Transforming Literacy: Changing Lives Through Reading and Writing PDF
Preview Transforming Literacy: Changing Lives Through Reading and Writing
TRANSFORMING LITERACY: CHANGING LIVES THROUGH READING AND WRITING INNOVATION AND LEADERSHIP IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING VOLUME 3 TRANSFORMING LITERACY: CHANGING LIVES THROUGH READING AND WRITING ROBERT P. WAXLER University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth MAUREEN P. HALL University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth United Kingdom – North America – Japan India – Malaysia – China Emerald Group Publishing Limited Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK First edition 2011 Copyright r 2011 Emerald Group Publishing Limited Reprints and permission service Contact: DEDICATED TO: Linda Waxler Patricia Anne Gormley Hall CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix PREFACE xi CHAPTER ONE THE READING AND WRITING 1 CLASSROOM AS THE NEW NEIGHBORHOOD CHAPTER TWO DEEP READING AND THE 27 SPACE OF THE CLASSROOM CHAPTER THREE THE CLASSROOM 61 ADVENTURE: TO LEARN AND TO UNDERSTAND CHAPTER FOUR LITERACY, FOCUSED 95 ATTENTION, AND CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICE CHAPTER FIVE LANGUAGE AND THE ARTS 125 CHAPTER SIX THE CHALLENGE OF NEW 151 TECHNOLOGIES CHAPTER SEVEN WEST SIDE CLOSED BUT OUR 177 WORK CONTINUED REFERENCES 199 vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Transforming Literacy: Changing Lives Through Reading and Writing developed from our love of literature and learning and from our deep commitment to the belief that literary narrative (stories) and life inevitably mingle together without end. To say that is to admit that we cannot name all the people, all the experiences, or all of the texts that have influenced us; but, as you read this book, we hope you will hear some of the many voices, explicit and implicit, that have inspired us and so helped to shape it. For us, books are always alive, asking to be read, and the world is always a learning environment generously inviting human beings on a quest to know something more about themselves. Human beings have a natural desire to learn, and we are grateful to all those who helped us on our way. We especially want to acknowledge the thousands of people who have participated in the Changing Lives Through Literature (CLTL) program, started in 1991 in Massachusetts as an alternative sentencing experiment and which, over the last 20 years, has expanded throughout the United States and the United Kingdom. That program stands as a wonderful testament to the power of literature to transform lives and is central to our thinking in this book. We also want to thank all the college students at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and the high school students and teachers at the New Bedford West Side Alternative School and the Fall River Resiliency School who taught us so much, especially while were writing this book. Our experiences with them in the classroom were deep and valuable moments, never to be forgotten. Martha C. Pennington, our editor, also deserves special recognition for her encouragement and dedication. Her extraordinary and detailed sugges- tions, as well as her commitment and sensitivity, guided us through every challenge we encountered in this project, and we will always be grateful to her for lending us her support and sharing her wisdom. Finally, we thank our colleagues and other educators, writers and lovers of literature and learning, and, of course, our family and friends—all those who still believe that the best education is always an adventurous journey, a quest to discover the questions that lead to the meaning of that which cannot be fully grasped, the mystery of human life itself. – Robert P. Waxler Maureen P. Hall ix
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