DOCUMENT RESUME ED 463 552 CS 510 949 AUTHOR Yagelski, Robert P., Ed.; Leonard, Scott A., Ed. TITLE The Relevance of English: Teaching That Matters in Students' Lives. Refiguring English Studies. INSTITUTION National Council of Teachers of English, Urbana, IL. ISBN ISBN-0-8141-3989-2 ISSN ISSN-1073-9637 PUB DATE 2002-00-00 NOTE 452p.; A volume in the Refiguring English Studies series. AVAILABLE FROM National Council of Teachers of English, 1111 W. Kenyon Road, Urbana, IL 61801-1096 (Stock No. 39892-1659: $34.95 members, $44.95 nonmembers). Tel: 800-369-6283 (Toll Free); Web site: http://www.ncte.org. PUB TYPE Books (010) Collected Works General (020) Opinion Papers (120) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC19 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Business; Curriculum Development; Economics; *English Instruction; English Teachers; Futures (of Society); Higher Education; *Literacy; *Relevance (Education); Secondary Education; Technological Advancement IDENTIFIERS African Americans; Critical Literacy ABSTRACT An effort to contribute to the "story" of English teaching in the United States at the dawn of the new millennium, this book presents 17 essays that tell diverse and complex stories of the value and difficulty of teaching English. The voices in this volume represent an eclectic rather than a comprehensive group of teachers and scholars, some familiar, some perhaps less so, who draw from their experiences in secondary and postsecondary English classrooms to examine the question of the relevance of their work to the lives of their students. After an introduction: "The (Ir)relevance of English at the Turn of the Millennium" (Robert P. Yagelski), essays in Section I, Contexts: American Culture and the Study of English, are: (1) "The Academic Language Gap" (Gerald Graff); (2) "When the Multicultural Leaves the Race: Some Common Terms Reconsidered" (Victor Villanueva); (3) "It's Not an Economy, Stupid! The Education-as-Product Metaphor as Viewed from the English Classroom" (Scott A. Leonard); (4) "Literacy, Gender, and Adolescence: School-Sponsored English as Identity Maintenance" (Margaret J. Finders); (5) "On the Business of English Studies" (Stephen M. North); and "Exchange: Economies, Politics, and English Studies" (Finders, North, Leonard, and Villanueva) .Essays in Section II, Changes: English Classrooms in an Evolving World, are: (6) "The High School English Teacher: A Relevant Member in a Good Tribe" (Donald L. Tinney); (7) "Promoting a Relevant Classroom Literacy: Personal Growth and Communal Action in a Middle Grades Curricular Development Project" (Sarah Robbins, with Mary Miesiaszek and Beth Davis);(8) "Women in Mind: The Culture of First-Year English and the Nontraditional Returning Woman Student" (Patricia Shelley Fox); (9) "Community College English: Diverse Backgrounds, Diverse Needs" (Kathleen R. Cheney);(10) "The Relevance of Paulo Freire on Liberatory Dialogue and Writing in the Classroom" (Christina Kirklighter);(11) "Surviving Intact: African American Women Negotiating Scholarly Identities through Graduate School Writing" (Juanita Rodgers Comfort); and "Exchange: Literacy, Classrooms, and Students' Lives" (Fox, Tinney, Kirklighter, Cheney, Robbins, Comfort) .Essays in Section III, Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Futures: English Studies for the New Millennium, are: (12) "The Future of English Studies Made Personal, or, The Subversive Act of Teaching Well" (Valerie Hardin Drye);(13) "Cybrarians and Scholars in the New English Classroom" (Ted Nellen); (14) "The Past and Future of (Two-Year) College English Studies" (Mark Reynolds);(15) "Enacting Cultures: The Practice of Comparative Cultural Study" (Paula Mathieu and James J. Sosnoski);(16) "Critical Technological Literacy and English Studies: Teaching, Learning, and Action" (Richard J. Selfe and Cynthia L. Selfe);(17) "The Plural Commons: Meeting the Future of English Studies" (Kathleen Blake Yancey); and "Exchange: Language, Technology, and the Future of English Studies" (Drye, Reynolds, Mathieu, Sosnoski, R. Selfe, and Yancey). Contains an afterword by Richard M. Ohmann. (RS) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ti = J matters hi dents° 4 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDCICATION Office of Educational Research and improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND O This document has been reproduced as DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS received from the person or organization BEEN GRANTED BY originating it. O Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. ±LAEkets -Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 1 