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While not forcing one particular philosophy on the reader, articles by authors like Peter Elbow, Douglas B. Park, Lisa Ede and Andrea Lunsford offer different perspectives on different ares of the teaching process. These articles help the reader decide how important "audience" is, and whether literature has a place in a freshman composition course.
Chapters cover such areas as: "Teachers," "Students," "Approaches," "Perspectives," "Composing and Revising," and "Styles," among other things. This book would be incredibly useful for a new teacher, a potential teacher, or even a student interested in further developing his or her own writing skills. The book offers ideas for a teacher to help a student with typical writing roadblocks: how to start, how to get organized, and how to overcome writer's block. An invaluable tool that has helped me not only develop my own philosophy on teaching, but has also helped me in my own writing process.
The most interesting essays address the problem of social class within academia itself. For example, Olivia Frey writes, "The regard (disregard) for composition and composition teachers has interesting parallels with the daily struggles of workers and laborers, and their status within society at large." Although the sentiment here is nothing incredibly new, the fact that it is stated in print is in itself significant and might disturb many composition instructors (and their administrators) who are in deep denial about where they are and what they do.
At times the collection turns on itself, however, with some contributors appearing to advocate relaxed standards and "dumbing down" theories based solely on the social class of students. As a whole, the book would be more effective if it focused entirely on the problem of social class within the teaching profession, but it's still a great read.
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