Education Commons^™

Front Matter

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Editors' Message

Surrounded by the dead he had caused through his wanton murder of an albatross, the tortured mariner of Samuel Taylor Coleridge fame watches the water snakes beyond the shadow of his ghost ship and “blessed them unaware./The selfsame moment I could pray; And from my neck so free/The Albatross fell off, and sank/Like lead into the sea” (ll. 287-291). Without deliberately looking, he suddenly recognizes the beauty of all creatures and blesses them “unaware.” The sailor experiences a serendipitous moment, and through that accidental wisdom frees himself from his self-created purgatory.

Serendipity: Teaching for Accidental Wisdom serves as …

Spiritual Identities, Teacher Identities, And The Teaching Of Writing, Kilian Mccurrie

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Through a case study, this article examines the ways teacher identity and spiritual identity intersect in the teaching of writing. By showing that a teacher's pedagogy is prodoundly informed by a basic spiritual disposition, the author offers a view of teaching that is often neglected in studies of teacher identity.

The Experimental Art, Robert Root

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Nonfiction is an experimental art, as contemporary examples make clear, and writing teachers need to show students both how meaning arises from writers' experiments with material and also how form from writers' experiments at representing meaning.

Engaged Buddhism & Women In Black: Our Grief Is Not A Cry For War, Candace Walworth

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

This paper explores principles, practices, and manifestations of engaged Busshism in the United States. It includes a personal narrative based on the author's participation in Women in Black (a silent, symbolic protest against war) and classroom stories based on the author's experience teaching at a Buddhist-inspired university.

Encounters: Relationship In The Study And Teaching Of Literature, Christina Vischer Bruns

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

While trends in the teaching of literature of the last few decades may seem at odds with one another, the thread that can weave them together is a recognition of relationship among readers, text, author, and other readers.

Jaepl, Vol. 9, Winter 2003-2004, Katie S. Fleckenstein, Linda T. Calendrillo

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Essays

Kilian McCurrie. Spiritual Identities, Teacher Identities, and the Teaching of Writing.

Through a case study, this article examines the ways teacher identity and spiritual identity intersect in the teaching of writing. By showing that a teacher's pedagogy is prodoundly informed by a basic spiritual disposition, the author offers a view of teaching that is often neglected in studies of teacher identity.

Robert Root. The Experimental Art.

Nonfiction is an experimental art, as contemporary examples make clear, and writing teachers need to show students both how meaning arises from writers' experiments with material and also how form from …

Compos(T)Ing Loss: Transformation In The Telling, Laura Milner

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Using composting as a metaphor, this author examines the transformative potential in writing about and bearing witness to stories of loss, particularly the death of a parent.

An Unspoken Trust – Violated?, Kia Jane Richmond

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Reflecting on our decisions in the classroom, both when we are honest with our students & when we are not, can offer teachers opportunities for growth and change.

Connecting, Helen Walker, Jim Super, Pamela Hartman, Nancy Myers, Andrea Siegel, Traci L. Merritt, Susan A. Schiller, Wilma Romatz

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Helen Walker. Connecting.

Jim Super—Fearless

Pamela Hartman—English? I'd Rather Read A Book

Nancy Myers—B

Andrea Siegel—Walking the Talk, Breathing the Breath

Traci L. Merritt—The Day Jenny Died

Susan A. Schiller—Touched by the Spirit in AEPL Topics

Wilma Romatz—On the Delicate Art of Teaching

Multiple Forms Of Prewriting In Elementary Writing Lessons, Carolyn L. Piazza, Christine Jecko

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Multisensory prewriting invitations (creative visualizations, art, music, dreams, and mediations) affect writing fluency and idea generation in the first draft writing of elementary students.

Community, Spirituality, And The Writing Classroom, W. Keith Duffy

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

From a spiritual perspective, this article critiques the concept of community as defined by scholars of rhetoric and composition; the author suggests that our experience of community in the writing classroom cab be enhanced if we strike a balance between doing and being.

Reviews, Dale Jacobs, Stan Scott, Sue Hum, Lita Kurth

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Reviews

Dale Jacobs. The Energy to Teach (Donald H. Graves, 2001)

Stan Scott. Writing with Elbow (Pat Belanodd, 2002)

Sue Hum. Unfolding Bodymind (Brent Hocking, Johnna Haskell, Warren Linds, 2001)

Lita Kurth. The Unconscious (Athony Easthope, 1999)

Back Matter

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

No abstract provided.

