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In her moving and personal book Enticing Hard-to-Reach Writers. Ruth Ayres weaves together her experience as a mother, teacher, and writer. She explores the power of stories to heal children from troubled backgrounds and offers up strategies for helping students discover and write about their own stories of strength and survival. She shares her own struggles and triumphs and hard-earned lessons from raising a family of four adopted children. Her experience is invaluable to any teacher whose has met children living in poverty, in unstable households, or in fear of abuse. Ayres explores brain research and the ways trauma can change the brain and how encouraging all students to write can help offset some of these effects. She believes that all students benefit from revealing their stories, by communicating information and opinion that allows darkness to turn to light in the lives of children. In the last part of her book she offers up practical suggestions for enticing all writers, regardless of their struggles. Enticing Hard-to-Reach Writers invites you on a journey to become a teacher who refuses to give up on any student, who helps children believe that they can have a positive impact on the world, and who-in some cases becomes the last hope for a child to heal.

\"Learning Legacies explores the history of cross-cultural teaching approaches, to highlight how women writer-educators used stories about their collaborations to promote community-building. Robbins demonstrates how educators used stories that resisted dominant conventions and expectations about learners to navigate cultural differences. Using case studies of educational initiatives on behalf of African American women, Native American children, and the urban poor, Learning Legacies promotes the importance of knowledge grounded in the histories and cultures of the many racial and ethnic groups that have always comprised America's populace, underscoring the value of rich cultural knowledge in pedagogy by illustrating how creative teachers still draw on these learning legacies today\"-- Provided by publisher.

What is the role of narrative in how people learn throughout their lives? Are there different patterns and forms of narrativity? How do they influence learning? Based on data gathered for the Learning Lives project, which sought to understand learning by questioning individuals about their life stories, this book seeks to define a new learning theory which focuses on the role of narrative and narration in learning. Through a number of detailed case-studies based on longitudinal interviews conducted over three and four-year periods with a wide range of life story informants, Narrative Learning highlights the role of narrative and narration in an individual’s learning and understanding of how they act in the world. The authors explore a domain of learning and human subjectivity which is vital but currently unexplored in learning and teaching and seek to re-position learning within the ongoing preoccupation with identity and agency. The ‘interior conversations’ whereby a person defines their personal thoughts and courses of action and creates their own stories and life missions, is situated at the heart of a person’s map of learning and understanding of their place in the world. The insights presented seek to show that most people spend a significant amount of time rehearsing and recounting their life-story, which becomes a strong influence on their actions and agency, and an important site of learning in itself. Narrative Learning seeks to shift the focus of learning from the prescriptivism of a strongly defined curriculum to accommodate personal narrative styles and thereby encourage engagement and motivation in the learning process. Hence the book has radical and far-reaching implications for existing Governmental policies on school curriculum. The book will be of particular interest to professionals, educational researchers, policy-makers, undergraduate and postgraduate learners and all of those involved with education theory, CPD, adult education and lifelong learning. Ivor F. Goodson is Professor of Learning Theory at the Education Research Centre, University of Brighton, UK. Gert J.J. Biesta is Professor of Education at the Stirling Institute of Education, University of Stirling, UK. Michael Tedder is an honorary Research Fellow in the Graduate School of Education, University of Exeter, UK. Norma Adair is a former Research Fellow at the Education Research Centre, University of Brighton, UK. 1. Introduction: Life, Narrative and Learning 2. John Peel 3. Marie Tuck 4. Maggie Holman 5. Diogenes 6. Christopher 7. Paul Larsen 8. Eva 9. Russell Jackson 10. Towards a Theory of Narrative Learning

We live in an age of narrative: life stories are a crucial ingredient in what makes us human and, in turn, what kind of human they make us. In recent years, narrative analysis has grown and is used across many areas of research. Interest in this rapidly developing approach now requires the firm theoretical underpinning that would allow researchers to both approach such research in a reliably structured way, and to interpret the results more effectively. Developing Narrative Theory looks at the contemporary need to study life narratives, considers the emergence and salience of life narratives in contemporary culture, and discusses different forms of narrativity. It shows in detail how life story interviews are conducted, and demonstrates how the process often begins with relatively unstructured life story collection but moves to a more collaborative exchange, where sociological themes and historical patterns are scrutinised and mutually explored. At the core of this book, the author shows that, far from there being a singular form of narrative or an infinite range of unique and idiosyncratic narratives, there are in fact clusters of narrativity and particular types of narrative style. These can be grouped into four main areas: Focussed Elaborators; Scripted Describers; Armchair Elaborators; and Focussed Describers. Drawing on data from several large-scale studies from countries across the world, Professor Goodson details how theories of narrativity and life story analysis can combine to inform learning potential. Timely and innovative, this book will be of use to all of those employing narrative and life history methods in their research. It will also be of interest to those working in lifelong learning and with professional and self development practices. (Verlag).

