Featuring lively essays from rural elementary and secondary teachers, this volume describes the theory and practice of place-conscious education - using one's local place to build real, lasting connections to learning. The teachers describe the development and implementation of rich classroom writing programs that link learners with their rural communities and can serve as models for both public engagement and pedagogy.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
On Rural Voices,
By Jo (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Rural Voices: Place-Conscious Education and the Teaching of Writing (Practitioner Inquiry, 25) (Paperback)
"Rural Voices: Place Conscious Education and the Teaching of Writing"
Edited by Robert E. Brooke Published Simultaneously by: Teachers College Press and National Writing Project Number of Pages: 203 Year Published: 2003 General Overview The ten teachers/authors who participate in this book are part of the Nebraska Writing Project's Rural Voices, Country Schools program. This program enables these teachers to discuss their experiences in teaching in rural school districts. While the book primarily focuses on K-12th grade studies, there are some passages pertaining to Undergraduate studies as well. The book is broken into three sections: Place-Conscious Writing and Active Learning/ Place-Conscious Writing and Local Knowledge/ and Place-Conscious Writing and Regional Citizenship. The primary focus of "Rural Voices" is the study of "place-conscious education," which was formed by former teachers, critics, and reformers, such as, Theobald, Berry, Critchfield, Gruchow, Jackson, Dewey, Goodlad, Fullan and Olson. These predecessors are referenced throughout the book, however, it is this constant referencing, that at times, keeps the reader distanced from the current groups' immediate project. Ideal Audience The ideal audience for this book is any teacher interested in "place-conscious" studies. Brooke (the editor) states that "place-conscious education...is schooling that focuses on the necessary relations--cultural, natural, agricultural--that shape a given place and its human communities" (6). The idea is that if teachers can teach their students about their immediate surroundings and connect it to their learning, that students will become more engaged in their studies. Furthermore, there is a belief that this type of learning will "develop a richer sense of citizenship and civic action" (6). While the book focuses on rural school districts and Creative Writing teachers, there is enough substance in the book to carry over to any teacher in any subject. It seems as though the idea of "place-conscious" learning, on many levels, can be applied generally anywhere. Part I: Place-Conscious Writing and Active Learning This section focuses on the "first principle of place-conscious education," namely, that it "requires active learners" (21). The teachers in Part I show the reader how to get students to be active learners. They do this through field trips and allowing their students to "write what they know." The writing samples in this section allow the reader to monitor how the study of place effects the students' writing. Sandy Bangert (one of the teachers in this section) believes that "to be a developmentally aware teacher, [she] must connect literacy and leaning to the communities that surround the child" (32). Phip Ross (another teacher in this section) believes, like Bangert, that his students should "write about their places" and that in doing so they will be more connected to their immediate surroundings. Part II: Place-Conscious Writing and Local Knowledge This section focuses on the second principle, which is that "place-conscious education immerses students in a deep knowledge of local place" (63). One of the most shocking aspects of this section exists in Sharon Bishop's chapter. Bishop takes "place-conscious" learning a step further by actually allowing it to replace her 10th grade English classes literature anthology. She generates "a new curriculum...of Nebraska authors" in an attempt to form "a study of place [through] literature of place" (66). One of the most impressive writing samples linked to place appears on page 73 in a writing exercise called "Where I'm From" taken from George Ella Lyon (not one of the teachers in this book). This exercise is a good example of how place can be linked to writing. Part III: Place-Conscious Writing and Regional Citizenship This section focuses on the third principle, which is that "place-conscious education develops place-conscious citizenry" (119). Amy Hottovy's chapter in this book relates the monetary challenges facing rural school districts. The teachers in her chapter tell stories about overcoming school consolidations and job insecurities, and there are student testimonials, as well, that really make the reader aware of how much these pressures and changes can effect the students. The goal here seems to be to allow students to become involved with their surroundings so that they become more involved and more active citizens in their community. Robyn Dalton's chapter goes on to discuss job-shadowing and mentoring opportunities in the community and the way that these experiences help students become aware of local job employment possibilities. Overall Assessment and Rating This book clearly aims to steer the rural classroom to a more "place-conscious" type of learning. However, this book operates on the assumption that all students will benefit more from this type of an education. While it's true that a student may be more engaged with field trips to the local prairies and writing exercises about heritage and place, it just doesn't seem acceptable to allow a rural classroom to replace a standard of learning with merely "place-conscious" learning. For instance in Chapter 5, Judith Schafer states that her "English 12 students were, for the most part, not college bound and felt intimated by or not capable of tackling the British Literature class" (114). In response to this, she develops a "community awareness unit" where students write business letters and go on field trips to different areas in town. It just seems unfortunate that a teacher would foster a student's fear with the choice to not push ahead and discover new terrain, but rather to turn back to what is familiar. There are several useful parts in this book, and I would recommend reading it, if not to at least get a better sense of what "place-conscious" learning is.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Rural Voices: Place-Conscious Education and the Teaching of Writing,
By
This review is from: Rural Voices: Place-Conscious Education and the Teaching of Writing (Practitioner Inquiry, 25) (Paperback)
Edited by Robert E. Brooke
