Changing the Way We Teach: Writing and Resistance in the Training of Teaching Assistants draws on eighteen case studies to illustrate the critical role writing plays in overcoming graduate student resistance to instruction, facilitating change, and developing professional identity. Sally Barr Ebest argues that teaching assistants in English must be actively engaged in the theory and practice underlying composition pedagogy in order to better understand how to alter the way they teach and why such change is necessary. In illustrating the potential for change when the paradigm shift in composition is applied to graduate education, Ebest considers recent discussions of composition pedagogy; post-secondary teaching theories; cognitive, social cognitive, and educational psychology; and issues of gender, voice, and writing. Stemming from research conducted over a five-year period, this volume explores how a cross-section of teaching assistants responded to pedagogy as students and how their acceptance of pedagogy affected their performance as instructors. Investigating reasons behind manifestations of resistance and necessary elements for overcoming it, Ebest finds that engagement in composition strategies—reflective writing, journaling, drafting, and active learning—and restoration of feelings of self-efficacy are the primary factors that facilitate change. Concerned with gender as it relates to personal construct, Changing the Way We Teach traces the influence of familial expectations and the effects of literacy experiences on students and draws correlations between feminist and composition pedagogy. Ebest asserts that the phenomena contributing to the development of a strong, unified voice in women—self-knowledge, empathy, positive role models, and mentors—should be essential elements of a constructivist graduate curriculum. To understand composition pedagogy and to convince students of its values, Ebest holds that educators must embrace it themselves and trace the effects through active research. By providing graduate students with pedagogical sites for research and reflection, faculty enable them to express their anger or fear, study its sources, and quite often write their way to a new understanding.

In this collection of essays, 22 writers, historians, theologians and feminists thoughtfully reflect on their own personal experiences with the Catholic Church. The essayists describe how they have, or in some cases have not, come to terms with a church that does not permit them full participation. In so doing, they offer practical suggestions for ways in which the Church can become more open to the concerns of its progressive members. Radford Ruether, who provides a brief history of 20th-century reform movements; internationally-known journalist Mary Kenny, who writes on the abortion debate in Ireland; Pulitzer Prize winner Madeleine Blais, who discusses her youth in parochial schools; short-story writer and New Yorker contributor Jean McGarry, who describes the clash of Catholic and secular cultures; and Grail co-founder Janet Kalven, who depicts the history of this widely recognized religious reform movement. Ebest provide context for these personal and poignant essays. In a format that is easily accessible to general readers, Reconciling Catholicism and Feminism? explores issues of concern to progressive and feminist Catholics, including abortion, birth control, clerical celibacy and the ordination of women. (view table of contents)

Product Description: Writing from A to Z is organized alphabetically, eliminating students’ need to crack the code of a conventional writer’s handbook. The simple A to Z organization ensures that students will find the information they seek. This Update Version reflects the most current documentation style of the Modern Language Association...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: As its title suggests, the core section of Writing from A to Z is organized alphabetically, eliminating the students' need to crack the code of a conventional handbook. The handbook also offers two thorough opening sections: The Composing Process and The Research Process...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

A collection of essays on diverse issues in collaborative work explores the political, social, and individual psychologies of students, teachers, and researchers working together.