Expressive Writing

Classroom and Community

Edited by Kathleen Adams

Publication date:

16 July 2014

Length of book:

266 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9781475812176

Expressive writing is life-based writing that focuses on authentic expression of lived experience, with resultant insight, growth and skill-building. Research shows that expressive writing can help in the development of emotional intelligence, better choice-making, and healthy coping skills.

In this remarkable collection, 11 experts from education and community service join to offer compelling guidance on applied practice. You’ll discover

a model for a poetry group for youth at risk;
how to help students develop inner resources through metaphor;
a “photovoice” project to help at-risk students stay in school;
how storytelling develops emotional intelligence in primary school children;
a method that helps teachers become more confident writers;
how expressive writing can help teachers manage stress and avoid burn-out;
expressive writing as change agent for communities;
the benefits and limitations of writing programs in prisons and jails;
hip-hop as “the pen of the people”;
finding a writing group; writing with others;
the ethics and standards of practice for expressive writing in the classroom and community;
guidance for all levels of learners: Primary, teens, college-age, adult; professional development, personal growth.

Whether you are a teacher, a counselor, a facilitator, or a writer you’ll find this volume an invaluable and innovative resource for expressive writing in the classroom and in the community.

About the Expressive Writing Series
It’s Easy to W.R.I.T.E.
Foreword
Preface, Kathleen Adams

Section 1: Classroom

1.Stories and Storytelling: Good for the Heart and Mind, Mary Hynes-Berry
2. “Recipe for Me”: Using Poetry to Support the Social-Emotional Health of Youth in Special Education, Mary Tinucci
3.Through Students' Eyes: Using “Photovoice” to Help Youth Make Sense of School, Kristien Zenkov and James Harmon
4. Extended Metaphor:Exploring Personal Odyssey through Expressive Writing, Diane Richard-Allerdyce
5. Breaking the Cycle of Writing Anxiety: Empowering Teachers to Write, Catherine Quick
6. The Teacher’s Journal: Expressive Writing and Teacher Self-Care, Marisé Barreiro

Section 2: Classroom and Community

7. Toward an Ethics of Writing Instruction:The Role of Institutional Context in the Uses of Personal Writing, Robb Jackson

Section 3: Community

8. Seeing the World the Way It Is: Transformative Language Arts as Calling and Practice, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
9. Hip-Hop: Pen of the People, David Shanks and Randy Tonge
10. The Limits of (Critical) Expressive Writing in Prisons and Jails, Lauren Alessi and Tobi Jacobi
11. The Muse Works a Crowd: The Joys and Benefits of Writing in Community, Judy Reeves

About the Authors
Acknowledgments

Expressive Writing: Classroom and Community offers practical advice in how to teach writing to people who struggle in their lives and with self-expression. Expressive writing is exciting and transformative. It calls for the best from us as teachers and as people. We learn to listen, we find a way to make a difference, we have a way to care, and we learn to express ourselves. But the world of teaching writing that is open and creative can be daunting. Fortunately, these chapters offer a range of specific practices and important considerations, from how to use poetry in the special education classroom to the ethical issues in requesting personal writing from students and others. Best of all, the authors of these chapters are people you want to learn from, and colleagues you want by your side in this important work.