In Defense of Reading

In Defense of Reading PDF Author: Daniel R. Schwarz
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1444304844
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
Written by influential scholar-critic and award-winning Daniel R. Schwarz, In Defense of Reading: Teaching Literature in the Twenty-First Century is a passionate and joyful defense of the pleasures of reading. This stimulating book provides valuable insights for teachers and students on why we read and how we read when we embark on "the odyssey of reading." Provides valuable insights into why and how we read Addresses issues and problems in the contemporary university and offers insights into the future Explores the life of the mind, the rewards and joys of committed teaching, and the relationship between teaching and scholarship in the contemporary university Draws on the author's forty years of teaching experience Following his long term commitment to close reading and historicism, Schwarz shows how the best literary criticism must both respect text and context Contains insightful and important readings of a broad range of texts, including those by Joyce, Woolf, Conrad, Forster, Gordimer, and Spiegelman's Maus

In Defense of Reading

In Defense of Reading PDF Author: Daniel R. Schwarz
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1444304844
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 216

Get Book Here

Book Description
Written by influential scholar-critic and award-winning Daniel R. Schwarz, In Defense of Reading: Teaching Literature in the Twenty-First Century is a passionate and joyful defense of the pleasures of reading. This stimulating book provides valuable insights for teachers and students on why we read and how we read when we embark on "the odyssey of reading." Provides valuable insights into why and how we read Addresses issues and problems in the contemporary university and offers insights into the future Explores the life of the mind, the rewards and joys of committed teaching, and the relationship between teaching and scholarship in the contemporary university Draws on the author's forty years of teaching experience Following his long term commitment to close reading and historicism, Schwarz shows how the best literary criticism must both respect text and context Contains insightful and important readings of a broad range of texts, including those by Joyce, Woolf, Conrad, Forster, Gordimer, and Spiegelman's Maus

In Defense of Reading

In Defense of Reading PDF Author: Sarah E. Worth
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1783483202
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
Why should we read? We assume that reading is good for us, but often we cannot articulate exactly what it does for us. In this fascinating book, Sarah Worth addresses from a philosophical perspective the many ways in which reading benefits us morally, socially, and cognitively. Worth leads her readers through the subtle questions of the ways in which we understand fiction, nonfiction, and the overlap and blending of other genre distinctions. Ultimately she argues that reading, hearing, and telling well-told stories is of the utmost importance in developing a healthy sense of personal identity, a greater sense of narrative coherence, and an increased ability to make different kinds of inferences. Engaging classical philosophical questions in the contemporary landscape of educational literacy and the inclusion of fiction in a classroom curriculum, Worth demonstrates how our hyper-focus on genre distinctions moves us away from a real engagement with narrative understanding and narrative comprehension.

In Defense of Read-Aloud

In Defense of Read-Aloud PDF Author: Steven Layne
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1003842577
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
As accountability measures for schools and teachers continue to grow, instructional practice is under the microscope. The practice of reading aloud to children may be viewed by some educators as an extra bit of fluff used solely for the purposes of enjoyment or filling a few spare minutes,but researchers and practitioners stand in solidarity: the practice of reading aloud throughout the grades is not only viable but also best practice.In Defense of Read-Aloud: Sustaining Best Practices, author Steven Layne reinforces readers' confidence to continue the practice of reading aloud and presents the research base to defend the practice in grades K12. Layne also offers significant practical insights to strengthen instructional practice-;answering the questions of Why should we?- and How should we? and provides practical advice about how to use read-alouds most effectively.Leading researchers in the field of literacy provide position statements, authors of professional books share insights on books they have loved, leaders of the largest literacy organizations in the United States write about their favorite read-alouds, award-winning authors of children's and young adult book (Katherine Paterson, Andrew Clements, Lois Lowry, to name a few) share the powerful behind-the-scenes stories of their greatest books, and real classroom teachers and librarians speak about books that have lit up- their classrooms and libraries around the world.Last but not least,In Defense of Read-Aloud features many great recommendations of books to share with children.Read-aloud is an essential practice in teaching literacy in grades K -12. In this book, Steven Layne has provided everything needed to support, sustain, and celebrate the power of read-aloud.

Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality

Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality PDF Author: Danielle Allen
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0871408139
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
“A tour de force.... No one has ever written a book on the Declaration quite like this one.” —Gordon Wood, New York Review of Books Winner of the Zócalo Book Prize Winner of the Society of American Historians’ Francis Parkman Prize Winner of the Chicago Tribune’s Heartland Prize (Nonfiction) Finalist for the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation Hurston Wright Legacy Award Shortlisted for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction Shortlisted for the Phi Beta Kappa Society’s Ralph Waldo Emerson Award A New York Times Book Review Editors Choice Selection Featured on the front page of the New York Times, Our Declaration is already regarded as a seminal work that reinterprets the promise of American democracy through our founding text. Combining a personal account of teaching the Declaration with a vivid evocation of the colonial world between 1774 and 1777, Allen, a political philosopher renowned for her work on justice and citizenship reveals our nation’s founding text to be an animating force that not only changed the world more than two-hundred years ago, but also still can. Challenging conventional wisdom, she boldly makes the case that the Declaration is a document as much about political equality as about individual liberty. Beautifully illustrated throughout, Our Declaration is an “uncommonly elegant, incisive, and often poetic primer on America’s cardinal text” (David M. Kennedy).

On Reading Well

On Reading Well PDF Author: Karen Swallow Prior
Publisher: Brazos Press
ISBN: 1493415468
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
★ Publishers Weekly starred review A Best Book of 2018 in Religion, Publishers Weekly Reading great literature well has the power to cultivate virtue, says acclaimed author Karen Swallow Prior. In this book, she takes readers on a guided tour through works of great literature both ancient and modern, exploring twelve virtues that philosophers and theologians throughout history have identified as most essential for good character and the good life. Covering authors from Henry Fielding to Cormac McCarthy, Jane Austen to George Saunders, and Flannery O'Connor to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Prior explores some of the most compelling universal themes found in the pages of classic books, helping readers learn to love life, literature, and God through their encounters with great writing. The book includes end-of-chapter reflection questions geared toward book club discussions, original artwork throughout, and a foreword by Leland Ryken. The hardcover edition was named a Best Book of 2018 in Religion by Publishers Weekly. "[A] lively treatise on building character through books.'"--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

In Defense of Dialogue

In Defense of Dialogue PDF Author: Monika Gehlawat
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000054543
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
In Defense of Dialogue: Reading Habermas and Postwar American Literature offers a timely investigation of the value of dialogue in contemporary American culture. Using Jürgen Habermas’s theory of communicative action to read the work of Frank O’Hara, James Baldwin, Grace Paley, and Andy Warhol, In Defense of Dialogue assembles postwar writers who have never been studied alongside one another, showing how they overcame the pervading skepticism of their contemporaries to imagine sincere and rational speakers who seek to cultivate intersubjective discourse.

Dear Mr. Knightley

Dear Mr. Knightley PDF Author: Katherine Reay
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
ISBN: 1401689698
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
Samantha's only friends were characters in books, but her real life takes an extraordinary turn when a mysterious "Mr. Knightley" offers her a full journalism scholarship—on the condition that she write to him regularly. Will their long-distance friendship unlock her heart? Sam is, to say the least, bookish. An English major of the highest order, her diet has always been Austen, Dickens, and Shakespeare. The problem is that both her prose and conversation tend to be more Elizabeth Bennet than Samantha Moore. But life for the twenty-three-year-old orphan is about to get stranger than fiction. An anonymous, Dickensian benefactor calling himself Mr. Knightley offers to put Sam through Northwestern University’s prestigious Medill School of Journalism. There is only one catch: Sam must write frequent letters to the mysterious donor, detailing her progress. Sam’s letters to Mr. Knightley become increasingly confessional as she begins to share everything from her painful childhood memories to her growing feelings for eligible novelist Alex Powell. While Alex draws Sam into a world of warmth and literature that feels like it’s straight out of a book, old secrets are drawn to light. And as Sam learns to love and trust Alex and herself, she learns once again how quickly trust can be broken. Reminding us all that our own true character is not meant to be hidden, Katherine Reay’s debut novel follows a young woman’s journey as she sheds her protective persona and embraces the person she was meant to become. Praise for Dear Mr. Knightley: “Katherine Reay’s Dear Mr. Knightley kept me up until 2:00 a.m.; I simply couldn’t put it down.”—Eloisa James, New York Times bestselling author of Once Upon a Tower “Sprinkled with classic literary references and filled with poignant characterizations, Katherine Reay’s modern retelling of Jean Webster’s Daddy-Long-Legs is both reverently crafted and delightfully surprising.”—Lauren Ann Nattress, Austenprose.com “Katherine Reay’s touching debut novel made me cry in all the right places. For joy.”—Laurie Viera Rigler, author of Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict Sweet, stand-alone contemporary romance Includes discussion questions for book clubs, a Q&A with the author, and Sam’s reading list

