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Front Matter

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Editor's Message.

Jaepl, Vol. 15, Winter 2009-2010, Kristie S. Fleckenstein, Linda T. Calendrillo

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Essays

Peter Elbow - Reflections from a Grateful Guest Editor

Sheridan Blau - Believing and Doubting as Hermeneutic Metbod: Reading and Teaching Paradue Lost

Tim Doherty - Lessons from tbe Believing Game

Anne Ellen Geller - The Difficulty of Believing in Writing Across the Curriculum

Shelly Sheats Harkness, Catherine Pullin Lane, Sue Mau, Amber Brass - The Believing Game in Mathematics: Stories in a Discipline of Doubt

Judy Lightfoot - Saying Yes to Freestyle Volunteering: Doubting and Believing

Clyde Moneyhun - Believing, Doubting, Deciding, Acting

Irene Papoulis - A Refiection on Habitual Belief and Habitual Doubt

Stephanie Paterson - Friday …

Lessons From The Believing Game, Tim Doherty

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

My essay reflects on different lessons I have learned in using the believing game to promote deliberative dialogue in first-year writing courses. I have learned that it helps not to be in a hurry: spending enough preparation time with students thinking about belief itself, listening to students' stories and sense of attachment to beliefs, and playing the game repeatedly. I also explore the believing game as a mode of play, especially the fruitful way that role-play can be integrated into the believing game.

The Difficulty Of Believing In Writing Across The Curriculum, Anne Ellen Geller

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

What would happen if we tried to consider writing-acrossthe- curriculum work through the lens of Peter Elbows methodological believing? If we were to believe that every faculty person in the university is a writer, thinks about writing, and teaches writing in his or her own way, what virtues would we find that doubting leads us to disqualify?

The Believing Game In Mathematics: Stories In A Discipline Of Doubt, Shelly Sheats Harkness, Catherin Pullin Lane, Sue Mau, Amber Brass

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Many people view mathematics as a discipline of certainty and rigidity. Answers are either right or wrong, and, when they are wrong, it is easy to play the doubting game. We invite readers into our mathematics classrooms as we story our attempts to play the believing game. We provide a lens into how we suspended our own logic, assumptions, and interpretations until we first tried to "unpack, " understand, and honor our students' logic, assumptions, and interpreta· tions. Within our individual stories, elements of tension, surprise, and wonder emerged as collective themes.

Saying Yes To Freestyle Volunteering: Doubting And Believing, Judy Lightfoot

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

My formerly academic interest in Peter Elbow's work developed fresh relevance a few years ago after a member of my family was diagnosed with schizophrenia. To volunteer "outside the box" with individuals who suffer from mental illness or homelessness, I needed a skeptic's doubt as well as an enthusiast :S belief But the first step was believing.

Believing, Doubting, Deciding, Acting, Clyde Moneyhun

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

I used Peter Elbow's believing and doubting games and cooked up two games of my own, to structure a first-year writing class aimed at teaching students to read and reason critically. The first new game has been hinted at by Elbow himself: the deciding game, in which students used their exercises in believing and doubting to make up their minds about a topic. The second new game, which my students called the living game, asked them to extend their intellectual decisions into the world and take or recommend actions based on them. This was all enacted through a series of …

A Reflection On Habitual Belief And Habitual Doubt, Irene Papoulis

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Some people are habitual "believers" while others are habitual "doubters." I' m a believer, but doubting others helps me believe myself I explore the idea that examining our individual habitual relationships with believing and doubting helps us think better and relate better to others and to ourselves.

Friday Writes: An Exercise In The Believing Game, Stephanie Paterson

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

I introduce the basic principles for the practice of proprioceptive writing and describe the experience and outcomes of incorporating this ungraded writing into three undergraduate compostion classes. I offer this as a case study of a writer, teacher, and reflective practitioner emboldened by Peter Elbow's believing game, and I point out some of the intellectual and pedagogical discoveries that emerged in my fourteen-week experiment.

Before Belief: Embodiment And The “Trying Game”, Donna Strickland

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

I use my experience of teaching "Mindful Writing" to reflect on the pre-cognitive act of "trying out" new ideas. It seems that there's an important piece of the believing game that happens before the cognitive act of belief and that involves the body as much as the mind.

A Highly Incomplete Bibliography, Peter Elbow

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

I’m nervous to include this because I’ve not read a lot of these books and articles, and the whole thing is so inadequate for such a large topic. Many are titles I’ve jotted down for when I “have time.” But the list also includes a few suggestions from the authors in this issue, though this list mostly doesn’t duplicate the valuable Works Cited sections they’ve put with each of their essays. I’m risking the amateur quality of this enterprise in hopes that it can help others to pursue an important issue. (At the end, I’ve listed my various essays about …

Reviews, Julie J. Nichols, Charles Suhor, Edward Sullivan

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Reviews

Julie J. Nichols - Meaning and The Evolution of Consciousness: A Retrospective on the Writing of Owen Barfield

Charles Suhor - The Great Transfonnation: The Beginnings of Our Religious Traditions

Charles Suhor - The Chalice and the Blade

Edward Sullivan - The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance

Connecting, Helen Walker, Andrew Statum, Vic Kryston, Jie Li, Dominique Zino, Joonna Smitherman Trapp

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Connecting - Helen Walker

Andrew Statum - The Question

Vic Kryston -Conflict Resolution

Jie Li - Teaching with Accent

Dominique Zino - Space

Joonna Smitherman Trapp - Composition Class 7:45 AM

Back Matter

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

No abstract provided.

Reflections From A Grateful Guest Edit, Peter Elbow

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

No abstract provided.

Believing And Doubting As Hermeneutic Method: Reading And Teaching Paradise Lost, Sheridan Blau

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Using a variation on Peter Elbow's believing game, I help students discover the degree to which Milton in Paradise Lost succeeds in his explicit attempt to justify God's ways to man and in that success also offers us an account of human happiness and misery that is psychologically sophisticated, spiritually illuminating, entirely rational, and supremely wise as a guide to living a humanly satisfying life. Such an approach to Paradise Lost also fosters an experience of the text through which many students undergo a modern version of the spiritual transformation and enlightenment that Milton explicitly aimed to make possible for …