In a world gone mad with standardized curricula and the degradation of the profession of teaching, P. L. Thomas and Joe Kincheloe attempt to bring sanity back to the discussion of the teaching of some of the basic features of the educational process. In Reading, Writing, and Thinking: The Postformal Basics the authors take on the "rational irrationality" of current imperial pedagogical practices, providing readers with provocative insights into the bizarre assumptions surrounding the contemporary teaching of reading, writing, and thinking. The authors are obsessed with producing an accessible...

Renita Schmidt and P. L. Thomas The guiding mission of the teacher education program in the university where we teach is to create teachers who are scholars and leaders. While the intent of that mission is basically sound in theory--we instill the idea that teachers at all levels are professionals, always learning and growing in knowledge--that theory, that philosophical underpinning does not insure that the students who complete our program are confident about the act or performance of teaching. In our unique program, students work closely with one teacher and classroom for the entire senior...

Our English classrooms are often only as vibrant as the literature that we teach. This book explores the writing of African American author Ralph Ellison, who offers readers and students engaging fiction and non-fiction that confront the reader and the world. Here, teachers will find an introduction to Ellison s works and an opportunity to explore how to bring them into the classroom as a part of the reading and writing curriculum. This book attempts to confront what we teach and how we teach as instructors of literature through the vivid texts Ellison offers his readers."

Comic books achieved almost immediate popularity and profitability when they were first introduced in the U.S. throughout the late 1930s and early 1940s. But comic books soon suffered attacks concerning the quality of this new genre/medium combining text and artwork. With the rise of graphic novels in the mid-1980s and the adaptation of comics to films in the twenty-first century, comics and graphic novels have gained more respect as craft and text-called "sequential art" by foundational legend Will Eisner-but the genre/medium remains marginalized by educators, parents, and the public....

Comic books achieved almost immediate popularity and profitability when they were first introduced in the U.S. throughout the late 1930s and early 1940s. But comic books soon suffered attacks concerning the quality of this new genre/medium combining text and artwork. With the rise of graphic novels in the mid-1980s and the adaptation of comics to films in the twenty-first century, comics and graphic novels have gained more respect as craft and text-called "sequential art" by foundational legend Will Eisner-but the genre/medium remains marginalized by educators, parents, and the public....

Renita Schmidt and P. L. Thomas The guiding mission of the teacher education program in the university where we teach is to create teachers who are scholars and leaders. While the intent of that mission is basically sound in theory--we instill the idea that teachers at all levels are professionals, always learning and growing in knowledge--that theory, that philosophical underpinning does not insure that the students who complete our program are confident about the act or performance of teaching. In our unique program, students work closely with one teacher and classroom for the entire senior...

Ignoring Poverty in the U.S.: The Corporate Takeover of Public Education examines the divide between a commitment to public education and our cultural myths and more powerful commitment to consumerism and corporate America. The book addresses poverty in the context of the following: the historical and conflicting purposes in public education-how schools became positivistic/behavioral in our quest to produce workers for industry; the accountability era-how A Nation at Risk through NCLB have served corporate interest in dismantling public education and dissolving teachers unions; the media and...

Ignoring Poverty in the U.S.: The Corporate Takeover of Public Education examines the divide between a commitment to public education and our cultural myths and more powerful commitment to consumerism and corporate America. The book addresses poverty in the context of the following: the historical and conflicting purposes in public education-how schools became positivistic/behavioral in our quest to produce workers for industry; the accountability era-how A Nation at Risk through NCLB have served corporate interest in dismantling public education and dissolving teachers unions; the media and...