Routledge Reclaiming Writing: Composing Spaces for Identities, Relationships, and Actions

With passion, clarity, and rich examples, Reclaiming Writing is dedicated to reawakening the journeys that writers take as they make sense of, think about, and speak back to their worlds in this era of high-stakes testing and mandated curricula. Classrooms and out-of-school settings are described and analyzed in exciting and groundbreaking narratives that provide insights into the many possibilities for writing that support writers’ searches for voice, identity, and agency. Offering pedagogical strategies and the knowledge base in which they are grounded, the book looks at writing within various areas of the curriculum and across modes of writing from traditional text-based forums to digital formats. Thematically based sections present the pillars of the volume’s critical transactive theory: learning, teaching, curriculum, language, and sociocultural contexts. Each chapter is complemented by an extension that offers application possibilities for teachers in various settings. Reclaiming Writing emphasizes literacy as a vehicle for exploring, interrogating, challenging, finding self, talking back to power, creating a space in the world, reflecting upon the past, and thinking forward to a more joyful and democratic future. Review "This follow-up volume to the editors' 2011 Reclaiming Reading highlights issues teachers need to be aware of as they seek to meet the needs of their students. Summing Up: Recommended." ― J.A. Reyhner, Northern Arizona University, in CHOICE, July 2014 “Teaching writing in an era of scripted curricula and standardized testing can be lonely and discouraging. Reclaiming Writing brings together a community of support, providing us research, experience, and strategies for (once again) engaging in the joyful and passionate work of being writers and teachers of writing.  It is an inspiring read for those already teaching and for those learning to teach.” ― Donna Kalmbach Phillips, Pacific University, USA “…reclaims power for students and teachers, which has been stripped off in today’s standards-driven environment.  This book sheds light and hope in our education with vivid examples of teaching writing in the crack of the dark age or in open opposition to dehumanized standardization.”  ― Danling Fu, University of Florida, USA About the Author Richard J. Meyer is Professor, University of New Mexico, College of Education, Department of Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies, USA. Kathryn F. Whitmore is the Ashland Inc./Nystrand Chair in Early Childhood Education, College of Education and Human Development, University of Louisville, USA.