11. , . I I 9 I 41 2 BEST COPY AVAILABLE RefiguringRefiguring English Studies provides a forum for scholarship on English studies as a discipline, a pro- ENGLISH fession, and a vocation. To that end, the series pub- STUDIES I lishes historical work that considers the ways in which English studies has constructed itself and its objects of study; investigations of the relationships among its con- stituent parts as conceived in both disciplinary and institutional terms; and examinations of the role the discipline has played or should play in the larger society and public policy. In addition, the series seeks to feature studies that, by their form or focus, challenge our notions about how the written "work" of English can or should be done and to feature writings that represent the professional lives of the discipline's members in both traditional and nontraditional set- tings. The series also includes scholarship that considers the discipline's possible futures or that draws upon work in other disci- plines to shed light on developments in English studies. Volumes in the Series David B. Downing, editor, Changing Classroom Practices: Resources for Literary and Cultural Studies (1994) Jed Rasula, The American Poetry Wax Museum: Reality Effects, 1940-1990 (1995) James A. Berlin, Rhetorics, Poetics, and Cultures: Refiguring Col- lege English Studies (1996) Robin Varnum, Fencing with Words: A History of Writing Instruc- tion at Amherst College during the Era of Theodore Baird, 1938-1966 (1996) Jane Maher, Mina P. Shaughnessy: Her Life and Work (1997) Michael Blitz and C. Mark Hurlbert, Letters for the Living: Teach- ing Writing in a Violent Age (1998) Bruce Homer and Min-Zhan Lu, Representing the "Other": Basic Writers and the Teaching of Basic Writing (1999) Stephen M. North, with Barbara A. Chepaitis, David Coogan, Lile Davidson, Ron MacLean, Cindy L. Parrish, Jonathan Post, and Beth Weatherby, Refiguring the Ph.D. in English Studies: Writ- ing, Doctoral Education, and the Fusion-Based Curriculum (2000) Stephen Parks, Class Politics: The Movement for the Students' Right to Their Own Language (2000) Charles M. Anderson and Marian M. Mac Curdy, Writing and Heal- ing: Toward an Informed Practice (2000) Anne J. Herrington and Marcia Curtis, Persons in Process: Four Stories of Writing and Personal Development in College (2000) Amy Lee, Composing Critical Pedagogies: Teaching Writing as Re- vision (2000) Derek Owens, Composition and Sustainability: Teaching for a Threat- ened Generation (2001) Chris W. Gallagher, Radical Departures: Composition and Progres- sive Pedagogy (2002) The Relevance of English Teaching That Matters in Students' Lives Edited by ROBERT P. YAGELSKI University at Albany, State University of New York SCOTT A. LEONARD Youngstown State University National Council of Teachers of English 1111 W. Kenyon Road, Urbana, Illinois 61801-1096 5 NCTE EDITORIAL BOARD: Jacqueline Bryant, Kermit Campbell, Willie Mae Crews, Colleen Fairbanks, Andrea Lunsford, Gerald R. Og lan, Jackie Swensson, Gail Wood, Zarina M. Hock, Chair, ex officio, Kent Williamson, ex officio, Kurt Austin, ex officio Staff Editor: Tom Tiller Interior Design: Jenny Jensen Greenleaf Cover Design: Pat Mayer NCTE Stock Number: 39892-3050 ©2002 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or trans- mitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including pho- tocopy, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the copyright holder. Printed in the United States of America. It is the policy of NCTE in its journals and other publications to provide a forum for the open discussion of ideas concerning the content and the teach- ing of English and the language arts. Publicity accorded to any particular point of view does not imply endorsement by the Executive Committee, the Board of Directors, or the membership at large, except in announcements of policy, where such endorsement is clearly specified. Although every attempt is made to ensure accuracy at the time of publication, NCTE cannot guarantee that all published addresses for electronic mail or Web sites are current. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The relevance of English : teaching that matters in students' lives / edited by Robert P. Yagelski, Scott A. Leonard. p. cm. (Refiguring English studies, ISSN 1073-9637) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8141-3989-2 (pbk.) 1. English philologyStudy and teaching (Higher)United States. 2. En- glish philologyStudy and teaching (Secondary)United States.3. En- glish philologyStudy and teaching (Higher)Social aspectsUnited States. 4. English philologyStudy and teaching (Secondary)Social aspects United States. I.