Teaching Writing Teachers: of High School English and First-Year Composition - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0867095113 ISBN 13: 9780867095111

Publisher: Heinemann, 2002

Synopsis

What do writing teachers need to know? And what do they need to know how to do? Robert Tremmel and William Broz found that many of the answers to these questions revolve around a commonality of concerns and issues among high school teachers and teachers of the first-year college comp course. Yet the two levels of teachers are rarely thought of together, despite the fact that they share pedagogies with similar points of origin and content. This book changes that with a collection of essays assembling current, straightforward accounts of writing teacher education courses and programs at both the secondary and first-year college levels. These accounts in turn can serve as guides for program directors and professors in both venues for preparing beginning teachers of writing.

Tremmel and Broz have another purpose as well: to open up discussion of the gap between these two levels of teacher education and writing instruction which have operated separately for twenty years or so. They argue that the needs of students, teachers, and teacher educators at both levels would be better served if first-year comp and secondary education were more closely aligned. In the Introduction, Tremmel gives a complete account to date of the history of writing teacher education in English education and first-year composition, demonstrating the natural and historic connections between these two levels of teacher preparation. Each chapter of the book contains an account of a contributing writer's specific course or program, which will be of particular benefit to professors and program directors in search of methodologies. In addition, these accounts detail management techniques, assignments, evaluation, and novel approaches that have proven effective in writing instruction.

Writing teacher education is a curiously overlooked area in language arts and teacher education. And few, if any books, take on the issue of the relationship between writing teacher education (and, indirectly, the writing curriculum) at the secondary and university levels. With three recurring themes-writing practice, reflection, and mentoring new members of the profession-Tremmel, Broz, and hands-on practitioners make a solid case that high school and first-year comp teachers would benefit from more contact and more unified courses and programs.

About this title

About the Author

ROBERT TREMMEL teaches methods courses, supervises student teachers, and coordinates the teacher education program in the English department at Iowa State University. He is the author of Zen and the Practice of Teaching English (Heinemann, 1999) and a recipient of the James N. Britton and Janet Emig Awards for Scholarship in Education.WILLIAM BROZ is Assistant Professor of English Education in the Department of English, Language, and Literature at the University of Northern Iowa. He is the author of several articles appearing in English Journal, among other publications.

Edition details

• Publisher: Heinemann
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0867095113
• ISBN 13: 9780867095111
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 216
• Editor: Tremmel Robert, Broz William