the test of time.

Teaching Writing for All: Process, Genres, and Activities offers educators an informative anthology about writing instruction in the K-12 school setting. The collection provides articles, discussion questions, and activities to deepen educators' understanding of the writing process, genres of writing, and the uses of writing. The text begins with articles that explore the evolution of writing instruction and effective practices which can help educators teach the process of writing to students. The proceeding sections provide readings on the various genres of writing which are typically used in K-12 classrooms, including narrative, poetry, expository, and persuasive writing. The book also addresses writing for the English language learner and students with learning disabilities. The anthology leads the reader into writing in a technological world by closing with an article about facilitating online writing through the practice of journaling. Teaching Writing for All is a valuable resource which provides students of the education profession with a collection of articles that offers information on history and genre writing for students in elementary, middle, and high school settings. It is well suited for courses in education, especially those with an emphasis on writing instruction.