Bridging English

9780130453068

0130453064

We wrote the first edition ofBridging English(1993) because we could not find a balanced, comprehensive English methods textbook whose theory was rigorous and whose practice was accessible and pertinent. We revised the first edition (1999) to strengthen its comprehensiveness, theoretical soundness, and practical usefulness. Reviewers and users report that both texts effectively moved readers from theories of learning, language, and literacy to classroom realities in today's schools. One colleague and his class call our textBEbecause, as he explains, it captures what his students need to know and be in order to confidently enter secondary English classrooms and actively engage the students waiting there. Its readers appear also drawn to its student-centered, constructivist, developmental, inquiry based, and reflective perspective. Many colleagues report that this is one textbook their students do not sell back because they regard it not simply as a general introduction to English education, but as a reference and resource with which to begin their professional libraries. Many teachers tell us that it occupies an honored spot on their desks always ready for use. We have revised the second edition of our text, as we did the first, for two primary reasons: 1) to address new developments in the field of English education, and 2) to clarify, expand, and vivify many of our original ideas. In this thorough revision, we have tried to retain and strengthen what has proven most valuable while we demonstrate and animate both the old and new ideas and methods. In clearer, crisper prose, each of its now fifteen chapters presents conceptual frameworks, a multitude of tested teaching activities, and invitations to the reader to reflect on both. STRENGTHS OF THE FIRST AND SECOND EDITIONS In the first two editions ofBridging English,we attempted to bridge many different shores: of self (as the reader prepares to move from the role of student to that of teacher), of instructional theories, of methods, of texts, of cultural expectations of English classrooms. With a consciousness of the quandaries of prospective teachers, we challenged readers to make personal connections between their previous experiences as students and their future expectations as teachers. Two textual features particularly--Invitations to Reflection and Teaching Activities--engaged readers and invited them to reflect, to test, and to plan. Readers tell us that the texts' breadth and balance "brought it all together"-an understanding and grasp of literature, language, and learning. We have retained many of the valued aspects of the first two editions such as: the interplay of learning, language, and literary theory with best teaching practice the numerous sequences of instruction, teaching activities, and concrete examples of teachable texts that range from literary classics to works by minority and young adult writers, from print to non-print a balanced view of the debated pedagogical issues in the English Education field: grammar and writing instruction, cooperative learning, reader response based approaches to literature, multicultural literature, technology in the classroom, authentic assessment, and critical and cultural literacy the treatment of numerous vital, but sometimes overlooked subjects such as the history of the English language, ten schools of literary criticism, the canon wars' debate, oral language, poetry, nonfiction, media, and evaluation an authorial voice that filters and interprets its information and ideas through decades of teaching at the secondary and college levels CHANGES IN THE THIRD EDITION Like its predecessors, the third edition ofBridging Englishgrows from our ongoing experience, observations, and reflections on English classrooms. It represents our course notes passed on to our younger colleagues. We feel again a