Jaepl, Vol. 8, Winter 2002-2003, Katie S. Fleckenstein, Linda T. Calendrillo

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Essays

Charles Suhor. James Moffett's Lit Crit and Holy Writ. In one of Moffett's final presentations, he traced parallels between literary criticism and the study of scripture from various traditions. He explained the development of his Points of View spectrum as a response to his high school teaching experiences and presented an updated version of the spectrum.

Gina Briefs-Elgin. Something to Have at Heart: Another Look at Memorization. After tracing the history of learning by heart, this essay explores its advantages and suggest that we restore this time-honored practice which can enrich our students' relationships with words and …

Something To Have At Heart: Another Look At Memorization, Gina Briefs-Elgin

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

After tracing the history of learning by heart, this essay explores its advantages and suggest that we restore this time-honored practice which can enrich our students' relationships with words and books and empower their personal lives.

Stories Of Re-Reading: Inviting Students To Reflect On Their Emotional Responses To Fiction, Brenda Daly

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Although most literature courses teach students to focus on textual analysis, this essay argues that students should be given opportunities for exploring their emotional responses to the text.

Successful Blunders: Reflection, Deflection, Teaching, Devan Cook

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Often we expect students' experience with assignments to reflect our own or those of previous students, but we may blunder when we base our teaching on past successes. By deflecting such assignments and constructing unexpected identities, students and instructors alike learn and teach.

Connecting, Helen Walker, Lisa Ruddick, Kathleen Mccolley Foster, Chauna Craig, Steven Vanderstaay, Meg Peterson, Linda K. Parkyn

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

No abstract provided.

The Landscape Listens— Hearing The Voice Of The Soul, Robbie Clifton Pinter

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

This essay offers a view of Mary Rose O'Reilley's "radical listening," applying it to the classroom as a way for teachers and students to "learn to their lives."

Reviews, Nathaniel Teich, Hepzibah Roskelly, Emily Nye, Dennis Young

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

No abstract provided.

Back Matter

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

No abstract provided.

The Accidental Curriculum, Terrance Riley

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

True learning—learning which results in some permanent cognitive change—is far too unpredictable to be controlled by format curricular designs. The formal curriculum of English studies is valuable largely as a stage setting for educational accidents.

The Rhetoric Of Recovery: Can Twelve Step Programs Inform The Teaching Of Writing?, Christopher C. Weaver

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

The article examines the spiritual dimensions of recovery programs and explores some of the ways the rhetoric of these programs as well as the structure of twelve step meetings may illuminate the nature of composition classes and particularly of peer writing groups.

Front Matter

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Editors' Message

In his essay Two Kinds of Thinking Carl Jung describes direct and indirect thinking. Associated with language, direct thinking’s premier ability is parsing and defining reality so that we might work on that reality and act in the world. Associated with imagery, dreaming, and story telling, indirect thinking taps the realm of mythos where we dwell in fantasies and paradoxes. Indirect thinking is neither a contradiction nor denial of rationality. Rather, it is thinking that operates by a different logic, one capable of offering different insights, different versions of possible realities.

Jung’s two kinds of thinking reflect a …

James Moffett’S Lit Crit And Holy Writ, Charles Suhor

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

In one of Moffett's final presentations, he traced parallels between literary criticism and the study of scripture from various traditions. He explained the development of his Points of View spectrum as a response to his high school teaching experiences and presented an updated version of the spectrum.

Jaepl, Vol. 7, Winter 2001-2002, Linda T. Calendrillo, Editor, Kristie S. Fleckenstein, Editor

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Morris Berman tells the story of his maternal grandfather, who, when he was five years old in 1883 or 1884, was sent to a Jewish elementary school in Belorussia. On the first day of class, the teacher startled the young boy by taking each child's slate and smearing the first two letters of the Hebrew alphabet—aleph and beys—on it in honey. His grandfather's first lesson consisted of eating the letters off the slate. The symbolism of this act is complex, Berman muses, but central to the ritual is the belief that what is real must be taken into oneself, ingested: …

Back Matter

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Back Matter

Felt Sensing Of Speech Acts In Written Genre Acquisition, Randall Popken

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

This paper theorizes about the experiential dimension of acquiring rhetorical genres—specifically the way developing writers rely on felt sensing when they encounter the "core" of genres: illocutionary speech acts.

Imperfection: The Will-To-Control And The Struggle Of Letting Go, W. Keith Duffy

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

As I found myself beginning to appropriate my students' writing more and more, I wondered if this was evidence of a spiritual imbalance—an unwillingness to acknowledge my own imperfection as a teacher and human being.

Being There: Revising The Discourse Of Emotion And Teaching, Dale Jacobs

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

This essay explores the fine line that exists between teacher engagement and teacher burnout and suggests strategies for teachers and mentors of teachers to help negotiate this line.