Daniel Rose

Christine Walsh

In this book you will read many examples of rich literacy conversations between a teacher and his 8th grade students that never would have occurred face to face in the classroom. These conversations take place online when 8th graders write to their teacher about the books they’re interested in reading and choosing to read independently. Students write about what happens when they read or don’t read, how they feel about reading, how they’re connecting with characters and ideas, why they don’t have enough time to read, and what their reading goals are. And their teacher writes back to them. Every week. After each conversation you will read some “meta-talk” that shines a light on what the conversation has taught us about this language learner and how this “data”is informing our beliefs and practices. Embedded within the chapters are suggested resources (articles, book recommendations, links, websites, blogs, etc.) you can follow should you want to read more in that chapter. What these students reveal about their own literacy development- their successes, their challenges, their lives- and how their teacher nudges them along socially, emotionally and academically, teach us the value and power of one practical, authentic literacy tool- the Reading Conversation Journal.

Online Reading Conversation Journals in the Middle School

Talking through Reading and Writing

A traditionally nomadic people, the Irish Travellers have experienced a long history of marginalization and discrimination in modern Ireland. This volume explores colonisation as an unresolved trauma which has contributed to this marginalisation of Travellers both within Ireland and abroad. Travellers’ traditionally oral culture has meant that they have, until recently, been excluded from many educational institutions and frameworks. Focusing on two autobiographical works by Traveller writers, Nan Joyce’s My Life on the Road (2000) (formerly Traveller, 1985) and Seán Maher’s The Road to God Knows Where (1972, 1998), the prominence given to oral expression and narration suggests that memory is a collective process, one whereby an individual’s cultural identity develops on a communal level, a level that is intimately connected to the natural world. By re-engaging with the official versions of Irish history as encompassed in narratives where Travellers are active participants, Joyce and Maher reveal the seminal role of storytelling in the creation of a sense of nationhood for a people hitherto excluded to society’s margins. The writings of these Traveller authors also serve to construct a legitimate sense of belonging for Travellers within the modern Irish nation-state. By re-engaging with such individual narrative voices it is possible to illuminate what is lost, but also, what is worth safeguarding for the future.

Orality and Irish Traveller Writing

Postcolonial Borderlands

When readers and writers of all ages are supported socially, emotionally, and academically in their reading and writing processes, they acquire a sense of agency over text, and suddenly they begin to see reading in a different light. They begin to value reading more as a life skill, one that can change the way they act and think, and maybe even change the way they live. The Online Reading Conversation Journal offers teachers a practical teaching tool for creating engaged, independent readers who can make these connections.

Talking Through Reading and Writing

St Katherine of Alexandria was one of the most popular saints in both the Orthodox and Latin Churches in the later Middle Ages, yet there has been little study of how her cult developed before c. 1200. This book redresses the balance, providing a thorough examination of the way the cult spread from the Greek-speaking lands of the Eastern Mediterranean and into Western Europe. The author uses the full range of source material available, including liturgical texts, hagiographies, chronicles and iconographical evidence, bringing together these often disparate sources to map the way in which the cult of St Katherine grew from its early stages in the Byzantine Empire up to c.1100, its transmission to Italy, and the introduction and development of the cult in Normandy and England up to c.1200. The book also includes appendices listing early manuscripts containing Katherine's Passio and including key original texts on St Katherine of the period. This study will be welcomed by scholars of medieval history and the history of medieval art, and as a case-study for all those with an interest in the development of medieval saint's cults.

The Cult of St Katherine of Alexandria in Early Medieval Europe

St Katherine of Alexandria was one of the most popular saints in both the Orthodox and Latin Churches in the later Middle Ages, yet there has been little study into the way in which her cult developed before c. 1200. This new book redresses the balance, providing a thorough examination of the way the cult spread from the Greek-speaking lands of the Eastern Mediterranean and into Western Europe.

Christine Walsh

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