Rethinking Language Arts: Passion and Practice / Edition 2

by Nina Zaragoza, Joe Kincheloe, Shirley R. Steinberg

Overview

In Rethinking Language Arts: Passion and Practice, Second Edition, author Nina Zaragoza uses the form of letters to her students to engage pre-service teachers in reevaluating teaching practices, thus bringing to life a vision of an alternative classroom environment in which the teacher is the prime mover and creative leader. Zaragoza discusses and explains the need for teachers to be decision makers, reflective thinkers, political beings, and agents of social change in order to create a positive and inclusive classroom setting. This book is both a critical text that deconstructs the way language arts are traditionally taught in our schools as well as a visionary text with clear, no-nonsense directions on how to provide much needed change in our schools.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415931724
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	03/01/2002
Series:	Sociocultural, Political, and Historical Studies in Education
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	238
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Nina Zaragoza is currently an English Language Teacher/ Consultant at The American Home in Vladimir, Russia.

Table of Contents

Letter 1: Introduction Letter 2: The Reflective Educator: Rethinking the Teacher as Practitioner Letter 3: Teaching within Community: Rethinking Blocked Schedules Letter 4: Broadening Our Definitions: Rethinking What We Say About Our Children and Their Learning Letter 5: Children as Authors in a Writers' Workshop: Rethinking My Summer Vacation Letter 6: Teaching as Human Community: Rethinking the Bluebirds, Robins and Buzzards Letter 7: Allowing Students to Think: Rethinking Teaching Students What to Think Letter 8: Playwrights in Action: Rethinking Poetry and Drama in the Classroom Letter 9: Authentic Evaluation: Rethinking the Friday Spelling Tests Letter 10: The Nature of Instruction: Rethinking Objectives, Procedures, and Evaluation Letter 11: Classroom Interactions: Rethinking Classroom Management Letter 12: But Where's Your Desk? Rethinking Classroom Design Letter 13: For Now Farewell: Rethinking Getting the Children Ready for Next Year Letter 14: P.S.: Some Last Thoughts

Editorial Reviews

"[Zaragoza's] views have received more than customary acceptance in the past by education professors who assign required reading material in their courses on language arts instruction in elementary schools." — Teacher's College Record
"Interweaving stories, dialogues, plays, poetry, lesson plans, course designs, and students' journals with reflections on philosophical, pedagogical, political and psychological questions arising in teaching, Nina Zaragoza unfolds before our eyes the drama of educating our young, with all its challenges and paradoxes and joy and rewards. In the spirit of Paulo Freire and in her aspiration to "Be the change you want to see," the author of Rethinking Language Arts] compels us to ponder what it is to be a teacher and helps us learn how to be a good one." — Xin Liu Gale, Author of Teachers, Discourses, and Authority in the Postmodern Composition Classroom

From the Publisher

Interweaving stories, dialogues, plays, poetry, lesson plans, course designs, and students' journals with reflections on philosophical, pedagogical, political and psychological questions arising in teaching, Nina Zaragoza unfolds before our eyes the drama of educating our young, with all its challenges and paradoxes and joy and rewards. In the spirit of Paulo Freire and in her aspiration to "Be the change you want to see," the author of Rethinking Language Arts] compels us to ponder what it is to be a teacher and helps us learn how to be a good one.

Xin Liu Gale