Use these fascinating first-person accounts to bring real-world problems into the classroom! The Use of Personal Narratives in the Helping Professions: A Teaching Casebook is a collection of personal narratives, short stories, and poetry about mental illness and other life-affecting problems, mostly in the context of family life. Each selection is accompanied by questions for discussion; selected reading lists are provided with each chapter. Beginning with problems related to childhood, the stories range through adolescence, adulthood, and old age. This unique book provides students and educators in psychology, social work, and counseling with an in-depth understanding of various mental illnesses and psychosocial problems through the life cycle. Its stories and narratives give students the unique opportunity to experience \"from the inside\" what it is like to live with an eating disorder or struggle with a compulsion phobia. The Use of Personal Narratives in the Helping Professions is more than a teaching tool. These stories are more than thought provoking, more than simply insightful. They are truly fascinating--each a candid, no-holds-barred glimpse into the personal reality of its narrator--and will inspire the kind of discussions that the best courses and instructors are remembered for. Your students will most likely have finished the book before the class has finished discussing the first chapter! With The Use of Personal Narratives in the Helping Professions, your students will explore: family relationships under various types of stress how families cope with physical illness what happens to the family when a loved one struggles with mental illness the impact of racial issues the effects of sexual abuse and domestic violence the process of healing from childhood trauma . . . and much more! The Use of Personal Narratives in the Helping Professions provides first-hand knowledge of wha

What stories can we tell of ourselves and others and why should they be of interest to others? Exploring Learning, Identity and Power through Life History and Narrative Research responds to these questions with examples from diverse educational and social contexts. The book brings together a collection of writing by different authors who use a narrative/life history approach to explore the experiences of a wide range of people, including teachers, nurses, young people and adults, reflecting on learning and education at significant moments in their lives. In addition, each chapter provides an account by the author of the process of constructing research narratives, and the second chapter of the book focuses specifically on ethical issues in life history and narrative research. This book: provides vivid examples of a narrative/life history approach to research uses narrative/life history to explore identity, power and social justice offers an effective model for practice. With contributions from a number of international experts, this book addresses key issues of social justice and power played out within different contexts, and also discusses the ethics of narrative research directly. The book makes a timely contribution to the growing interest in the use of narrative and life history research. With the increasing importance of continuing professional development for many working in education, health and social service contexts, the book will be of interest to both students and researchers, as it provides clear examples of how researching professionals can use narrative research to investigate a particular area of interest. Ann-Marie Bathmaker is Professor of Further Education and Lifelong Learning at the University of the West of England, Bristol, UK. Penelope Harnett is Reader in Education and Head of the Department of Primary, Early Childhood and Education Studies at the University of the West of England, Bristol, UK. 1. Introduction to the book, Ann-Marie Bathmaker and Penelope Harnett 2. The ethics of writing life histories and narratives in educational research, Pat Sikes 3. Literacy and numeracy histories – A case study of one child and his parent’s accounts of what was learned, Jane Andrews Senior Lecturer in Education 4. Interrogating identity and belonging through life history: experiences of overseas nurses in post colonial Britain, Shekar Bheenuck 5. ‘I lived down the road from you’: exploring power and identity, then and now, Jacky Brine 6. In Our Own Words. From Action to Learning Dialogues, Nick Clough 7. A process of (un)becoming: life history research and the connection between the personal, professional and teacher professional development, Christine Halse 8. This Do In Remembrance of Me: Narrative Uncertainty and the Frothing of Contentious Identity, James Haywood Rolling, Jr. 9. I’m being measured as an NQT, that isn’t who I am’: second career teachers entering the culture of the primary school, Liz Newman 10. A History of Not Seeing, Invisibility and Anchors: Images of Ethnic Minorities in History Textbooks, Dean Smart 11. Changing identities through re-engagement with education: Two narrative accounts, Richard Waller 12. Conclusion, Penelope Harnett and Ann-Marie Bathmaker

This book explores the concept of life curriculum, where students reconstruct past experiences to influence their future. It emphasizes integrating life experiences with school curriculum, continuously adapting values and beliefs to changes in the environment, transforming curriculum into a process of constructing life.

In this engrossing memoir, poet and literacy scholar Eli Goldblatt shares the intimate ways reading and writing influenced the first thirty years of his life—in the classroom but mostly outside it. Writing Home: A Literacy Autobiography traces Goldblatt’s search for home and his growing recognition that only through his writing life can he fully contextualize the world he inhabits.   Goldblatt connects his educational journey as a poet and a teacher to his conception of literacy, and assesses his intellectual, emotional, and political development through undergraduate and postgraduate experiences alongside the social imperatives of the era. He explores his decision to leave medical school after he realized that he could not compartmentalize work and creative life or follow in his surgeon father’s footsteps. A brief first marriage rearranged his understanding of gender and sexuality, and a job teaching in an innercity school initiated him into racial politics. Literacy became a dramatic social reality when he witnessed the start of the national literacy campaign in postrevolutionary Nicaragua and spent two months finding his bearings while writing poetry in Mexico City. Goldblatt presents a thoughtful and exquisitely crafted narrative of his life to illustrate that literacy exists at the intersection of individual and social life and is practiced in relationship to others. While the concept of literacy autobiography is a common assignment in undergraduate and graduate writing courses, few books model the exercise. Writing Home helps fill that void and, with Goldblatt’s emphasis on “out of school” literacy, fosters an understanding of literacy as a social practice.    

Identity Matters explores the question that consistently plagues composition teachers: why do their pedagogies so often fail? Donna LeCourt suggests that the answer may lie with the very identities, values, and modes of expression higher education cultivates. In a book that does precisely what it theorizes, LeCourt analyzes student-written literacy autobiographies to examine how students interact with and challenge cultural theories of identity. This analysis demonstrates that writing instruction does, indeed, matter and has a significant influence on how students imagine their potential in both academic and cultural realms. LeCourt paints not only a compelling and vexing picture of how students interact with academic discourse as both mind and body, but also offers hope for a reconceived pedagogy of social-material writing practice.