David A. Jolliffe – författare

In rural America, perhaps more than other areas, high school students have the ability to contribute to the revitalization and sustainability of their home communities by engaging in oral history projects designed to highlight the values that are revered and worth saving in their region. The Arkansas Delta Oral History Project, a multiyear collaboration between the University of Arkansas and several public high schools in small, rural Arkansas towns, gives students that opportunity. Through the project, trained University of Arkansas studentmentors work with high school students on in-depth writing projects that grow out of oral history interviews. The Delta, a region where the religious roots of southern culture run deep and the traditions of cooking, farming, and hunting are passed from generation to generation, provides the ideal subject for oral history projects. In this detailed exploration of the project, the authors draw on theories of cultural studies and critical pedagogy of place to show how students’ work on religion, food, and race exemplifies the use of community literacy to revitalize a distressed economic region. Advancing the discussion of place-based education, The Arkansas Delta Oral History Project is both inspirational and instructive in offering a successful model of an authentic literacy program.

Teaching and Learning in English Language and Composition: Advanced Placement and Beyond is a collection of chapters written by three veteran teachers, each of whom has taught for over 40 years at both the high school and the college level and all of whom have held leadership positions in the Advanced Placement English Language and Composition Program. The chapters dig deep into the intricacies of teaching close, critical reading; unpack insights into using traditional rhetorical forms and canons; and explore a miscellany of issues related to teaching research, fostering student inquiry, and developing effective practices of assessment. While the authors acknowledge and build on their backgrounds with Advanced Placement, the book is not solely focused on issues related to AP. Instead, the book speaks to all secondary and post-secondary English teachers who seek to enfranchise their students as well-informed, savvy consumers and producers of texts, both verbal and visual.