Writing and Healing: Toward an Informed Practice (Refiguring English Studies)

In Writing and Healing: Toward an Informed Practice, editors Charles M. anderson and Marian M. MacCurdy compile 15 essays composed and directed toward writing teachers and others who have experienced writing and healing in a variety of settings -- from classrooms to substance-abuse centers to AIDS support groups. The essays provide not only descriptions of particular practices but also explorations of area of theory that support the development of techniques in healing. The first section, finding Our way In, addresses issues of how teachers practice writing as healing. Section two, Traditions and Extensions, looks at the tradition through which therapeutic writing has made its way into our time. the third section, Writing and Healing in the Classroom, focuses on the classroom and tackles topics including expressive writing, journal writing, and writing about suicide. The essays in the final section, Writing and Healing in the World, look outside the classroom to such examples of public text as the names on the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D>C>, the individual squares of the NAMES AIDS quilt project, and the Clothesline project, wich decries violence against women. This book provides a unique occasion for teachers, scholars, and other professionals to begin an open, serious conversation about the healing power of writing.