Special Education and Teaching Commons^™

Front Matter

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Editors' Message

At Risk: Teaching and Writing Outside the Safety Zone

In 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education released its damning indictment of American education. In the opening sentence of the report, the authors announce: "Our Nation is at risk." National prosperity, security, and civility are being "eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity" resulting from the failures of our schools and colleges.

Within this context "risk," defined by Webster's as "the possibility of suffering loss," is something to be avoided, or, if that is not possible, something to be managed. Thus, children struggling for success in school …

Critical Thinking Skills And Emotional-Response Discourse: Merging The Affective And Cognitive In Student-Authored Texts Through Taxonomy Usage, Ed Comber

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

This essay discusses a taxonomy designed to help students identify emotive-response discourse in their evolving texts, a process that joins emotion and cognitive to foster critical thinking.

Shallow Literacy, Timid Teaching, And Cultural Impotence, David L. Wallace

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Any attempt to move to a deeper notion of literacy in our theory and pedagogy must—among other things—involve us facing our own self interest and expecting disruption in our own classrooms, departments, and universities.

Reviews, W. Keith Duffy, Elizabeth Vander Lei, Marian Maccurdy

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Reviews

W. Keith Duffy. Memoirs of Soul: Writing your Spiritual Autobiography. (Nan Phifer, 2002).

Elizabeth Vander Lei. A Communion of Friendship: Literacy, Spiritual Practice, and Women in Recovery. (Beth Daniel, 2003).

Marian MacCurdy. Writing To Save Your Life. (Michele Weldon, 2001).

Back Matter

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

No abstract provided.

Sometimes, Practice Makes Imperfect: Overcoming The Automaticity Of Challenging Behavior By Linking Intervention To Thoughts, Feelings, And Action, Robert A. Gable, Richard Van Acker

Communication Disorders & Special Education Faculty Publications

In schools throughout the country, education personnel express concern over the aggressive and antisocial behavior of children and youth. The frequency and severity of these acts compel us to find more effective strategies for decreasing and eliminating these behaviors. In this article, we argue for a broader explanation of the nature and treatment of aggressive behavior, especially when it rises to what is essentially an automotive response level. We contend that both assessment and intervention must account for internal and external influences on behavior and that treatment should encompass cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions of the problem. Finally, we discuss …

Hard Times And An Uncertain Future: Issues That Confront The Field Of Emotional/Behavioral Disorders, Robert A. Gable

Communication Disorders & Special Education Faculty Publications

In this article, I examine challenges to better preparing teachers of students with emotional/behavioral disorders (E/BD). Foremost among these challenges is the lack of agreement regarding a conceptual framework upon which to build quality prevention/intervention practices; instead, various authorities advocate disparate approaches, not all of which have empirical support. I assert that unresolved issues surrounding translating scientific research into classroom practice further hinder efforts to apply the most efficacious intervention options, as does our failure to exert control over the infrastructure of public education and the context in which we serve students with E/BD. Finally, I offer some modest proposals …

The Classroom And Beyond: The Teacher's Role In Collaboration For Children With Emotional And Behavioral Disorders, Sarah Altman

Graduate Student Independent Studies

While many interventions have been used to help children with emotional and behavioral problems, outcomes for children with emotional and behavioral disturbances continue to be poor. Identifying teachers as essential collateral participants in evidence-based, systems approaches to addressing the needs of children with emotional and behavioral problems, this manual is offered as a guide for members of the education community. Teacher cooperation with empirically supported interventions, interagency collaboration, and programs that accept families as equal partners, have all been clearly supported by research and this collaborative role is discussed in light of relevant literature. Exploring the issues related to emotional …

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.

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.

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

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)

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.

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 …

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 …

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.

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.

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.

Back Matter

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

No abstract provided.

Teaching Gifted Students With Learning Disabilities In The Regular Classroom, Jessica J. Johnson

Honors Capstones

Capstone submitted as a graduation requirement for the BSU Honors Program.

Parent Perceptions Of The Effectiveness Of Therapeutic Horseback Riding For Children With Varying Disabilities, Anita L. Scialli

Graduate Student Dissertations, Theses, Capstones, and Portfolios

Disabilities affect 54 million people and 4.4 million children in the U.S. and are of importance to special education faculty (Center for Disease Control 2000). A survey design examines the effectiveness of human-animal interaction, specifically horseback riding, in children with varying disabilities.

Therapeutic horseback riding as an animal assisted therapy, aims to promote mind and body integration through movement (psychomotricity) and the human-animal bond (Delta Society, 2001a; Spink, 1993, All, Loving & Crane, 1999). Effectiveness is measured by parent assessment of improvement in 67 child behaviors resulting from child participation in horseback riding, using a new Horseback Riding Survey. Behaviors …

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 …

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

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

No abstract provided.

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.

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.

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."

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.

Back Matter

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

No abstract provided.