 Bob was first an English teacher in junior and senior high schools in Maryland and then English Supervisor for the Norfolk, Virginia schools before he moved on to Georgia State University as Professor of English Education. He spent much of his time during those years wondering why kids didn’t enjoy reading literature quite as much as he did, and trying to figure out how to change that unhappy situation. His search led him to graduate school and the library, where he discovered Rosenblatt’s work, and back into classrooms—both his own and those of his student teachers and other educators willing to experiment—where he developed strategies to bring kids and books together more happily.
He designed those strategies to respect the interests of the students and their responses to what they read, but also to lead into thoughtful analysis of the texts. And he wanted the literature classroom to become a community of readers and writers who, by sharing their thinking about significant works, grow intellectually, aesthetically, and emotionally. That work led him ultimately to write Response and Analysis: Teaching Literature in the Secondary Schools and to serve as Senior Author of Elements of Literature (Holt, Rinehart and Winston), a literature, composition, and language program for grades 6-12.
In addition, he has worked extensively with the National Council of Teacher of English and many state Councils and school systems, and has talked about the teaching of literature with groups in such far-flung places as Sweden, France, Costa Rica, and Guam. What he will offer teachers during this workshop has been developed and refined through many exchanges with these teachers and students in these diverse and challenging settings. |