Published simultaneously by: Teacher's College Press (Columbia U, New York) and National Writing Project (Berkeley) Number of pages: 203 Year published: 2003 Best audience for this book: High School English Teachers From the preface (p. ix): "In short, we believe energized writing is, at core, place-conscious. To write well--to want to write well--writers of any age must feel "located" in a particular community and must feel that their writing contributes." The book contains nine essays from English teachers involved with the Nebraska Writing Project's "Rural Voices, Country Schools" team. Each essay is written by a single teacher and is focused on their attempt to include "place conscious-learning" within their curriculum. While the line-up of teachers does include one Elementary School teacher and one teacher at a Community College, the majority of the essays take place within high school classrooms. That is not to say that the students and teachers remain in their classrooms. The goal for all of these teachers is to find ways for their students to get out of the classroom and connect with the people and places that make up their communities. Examples include creating an after-school writing club that is open to students and community members of all ages, asking students to interview older relatives and neighbors that have grown up in their community, reading literature by Nebraska authors such as Willa Cather and Mari Sandoz, making field trips to historically and culturally significant places in the community, having high school students mentor younger writers from the elementary school, inviting high school students to exchange journals with residents at a local retirement home, and requiring students to put together a portfolio and presentation on the research they have done about a potential future career in their communities. A representative paragraph from the book was written by Marian Matthews in the afterword (p. 184): "It is through the work that we did in the RV,CS project that solidified for me the notion that we must begin our understanding of history, literature, and ourselves through our local context and community. The disconnected facts that we `fill in the blanks' on our worksheets and tests have no meaning for us in understanding how the world, our country, our community, or even we ourselves have become the way we are. We lose these facts immediately after the test, even if we had them in the first place. So, why the focus on learning them in the first place? What possible meaning could these disconnected facts have in our lives? Most teenagers, according to a 1997 Public Agenda survey, `see very little reason to study academic subjects such as history, science, and literature. They view most of what they learn in their classes...as tedious and irrelevant.' I don't think this is true about the students of the teachers in this book. They have learned about themselves as human beings because they have begun the journey of connection to the land and the community. Wendell Berry states strongly, `We and our land are part of one another' (1977, p. 22) and he believes that we begin to know ourselves through `our association with others within a shared geographical space' (quoted in Snauwaert, 1990, p. 119)." THE ONE main strength of book: It makes absolute sense that this book is so narrowly focused on one population--teachers and students participating in the RV, CT project in rural Nebraska. By doing so, the project and book in itself becomes evidence of it's thesis that by paying closer attention to the people and places that directly affect us we will better be able to understand and interpret the larger world. While all of the teaching examples in this book are born out of and relevant to students in rural Nebraska, I think that all of them can be adapted to communities of students throughout the country and world. THE ONE main weakness: There are many places in the book in which teachers state that their goal is to be able to help students gain an appreciation of the communities in which they have grown up and be able to imagine a future as adults in these communities instead of feeling pressured to leave. While I really like the idea of helping students better appreciate their communities while they are in high school, I think for many people being able to leave the community you grew up in and then choosing to return is essential to fully appreciating where you are from. Many of the teachers/writers in this book are in this situation of returning to their homelands with fresh eyes, yet in their writing they act as if encouraging students to leave after high school hurts their purpose, while I believe it could actually strengthen it. -Excellent if you are interested in place-conscious education.
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Inside This Book
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Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs):
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rising city, inviting children, developing school, statewide writing assessment, writing club, copying items, accountability question Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Common Threads, The Oaks, Rural Voices, Sense of Place, Geography of Stories, Country Schools, Rural America, Community Connections, Cedar Bluffs, Customer Service, Copyright Clearance Center, Career Education, Columbia University, Teachers College, Nebraska Writing Project, Main Street, Platte River, Community Journal Project, Paul Gruchow, Mari Sandoz, John Neihardt, Don Welch, North Dakota, Bess Streeter Aldrich, Willa Cather Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!
rising city, inviting children, developing school, statewide writing assessment, writing club, copying items, accountability question Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Common Threads, The Oaks, Rural Voices, Sense of Place, Geography of Stories, Country Schools, Rural America, Community Connections, Cedar Bluffs, Customer Service, Copyright Clearance Center, Career Education, Columbia University, Teachers College, Nebraska Writing Project, Main Street, Platte River, Community Journal Project, Paul Gruchow, Mari Sandoz, John Neihardt, Don Welch, North Dakota, Bess Streeter Aldrich, Willa Cather Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
3
books
cite this book:
- Reclaiming Assessment: A Better Alternative to the Accountability Agenda by Chris W. Gallagher on page 107, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Identity Papers: Literacy and Power in Higher Education by Bronwyn T Williams on page 142, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Whistlin' and Crowin' Women of Appalachia: Literacy Practices Since College (Studies in Writing & Rhetoric) by Associate Professor Katherine Kelleher Sohn in Back Matter
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