This collection--of the stories of scholars who have found a lifelong commitment to the teaching of writing--includes the professional histories of 19 rhetoricians and compositionists who explain how they came to fall in love with the written word and with teaching. Their stories are filled with personal anecdotes--some funny, some touching, some mundane. All of the stories are fascinating because they demonstrate how scholars' personal and professional lives intertwine.
These stories also help to situate the scholars, their work, and, importantly, the development of the profession. They...

This is a collection of stories - stories of scholars who have found a lifelong commitment to the teaching of writing. It includes the professional histories of nineteen rhetoricians and compositionists who explain how they came to fall in love with the written word and with teaching. Their stories are filled with personal anecdotes - some funny, some touching, some mundane. All of the stories demonstrate how scholars' personal and professional lives intertwine. These stories also help to situate the scholars, their work, and, importantly, the development of the profession.

This text, based on Louise M. Rosenblatt's transactional model of literature, focuses on the application of transactional reader-response theory in the classroom. It grows from frequent requests from secondary school and college teachers for teaching suggestions on how to put theory into practice. This is not a "What should I do on Monday?" cookbook, but an expression of the practice of theory in college and secondary school classrooms.
The chapters portray a spectrum of strategies--including biopoems, expressive and imaginative writing, journal writing, readers' theater, role playing,...