Reclaiming Reading

Inviting teachers back to the role of reflective advocates for thoughtful reading instruction, this book presents theory and pedagogical possibilities to reclaim and build upon the knowledge base that was growing when government mandates, scripted commercial programs, and high stakes tests took over as the dominant agenda for reading instruction in U.S. public schools. Focusing on literacy learners’ and their teachers’ lives as literate souls, it examines how the teaching of reading can be reclaimed via an intensive reconsideration of five pillars as central to the teaching and learning of reading: learning, teaching, curriculum, language, and sociocultural contexts. Reclaiming Reading articulates the knowledge base that was marginalized or disrupted by legislated and policy intrusions into classrooms and provides practical examples for taking good reading instruction out of the cracks and moving it back to the center of the classroom. Explaining what happens in readers’ minds as they read and how teachers can design practices to support that process, this book encourages teachers to initiate pedagogy that will help them begin or return to the stance of reflective, knowledgeable, professional decision-makers.

At a time when literacy has become more of a political issue than a research or pedagogical one, this volume refocuses attention on work with young children that places them at the center of their literacy worlds. Drawing on robust and growing knowledge which is often marginalized because of political and legislative forces, it explores young children’s literacies as inclusive, redefined, and broadened—encompassing technologies, the arts, multiple modalities, and teaching and learning for democracy, cultural sustainability and social justice. Highlighted themes include children’s rights to grow through playful engagements with multiple literacies to interrogate their worlds; adults who expand and inspire children’s consciousness and awareness of others and the world around them; the centrality of meaning making in all aspects of language and literacy development; a deep respect for diversities, including languages, cultures, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status and more; and an expansive understanding of the nature of texts.

With passion, clarity, and rich examples, Reclaiming Writing is dedicated to reawakening the journeys that writers take as they make sense of, think about, and speak back to their worlds in this era of high-stakes testing and mandated curricula. Classrooms and out-of-school settings are described and analyzed in exciting and groundbreaking narratives that provide insights into the many possibilities for writing that support writers’ searches for voice, identity, and agency. Offering pedagogical strategies and the knowledge base in which they are grounded, the book looks at writing within various areas of the curriculum and across modes of writing from traditional text-based forums to digital formats. Thematically based sections present the pillars of the volume’s critical transactive theory: learning, teaching, curriculum, language, and sociocultural contexts. Each chapter is complemented by an extension that offers application possibilities for teachers in various settings. Reclaiming Writing emphasizes literacy as a vehicle for exploring, interrogating, challenging, finding self, talking back to power, creating a space in the world, reflecting upon the past, and thinking forward to a more joyful and democratic future.

Fact: Children are more anxious, aggressive, and shut down than ever. br> Faced with this epidemic of emotional health crises and behavioral problems, teachers are asking themselves what went wrong. Why have we lost our students? More importantly: how can we get them back? Hannah Beach, a celebrated educator and specialist in the field of emotional health, and Tamara Neufeld Strijack, Clinical Counsellor and Academic Dean of the acclaimed Neufeld Institute, provide a thoughtful guide to restoring the student-teacher relationship and creating the conditions for change. Reclaiming Our Students arms teachers with strategies to reassert their leadership role and build emotional safety in the classroom. The result: students can get back to learning, and teachers can get back to teaching You'll learn: - How to build, feed, and protect the student-teacher relationship - Why children are anxious or bossy, aggressive or checked out, and what teachers can do to address these behavioral issues at their root - How you can help students and classes shift their identity as the "problem student" or "bad class" - Experiential activities for students of all ages that preserve and restore emotional health and well-being Plus, you'll find special considerations and information for parents, principals, counsellors, and home educators for building safety and support in the learning environment. Combining Hannah's groundbreaking experiential approach to creating emotional health and community in the classroom with the Neufeld Institute's insightful approach to building relationships and making sense of children, Reclaiming Our Students is required reading for teachers who not only want to understand and overcome daily challenges, but also re-connect to their calling as educators.

Hamilton has been called many things over the years, some positive - the Ambitious City, Steeltown - some not so much - the armpit of Ontario. But the city has endured it all and continues on, undaunted. In this wide-ranging collection of essays editor Paul Weinberg has collected many of the stories that have made up Hamilton's latest rising. From lost neighbourhoods to the environmental battle over the Red Hill Valley Parkway, from the rise of citizen journalism to the birth and impact of the James Street North Art Crawl, from the continual fight for inclusion to the new fight against gentrification, Reclaiming Hamilton looks at how this complex, storied city is reinventing itself right now.

An engaging look at how technology is undermining our creativity and relationships and how face-to-face conversation can help us get it back.

Besides the editors, the essayists are Lori Chamberlain, Michael Clark, Dennis A. Foster, Jon Klancher, Randall Knoper, Elaine O. Lees, Mariolina Salvatori, and Nina Schwartz. Donahue and Quandahl present accessible and exciting efforts to explore composition teaching in a new mode-- perhaps, a pristine paradigm of cultural criticism. Approximately half of the essays investigate the pedagogical agenda implied in the theories of a particular writer-- Barthes, Lacan, or Burke, for example--and place such theories in the classroom. The remaining essays examine pedagogy as a critical practice. The book does not advocate a single method of instruction but instead reminds us that theory is itself continually modified by the classroom.

Have you ever wondered where the abundant life Scripture promises is, and how you seem to have missed it? Do you ever catch yourself saying, “Those were the best years of my life?” A failed relationship, a health crisis, a job loss, the death of a loved one—all can cause us to hide out, go numb, give up. Before we even know it, we’re simply coping with life instead of living it to the fullest. It happens to most of us at one point or another. For author and Bible study teacher Denise Hildreth Jones, it happened in the wake of her devastating divorce. But she fought desperately to reclaim her God-designed heart, and now, in her transparent, authentic style, Denise challenges you to do the same. Sharing stories from her own journey and others she’s walked alongside, Denise will help you identify ways you’ve given your heart to “lesser gods” like performance, people-pleasing, and control, and how to find your way back to God’s design for your life—to laughing, loving, and living life to the fullest.