This ethnographic research investigates how adolescents use writing. Deborah M. Alvarez uncovers the hidden abuses and violence that adolescents bore with each school day. In two different research sites, the author follows adolescents through their academic and personal lives to discover how they use writing only to uncover the impact the public and private violence had upon their ability to learn. The author details the writing classroom practices; assignments; and how adolescents adapt, reconstruct and appropriate the lessons of the classroom for their purpose and needs. For the adolescents in the book, writing was a way to address the stresses that plagued the adolescents each day, especially when they had no other way to communicate or tell about their lived experiences. Alvarez outlines an alternative Expressivist plan for teaching writing to adolescents. This writing program builds upon the evidence from the case studies, brain theory and research on traumatic stresses to offer teachers and thereby their students a more effective way to teach writing with greater impact for those who need it most.
Deborah M. Alvarez began her teaching career in Kansas as secondary English language arts teacher. After receiving her doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Composition Studies, Deborah now teaches methods and writing courses to future teachers at the University of Delaware while continuing her research in the effects of natural disasters on teacher instruction and adolescent writing.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Writing to SurviveChapter 2 Research Methodology for Prairie High SchoolChapter 3 Danielle— "I'm Safe Now."Chapter 4 Chase — "When I am Happy, I Have No Problems Thinking"Chapter 5 Diana —"Hell of a Life, Isn't It?"Chapter 6 Research Methodology in New Orleans Public High SchoolsChapter 7 Lydia — "In Then I New My Friend was Dead."Chapter 8 Tyrone - "Doing Me is What I Do Best"Chapter 9 Writing Across Trauma, Tragedy and Adolescence