On Literacy and Its Teaching

Issues in English Education

Edited by Gail E. Hawisher & Anna O. Soter

Subjects: Teacher Education, English Education
Series: SUNY series, Literacy, Culture, and Learning: Theory and Practice
Paperback : 9780791402665, 259 pages, July 1990
Hardcover : 9780791402658, 259 pages, July 1990

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Table of contents

Foreword
Alan C. Purves

Preface

Part I: Teaching as a Profession: Issues and Responsibilities

1. Content Knowledge versus Process Knowledge: A False Dichotomy
Gail E. Hawisher

2. Report from the Eastern Shore: The English Coalition Conference
Charles B. Harris

3. Secondary School English Teachers: Past, Present, Future
R. Baird Shuman

4. "To Think About What I Think": Inquiry and Involvement
Connie Swartz Zitlow

5. The National Writing Project Staff Development in the Teaching of Composition
Mary Louise Gomez

6. Testing Teachers: Current Issues and Their Implications for Evaluating English Teachers
Maia Pank Mertz

Part II: Textual Relationships and Pedagogy: Literature and Writing

7. Literature and Literacy
Robert E. Probst

8. Exploring the Relationships between Writing and Literary Understanding: A Language and Learning Perspective
George E. Newell

9. Literature as Writing: Integrating Literature and Writing Instruction through Manuscript Studies
Ron Fortune

Part III: Rhetoric and Composition: Designs for Integration

10. On Teaching Writing as a Verb Rather than as a Noun: Research on Writing for High School English Teachers
Martin Nystrand

11. The Place of Classical Rhetoric in the Contemporary Writing Classroom
Sheryl L. Finkle and Edward P. J. Corbett

12. Rhetorical Theory and the Teaching of Writing
Andrea A. Lunsford and Cheryl Glenn

13. English Teachers and the Humanization of Computers: Networking Communities of Readers and Writers
Cynthia L. Selfe

Part IV: The Learning of Language: Teachers and Their Students

14. Watching Our Grammar: The English Language for English Teachers
Dennis Baron

15. The English Teacher and the Non-English-Speaking Student: Facing the Multicultural/Multilingual Challenge
Anna O. Soter

About the Contributors

Index

Description

This book recognizes and embraces the complexities of modern English teaching. It presents English teachers and teacher educators with a critical view of current professional issues and concerns in the belief that these groups need, and want, to participate in curricular and professional reform movements that affect them and their students.

The book examines such issues as the interconnectedness of the study of language, literature, and composition; curricular problems in language instruction in teacher education; the relationship between our traditional notions of literature study and our emerging view of literacy in the contemporary information age; and the ways in which current theory and research can be translated into innovative designs for the teaching of written composition.

On Literacy and Its Teaching is a powerful response to the current challenge for innovation and change in English teacher education. With its broad scope, it provides a balanced overview and timely analysis of the field of English Education.

Gail E. Hawisher is Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Purdue University. Anna O. Soter is Assistant Professor in English Education at The Ohio State University.

Reviews

"I like this book most for its attempt to link professional concerns, research and theory. It brings us beyond simplistic dichotomies, skills-based approaches to evaluation, testing, teaching, and knowing. All teachers, but particularly pre-service teachers, should be made aware of these complexities." — Susan Hynds, Syracuse University

"This is an excellent text. It does not duplicate the things-to-do-for-Monday strand, which we have all too much of, but rather shows that what we know and believe determine what we do. The essays represent the best thinking in English Education. The approach is exactly right." — Thomas McCracken, Youngstown University