| With the first edition of Making the Journey, Leila Christenbury took an unflinching yet upbeat look at the realities of classroom life, offering specific suggestions for dealing effectively with today’s students. Much more than a compendium of activities, the book introduced thousands of preservice and inservice educators to a philosophy of teaching illustrated and implemented by workable, realistic techniques.
Now, with this new edition, Christenbury continues to offer the same reliable, intelligent coverage, but has added and expanded the material to address new concerns in the field. The second edition features:
- expanded chapters on school and its culture, what it takes to be a teacher, models of teaching, and what to do when "it doesn’t work"
- a new chapter on setting up and running a classroom—with suggestions on classroom environment, lesson planning, discipline, improving your teaching, and when to break the rules
- a new chapter on media literacy, with material on surfing the Web as well as using movies, television, and radio in English language arts
- more information on students, the teaching of literature (including young adult literature, multicultural literature, contemporary novels, and Shakespeare), language, grammar and usage, and questioning strategies and behaviors
- additional material on reader response, alternatives to the book report, literature circles, sentence combining, the use of conferencing and writing groups, getting ideas for writing, and ethics.
Readers will come away from this book encouraged to make their own journeys as English language arts teachers. Just as important, they’ll be equipped with practical advice, strategies, and specific examples with which to do so. |