On Rereading

On Rereading PDF Author: Patricia Meyer Spacks
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674063317
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
After retiring from a lifetime of teaching literature, Patricia Meyer Spacks embarked on a year-long project of rereading dozens of novels: childhood favorites, fiction first encountered in young adulthood and never before revisited, books frequently reread, canonical works of literature she was supposed to have liked but didn’t, guilty pleasures (books she oughtn’t to have liked but did), and stories reread for fun vs. those read for the classroom. On Rereading records the sometimes surprising, always fascinating, results of her personal experiment. Spacks addresses a number of intriguing questions raised by the purposeful act of rereading: Why do we reread novels when, in many instances, we can remember the plot? Why, for example, do some lovers of Jane Austen’s fiction reread her novels every year (or oftener)? Why do young children love to hear the same story read aloud every night at bedtime? And why, as adults, do we return to childhood favorites such as The Hobbit, Alice in Wonderland, and the Harry Potter novels? What pleasures does rereading bring? What psychological needs does it answer? What guilt does it induce when life is short and there are so many other things to do (and so many other books to read)? Rereading, Spacks discovers, helps us to make sense of ourselves. It brings us sharply in contact with how we, like the books we reread, have both changed and remained the same.

The American Plutarch

The American Plutarch PDF Author: Russell M. Lawson
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Creating an unconventional portrait of the life and thought of an Enlightenment historian and scientist, this study focuses upon Jeremy Belknap's letters, journals, and essays, which provide a clear sense of how a dialogue with the past can yield an appreciation of life and acceptance of self. Author of the three volume History of New Hampshire and the two volume American Biography, Jeremy Belknap (1744-1798) was the American Plutarch because he used the past to learn more about his own life and the lives of others. He experienced the past vicariously through his imagination and experientially through his journeys throughout New England in search of clues to the explanation of the natural and human past of America. The book is built around Belknap's engaging correspondence with his friend Ebenezer Hazard, as well as Belknap's own travel journals of his expeditions to upstate New York and throughout New Hampshire. His journey to the White Mountains of New Hampshire in 1784 was the climax of his active inquiry into the past. Far from a dry, historiographical account, this study provides a fluid and descriptive narrative of Belknap, his journeys, and his times. This is a unique portrayal of human nature in general and 18th century society in particular.

Igniting a Passion for Reading

Igniting a Passion for Reading PDF Author: Steven Layne
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1003843727
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
When teaching reading, American classrooms often focus exclusively on skills instruction. But how can you teach the how without the why? In his new book, Igniting a Passion for Reading, Steve Layne shows teachers how to develop readers who are not only motivated to read great books, but also love reading in its own right. Packed with practical ways to engage and inspire readers from kindergarten through high school, this book is a must-have on every teacher’s professional book shelf. Well-known for his children’s books, young adult novels, and keynote speeches across the nation and around the world, Steve, aka Dr. Read, offers teachers everywhere a plan for engaging even the most reluctant reader. From read-alouds to creating reading lounges to author visits and so much more, this book will help schools create a vibrant reading culture. The book also includes reminiscences from many of today’s well-known children’s and young adult authors—Mem Fox, Sharon Draper, Steven Kellogg, Candace Fleming, Eric Rohman, Neal Shusterman, and Joan Bauer—about the teacher who ignited their passion for reading. Written with humor, grace, and poignancy, Igniting a Passion for Reading will have a profound effect on the teaching of reading in our nation’s schools.