English Journal, Vol. 101, No. 4, March 2012

English Journal, Vol. 101, No. 4, March 2012

My column at EJ is being rebooted:

Adventures with Text and Beyond: Challenging Genre, Medium, and Text—Students as Authentic Readers and Writers

P. L. Thomas

English Journal (2012, January)

“A Richer, Not a Narrower, Aesthetic”: The Rise of New Criticism in English Journal

P. L. Thomas
English Journal, 101(3)
January 2012

Abstract: A teacher and member of the NCTE Task Force on Council History and 2011 uses discussion of New Criticism in EJ to examine how literary criticism has been implemented in classrooms and how it might be developed in the 21st century.

Forthcoming: Politics, Participation and Power Relations (Sense)

Forthcoming from Sense:

Politics, Participation and Power Relations: Transdisciplinary Approaches to Critical Citizenship in the Classroom and Community, R.C. Mitchell and S.A. Moore, Eds.

from intro:

"A contribution from US-based Paul Thomas of Furman University in South Carolina presents his theoretical reflection from the standpoint of growing up and teaching in the rural south arguing for the need of critical literacy, specifically in the writing curriculum, to foster critical citizenship."

Writing community: Composing as transformation and realization

Paul L. Thomas

Call For Manuscript Proposals: Critical Literacy Teaching Series

Call For Manuscripts

Critical Literacy Teaching Series: 

Challenging Authors and Genres

Series Editor: P. L. Thomas, EdD, Furman University

Publisher: Sense

Kincheloe (2005) offers a foundational argument about the role of critical pedagogy in our classrooms:

[P]roponents of critical pedagogy understand that every dimension of schooling and every form of educational practice are politically contested spaces. Shaped by history and challenged by a wide range of interest groups, educational practice is a fuzzy concept as it takes place in numerous settings, is shaped by a plethora of often-invisible forces, and can operate even in the name of democracy and justice to be totalitarian and oppressive. (p. 2)

This series will explore major authors and genres through a critical literacy lens that seeks to offer students opportunities as readers and writers to embrace and act upon their own empowerment. Further, the volumes in this series are guided by Freire (2005) as well:

One of the violences perpetuated by illiteracy is the suffocation of the consciousness and the expressiveness of men and women who are forbidden from reading and writing, thus limiting their capacity to write about their reading of the world so they can rethink about their original reading of it. (p. 2)

We are seeking book-length manuscript proposals for volumes in this new series. Volumes may address individual authors or genres/media/modes of literature/texts; and may be either edited or single-author volumes.

Volume proposals may include (but are not limited to) the following:

Authors:
Sandra Cisneros (being drafted)
Louise Erdrich
Rachel Carson (in press)
Alice Walker
James Baldwin (under consideration)

Genres:
Comics/ graphic novels (published)
Young adult literature (being drafted)
Science fiction (in process)
Children’s literature
Poetry
Novels
Nonfiction

Send proposal ideas or questions about potential volumes to the series editor, P. L. Thomas, by email
(paul.thomas[at]furman.edu).

Series Editorial Board:
Karen Stein, PhD, University of Rhode Island
Shirley Steinberg, PhD, McGill University
Jeanne Gerlach, EdD, University of Texas-Arlington
Leila Christenbury, PhD, Virginia Commonwealth University
Renita Schmidt, PhD, University of Iowa
Ken Lindblom, PhD, Stony Brook University

Revisiting LaBrant’s “Writing Is More than Structure” (English Journal, May 1957)

Revisiting LaBrant’s “Writing Is More than Structure” (English Journal, May 1957)