Letters for the Living: Teaching Writing in a Violent Age (Refiguring English Studies)

In Letters for the Teaching Writing in a Violence Age, Michael Blitz and C. Mark Hurlbert examine issues of violence in the lives of their college students and present possibilities for teaching composition as an act of peace-making. Through a variety of writings, the authors illustrate their students' experiences on the city streets of New York and in the small mining and steel towns of western Pennsylvania. In one section, the authors report on a semester-long project in which their classes were linked as they researched and wrote about their own neighborhoods and the neighborhoods of their interstate partners. These two groups of students taught each other about the places in which they live and the ways in which they live there, and, in many cases, what each learned about the other was shocking. Blitz and Hurlbert, who frequently correspond via e-mail, also share with the reader letters in which they reflect upon their work as teachers, in an effort to understand the personal and cultural implications of what students write and say. Often disturbing, always honest, Letters for the Living offers a fascinating look into the lives and writings of real students and real teachers struggling to make meaning of these violent times. --- from book's back cover View Less