Boy Culture

An encyclopedia, Boy Culture, is finally about to be available.

I have an entry on comics and graphic novels in this work, edited by Shirley Steinberg, Michael Kehler, and Lindsay Cornish.

The power of the written word. . .

Margaret Atwood's writing is some of the most powerful work. . .about the power of the written word.

In her newest novel, The Year of the Flood, Ren, in the second chapter, opens with:

Beware of words. Be careful what you write. Leave no trails.

. . .

As for writing, it was dangerous, said the Adams and the Eves, because your enemies could trace you through it, and hunt you down, and use your words to condemn you. (p. 6)

Upcoming piece on teacher education

Very excited to have a piece coming out in the Journal for Educational Controversy

My piece looks at the work of Maxine Greene and her concerns about the roadblocks to effective teacher education; Greene's piece is from 1978, but fits all too well with our current climate of mandates, standards, and tests.

I recommend the journal highly (great issue on poverty) and a valuable blog also.

My upcoming presentations at NCTE Philadelphia

How Our History Helps Us Read Between the Lines

Talk about Passion: The Reading Interests of Secondary Students

New article in Power and Education

I am very pleased to have an article included in the newest issue of Power and Education. See the contents listing here.

The Futility and Failure of Flawed Goals: efficiency education as smoke and mirrors

P.L. THOMAS Education Department, Furman University, Greenville, USA

Educational reform in the USA is traditionally grounded in mechanistic assumptions about accountability paradigms and narrow concepts of assessment; those reforms tend to ignore the burden of poverty and other external factors on student and school success. Focusing on accountability and testing strategies in the United States during the post-Nation at Risk era (1983), this article argues that mechanistic assumptions about school reform are inherently destined to fail because they are aiming at the wrong goals and ignoring the inherent imbalance of power among the stakeholders of teaching and learning; these patterns identified in US practices parallel dynamics and policies found internationally (standardized national tests in the United Kingdom, outcomes-based education in South Africa, and bureaucratic policies and corruption in Mexico, for example). Further, the discourse and tone of the discussion is a parallel argument about the nature of our scholarly discussions of education, often bound themselves by traditional (and mechanistic) assumptions about the nature of academic writing.

new poems

Poetry just comes to me, unlike my prose. Here are two new ones and they seem to be moving me toward simple poems with a turn, a twist of idea. I like the idea of a question being a lie and the word-play with "lie" in "he asked her." And "paradox" came watching L. A. Story by Steve Martin (many poems of mine come from watching movies, reading books, or listening to music).

"he asked her"

he asked her

(he could have
asked anyone

but questions
can be lies too)

to let his hands
run over and over
every inch of her

so he could memorize
the curves and touch of her
there beside him

for all the nights
he would lie
alone without her

closing his eyes
and remembering her
with his hands

-----

"paradox"

he wanted
more than anything

to lure her away
from everybody else

holding her and holding her
sitting together naked in the house

except

he wanted
more than anything

to walk with her
in front of everyone

holding her and holding her
saying loudly “she is the one”

New Book on Kurt Vonnegut

I have an essay in a new collection on Kurt Vonnegut from Palgrave, edited by David Simmons:

New Critical Essays on Kurt Vonnegut

Op-Ed in The State

Answering the question before it's asked

Greenville News Op-Ed

Understand the "research" about school choice

New Series Proposal

Here is what I hope to start at IAP. . .

Critical Literacy Teaching Series: Challenging Authors and Genres

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)

Proposed volumes will focus on the following:

Authors:

Sandra Cisneros (Gerlach)

Louise Erdrich (Hammond)

Rachel Carson (Stein)

Alice Walker

Genres:

Graphic novels and comics (Thomas)

Nonfiction

Poetry

Novels

Phoenix. . .

I have my fingers crossed that a different publisher may be allowing me to start a new series to pick up where the Lang series was before being canceled. . .keeping my fingers crossed. . .info as it develops. . .