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Restorative Literacy Practices

Cultivating Community in the Secondary ELA Classroom

Deirdre Faughey

Foreword by: Ken Lindblom

Publication Date: May 26, 2023

Pages: 144

Available Formats
PAPERBACK
ISBN: 9780807767887
$34.95
HARDCOVER
ISBN: 9780807767894
$105.00
EBOOK
ISBN: 9780807781494
$34.95
Restorative Literacy Practices 9780807767887
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  • Description
  • Author
  • Reviews
  • Contents

Description+

What happens when learning is approached as a creative transaction between teachers, students, texts, and methods? Based on classroom action research conducted in a diverse suburban school district, the author shares a framework that encourages teachers to approach their work with a restorative mindset by focusing on four elements of instruction: methods; literature; relationships; and culture, identity, and language. In each chapter, Faughey shares a scenario or problem from her ELA classroom, the action she took to address it, and the outcomes. Examples include a 9th-grade classroom where students developed podcasts to share their thinking about Romeo and Juliet, a 10th-grade classroom where multilingual learners created graphic essays to share their comparative analysis of Things Fall Apart and the film Black Panther, and a 12th-grade classroom where students reimagined Dracula in order to connect personally with the text through restorying. This accessible text provides resources, lesson plans, and examples of student work, as well as suggestions for teacher preparation programs.

Book Features:

  • Shares the perspective of a classroom teacher who understands the daily interactions teachers have with students, as well as the possibilities and limitations of teaching in today’s schools.
  • Demonstrates a problem-solving thought process with a step-by-step explanation of the author’s teaching process.
  • Includes vivid anecdotes about students, pictures of students working together, and examples of student work.
  • Situates each scenario within a body of theoretical and research literature, introducing concepts such as cosmopolitan theory, reader response theory, and literary theory.
  • Offers lesson plans, rubrics, and handouts that teachers can use to inform their own practice.
  • Provides lists of podcasts, videos, articles, and books that can be used when teaching classic texts such as The Great Gatsby, as well as multicultural texts like Things Fall Apart.”

Author+

Deirdre Faughey is an English language arts teacher at Oyster Bay High School in New York.

Reviews+

“While Faughey does offer a timely and well-structured guide for bringing students ‘back’ from the pandemic, she also weaves a powerful thread throughout the book as she reveals critical pathways for ensuring that systemically marginalized students feel valued and empowered in a school environment.”

—Teachers College Record

“In Deirdre Faughey’s Restorative Literary Practices: Cultivating Community in the Secondary ELA Classroom, we meet a veteran high-school teaching colleague who has experimented with respectful teaching that looks unflinchingly at the messy state of English language arts, and turns it into an opportunity for vastly more advanced and motivated learning.”
—From the Foreword by Ken Lindblom, professor, Stony Brook University

“In this deeply profound era of racial reckoning, literacy teachers must strengthen the ways our increasingly diverse classrooms can become places of socially just and restorative literacy practices. To that end, in this compelling and innovative text, Deirdre Faughey draws on her considerable teaching experience to offer compassionate and creative approaches to literacy instruction. Let’s follow her example to, as she writes, ‘change the trajectory for students who have historically been pushed out of classrooms rather than welcomed in.’”
—Deborah Appleman, Hollis L. Caswell Professor of Educational Studies, Carleton College, and author, Critical Encounters in High School English: Teaching Literary Theory to Adolescents

“Restorative Literacy Practices is truly a must-read for any teacher navigating the many tensions that diverse students and educators face today. Faughey’s engaging and personal approach is both theoretically grounded and completely practical. Few teacher researchers achieve the scholarly accessibility and authenticity woven into her narrative, fostering a stance that supports teachers’ autonomy and centers students’ voices.”
—Limarys Caraballo, associate professor, Teachers College, Columbia University

“Restorative Literacy Practices is a book for our times. In rethinking and revising her teaching practice to focus explicitly on valuing students’ experiences and ways of knowing, Deirdre Faughey not only honors her students’ various identities and concerns but serves as an exemplary model of teacher learning and development. Along the way, she develops new ‘humanizing’ lessons, assessments, and classroom structures that are restorative to the many students who are often marginalized in our schools and far more authentic and valued ways of reading, writing, and speaking in the world outside of school. The result is a master lesson in how to deepen students’ relationship to texts, their classroom and school communities, and the process of learning itself.”
—Jonna Perrillo, professor, The University of Texas at El Paso

“Here at last is a book by a caring teacher and teacher educator who guides her students and readers to experience restorative literacy practices in action. Deirdre Faughey is a teacher, learner, ethnographer, participant-observer, and action researcher with a keen eye for the people and dynamics in the English language arts classroom. We can teach with grace, love, and mercy as hope beckons and restores us in each living chapter. We must bow as we read.”
—R. Joseph Rodríguez, St. Edward's University

Contents+

Contents

Foreword  xi

Acknowledgments  xiii

1.  Introduction  1
Restorative Literacy Practices  2
My Teaching Context and Background  5
A Framework for Restorative Literacy  7
What You Will Find in This Book  11

2.  Student-Centered Assessment  13
Embarking on Change  14
Introducing Podcasts  15
Planning for the Unpredictable  16
Reflection  26
Alternative Assessment Ideas  27
Spotlight on Teacher Learning  28

3.  Restorative Approaches to Class Participation  29
Student-Led Discussion Leads to Inclusivity  30
Critical Analysis Leads to Sharing Personal Stories  32
Culturally Relevant Literature Leads to Connection  37
Reflection  39
Alternative Class Participation Ideas  40
Spotlight on Teacher Learning  41

4.  The Restorative Potential of Visual Texts  43
Integrating the Arts  45
The Power of a Visual Thread  46
Understanding and Rethinking  50
Creating Graphic Essays  52
Involvement and Identification  53
Reflection  56
Ideas for Responding to Student Needs  56
Spotlight on Teacher Learning  57

5. Humanizing the English Curriculum  59
Literary Theory  61
Pairing Texts: Dubliners and There, There  63
Community Connection  67
Reflection  71
Ideas for Making Learning Relevant  72
Spotlight on Teacher Learning  73

6.  The Restorative Potential of the Imagination  75
Restorative Routine  76
Building on a Tradition of Restorying  78
A Framework for Restorying  79
Reflection  86
Key Ideas for Your Own Teaching  86
Spotlight on Teacher Learning  87

7.  Critical Literacy as Self-Care  89
Pairing Literary and Popular Culture Texts  90
Rethinking Reading  91
Theoretical Frameworks  94
Sharing With Classmates  97
Spotlight on Teacher Learning  98

8.  Conclusion  99

Appendix  103

References  109

Index  119

About the Author  127

$34.95

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