Teaching Literature & Writing in the Secondary School Classroom
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About this ebook
This book contains four essays written over twenty-eight years ago while I was teaching writing and literature in the secondary school classroom. The four essays I have included here, published in various English journals over the years, represent what I once believed were original and effective approaches to teaching writing and literature.
I do not wish to make apologies for the unpolished prose style of the essays or for arguments I once would have avidly defended, but today no longer stir a whole lot of zeal in me. I offer them to you as they appeared in the journals and anthologies. Hopefully a new generation of English teachers will find a few of the ideas contained in the essays of some value today.
Michael Segedy
Michael Segedy is an award winning author. Over the years he has lived abroad in faraway places such as Taiwan, Israel, Morocco, and Peru. His life overseas has inspired him to write thrillers that include scenes set in foreign lands. Several of his works have won recognition in international book awards contests. Novels to date: Hampton Road, young adult thriller In Deep, a political thriller Cupiditas, a political thriller Evil's Root, includes In Deep and Cupiditas EMMA: Emergent Movement of Militant Anarchists, a terrorist thriller Our Darker Angel, a political, psychological thriller The Bed Sheet Serial Killer, crime thriller A Lethal Partnership, political thriller Sanctimonious Serial Killers, includes The Bed Sheet Serial Killer and A Lethal Partnership Why Blame the Stars? young adult thriller mystery Into the Twilight, social science fiction Apart from writing novels, Michael has published three non-fiction works: A Critical Look at John Gardner's Grendel Teaching Literature and Writing in the Secondary Classroom Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson with Introduction, Notes, and Lessons by Michael Segedy He's also published numerous academic articles about literature and writing in various scholarly journals. Gwendolyn Brooks, former poet laureate of Illinois, presented him with Virginia English Bulletin's first place writing award.
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Teaching Literature & Writing in the Secondary School Classroom - Michael Segedy
Teaching Literature & Writing
in the Secondary School Classroom
Michael Segedy
Copyright © 2011 by Michael Segedy
Published by Smashwords
ISBN: 9781465768247
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author.
Introduction
This book contains four essays written over twenty-eight years ago while I was teaching writing and literature in the secondary school classroom. The four essays I have included here, published in various English journals over the years, represent what I once believed were original and effective approaches to teaching writing and literature.
I do not wish to make apologies for the unpolished prose style of the essays or for arguments I once would have avidly defended, but today no longer stir a whole lot of zeal in me. I offer them to you as they appeared in the journals and anthologies. Hopefully a new generation of English teachers will find a few of the ideas contained in the essays of some value today.
About the Author
Most of his adult life, Michael has lived overseas (Peru, Morocco, Israel, and Taiwan) teaching high school literature and technology.
He has published numerous academic articles about literature and writing, as well as two novels, Hampton Road and Evil’s Root.
In 1985, Gwendolyn Brooks, poet laureate of Illinois, presented him with Virginia English Bulletin's first place writing award.
Michael and his family currently live in Lima, Peru, and with his family's support and encouragement he hopes soon to complete his third novel.
Table of Contents
Teaching Writing in the Classroom Wisconsin English Journal (1990)
An Approach to Teaching and Writing Poetry Virginia English Bulletin (1984)
Adapting the Courtroom Trial Format to Literature. NCTE’s book on critical thinking, Activities to Promote Critical Thinking (1986)
A Multilevel Writing for Discovery Approach Maryland English Journal (1987)
Teaching Writing in the Classroom
Until relatively recent history, the teaching of composition has focused exclusively on the surface features of single draft compositions. During the seventies and early eighties, composition theory underwent, as described by Richard Young (1978) and Patricia Bizzell (1979), a paradigm shift.
Theoretical attention focused on the act of composing with research keying in on heuristics, creativity, imagination, and the overall role of the student in the thinking-writing process.
Decades later, writing as product continues to be viewed, in theory, with glowing skepticism, since such an approach divorces composing from the thinking-writing process. Supportive research has been amassed to uproot the notion that composition can be taught by teaching grammar/mechanics to the exclusion of teaching students to use written