William P. Banks – författare

Consciousness has long been a subject of interest in philosophy and religion but only relatively recently has it become subject to scientific investigation. Now, more than ever before, we are beginning to understand this mental state. Developmental psychologists understand when we first develop a sense of self; neuropsychologists see which parts of the brain activate when we think about ourselves and which parts of the brain control that awareness. Cognitive scientists have mapped the circuitry that allows machines to have some form of self awareness, and neuroscientists investigate similar circuitry in the human brain.Research that once was separate inquiries in discreet disciplines is converging. List serves and small conferences focused on consciousness are proliferating. New journals have emerged in this field. A huge number of monographs and edited treatises have recently been published on consciousness, but there is no recognized entry point to the field, no comprehensive summary. This encyclopedia is that reference.Organized alphabetically by topic, coverage encompasses a summary of major research and scientific thought regarding the nature of consciousness, the neural circuitry involved, how the brain, body, and world interact, and our understanding of subjective states. The work includes contributions covering neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, and artificial intelligence to provide a comprehensive backdrop to recent and ongoing investigations into the nature of conscious experience from a philosophical, psychological, and biological perspective.

Published in the year 1986, Applications of Cognitive Psychology is a valuable contribution to the field of Cognitive Psychology.

Published in the year 1986, Applications of Cognitive Psychology is a valuable contribution to the field  of Cognitive Psychology.

Published in the year 1986, Applications of Cognitive Psychology is a valuable contribution to the field  of Cognitive Psychology.

In 1995, George Haggerty and Bonnie Zimmerman’s landmark volume Professions of Desire: Lesbian and Gay Studies in Literature—followed by William Spurlin’s Lesbian and Gay Studies and the Teaching of English (2000)—began addressing the esoteric discussions complicating the intersections among gender, sexuality, and other identity constructs within the English classroom. Given the perpetuation of heteronormativity in the educational system, Haggerty encourages instructors to help LGBT students "learn about the politics of oppression in their own lives as well as in the cultural context that, after all, determines what they mean when they call themselves lesbian or gay."Approaches to Teaching LGBT Literature is designed to help teachers address what it means to teach LGBT literature. How can pre-service teacher educators prepare their students to teach LGBT literature? How should teachers introduce different bodies of students to these texts? Those interested in starting LGBT-themed courses and/or thinking about how LGBT literatures might fit into the broader undergraduate curriculum will benefit from this scholarship addressing the history and evolution of LGBT literature courses in different contexts and providing a diverse set of example courses, projects, and activities that would help an array of faculty to implement such courses on their campuses.

Where others have explored the teaching of LGBTQ literature courses, Curricular Innovations: LGBTQ Literatures and the New English Studies explores the impact that queer writers and their works are having across the broader undergraduate curriculum of English departments, as well as beyond those department spaces. While courses that focus on queer texts provide more space for students to think about the complexities of queer lives, this book breaks out of the specialized LGBTQ classroom to consider how we might also restructure and reframe a diverse set of undergraduate courses by paying attention to the contributions that LGBTQ writers make. Beyond simply including a text or two to represent "difference," contributors to this volume take a more structural approach in order to demonstrate ways of theming or designing courses around language, desire, and sexuality. They also demonstrate what happens when queer texts are given freedom to shape other classroom spaces, discussions, and reading/writing practices. This collection offers a practical intervention into conversations about the purposes and places of LGBTQ literatures by making good on the challenges that queer theories have posed to higher education over the last forty years.

Failing Sideways is an innovative and fresh approach to assessment that intersects writing studies, educational measurement, and queer rhetorics. While valuing and representing the research, theory, and practice of assessment, authors Stephanie West-Puckett, Nicole I. Caswell, and William P. Banks demonstrate the ways that students, teachers, and other interested parties can find joy and justice in the work of assessment.  A failure-oriented assessment model unsettles some of the most common practices, like rubrics and portfolios, and challenges many deeply held assumptions about validity and reliability in order to ask what could happen if assessment was oriented toward possibility and potential. Working to engage a more capacious writing construct, the authors propose queer validity inquiry (QVI) as a model for assessment that values failure, affect, identity, and materiality. These overlapping lenses help teachers honor parts of writing and learning that writing studies faculty have struggled to hold onto in a world overly focused on quickness and efficiency in schools.  Through programmatic and classroom examples, Failing Sideways privileges what is valued in the classroom but traditionally ignored in assessments. Reimagining what matters in the teaching and learning of writing and using assessment data differently, this book demonstrates what writing can be and could do in a more diverse and just world.