Active Voice: Writing Program

Anyone working in the field of language arts knows the major impact Active Voice has had in curriculum development. The program Moffett outlines in his text ten years ago helped to pioneer now will-established practices like workshops, the process approach, writing portfolios, and writing across the curriculum. Ideal for use as a classroom sourcebook for individual teachers, an inservice text by schools and school districts, or as a supplement to the main textbook in a methods course, Active Voice transformed theory into practice, helping educators deliberate how to initiate a total writing program-even one going beyond English.

In this edition, Active Voice has been expanded to include student samples of the writing activities recommended in the text. From monologues and autobiography to narratives and essay, Moffett discusses particular compositional issues arising form each type of writing and provides innovative way of treating them.

A new chapter, "Bridges: From Personal Writing to the Formal Essay," is included in response to demand for help with this key writing issue.

James Moffett is the author of Teaching the Universe of Discourse, Coming on Center: Essays in English Education (Boynton/Cook), Storm in the Mountains: A Case Study of Censorship, Conflict, and Consciousness, and senior editor with Betty Jane Wagner of Student-centered Language Arts, K-12 (Boynton/Cook). He is the editor of Points of View: An Anthology of Short Stories (with Kenneth McElheny), Points of Departure: An Anthology of Nonfiction, and co-editor of Active Voices: A Writer's Reader, I-IV (Boynton/Cook). The recipient of a Carnegie Corporation Grant and a Distinguished Author Award (1982) from the California Association of Teachers of English, Mr. Moffett has taught at Phillips Exeter Academy and served on the faculties of Harvard, UC/Berkeley, San Diego State, and Middlebury College's Bread Loaf School of English.