Nourishing Words

Wendy Atwell-Vasey is Assistant Professor of Education at Mary Washington College.

"The theme and title of Nourishing Words cut across life and the various areas of the curriculum. Although the focus is on language arts, much of the book has relevance for schooling, parenting, and community building."The book is generative, inviting thinking, creating, conversing, and transforming. The author writes in a manner that exemplifies the theory she is espousing. The reader gets the feeling that the author knows her subject and 'practices what she preaches.' The author has developed a compelling and fresh theory." — Louise M. Berman, coauthor of Toward Curriculum for Being: Voices of Educators"Its well-theorized issues are carefully laid out and thoughtfully argued, and selections from teachers' narratives add richness and texture. Atwell-Vasey dives deeply to bring forth a gem." — Diane Brunner, author of Inquiry and Reflection: Framing Narrative Practice in Education

• Foreword Acknowledgments Introduction: Relationships among Lannguage Arts, Autobiography, and Feminism PART I: Understanding a Living Matrix of Words and Experience 1. The Conflict between Private Reading and Public Reading 2. Objectivity as a Retreat from Material Life 3. An Overview of Maternal Legacies: The Body-Knower, Intersubjectivity, and Attraction to the Wider WorldPART II: Exploring Maternal Legacies and Pedagogies 4. Restoring Gesture and the Body-Knower to Language Arts 5. Reading and Writing Intersubjectively: Beyond Mastery and Rules 6. The Teacher: An Agent of Love and EnterprisePART III: Regenerating the Curriculum 7. Philip: A Thinking Reader is a Feeling Reader 8. Jane: From Privacy to Community 9. April: Taking on the World from School Parting WordsAPPENDICES: The Teachers Autobiographies Appendix A: Philip's Autobiographical Writing Appendix B: Jane's Autobiographical Writing Appendix C: April's Autobiographical Writing Notes Bibliography Index