Counterpoints publishes the most compelling and imaginative books being written in education today. Grounded on the theoretical advances in criticalism, feminism and postmodernism in the last two decades of the twentieth century, Counterpoints engages the meaning of these innovations in various forms of educational expression. Committed to the proposition that theoretical literature should be accessible to a variety of audiences, the series insists that its authors avoid esoteric and jargonistic languages that transform educational scholarship into an elite discourse for the initiated.

What happens when teachers «relinquish the authority of truth providers»? Ninth grader Sasha Pringle, one of the student voices in Classroom Calypso, asserts that such a self-effacing posture empowers students by «releasing the writer within,» thereby fostering a critical, creative, and reflective disposition. Winthrop R. Holder re-represents students not as marginalized beings merely absorbing information but as subjects taking center stage and inscribing themselves into history. On their literary pilgrimage seeking self-knowledge, students, employing tale-telling, recast their classroom as a symposium a place where popular culture orchestrates the discourse. This is an invaluable book for educators, parents, and anyone interested in understanding and facilitating the voices of urban youth.

Autorentext

The Author: Winthrop R. Holder has been teaching social studies for the last twenty years in Brooklyn and the Bronx, New York. He has written on facilitating the writing process for 19 Urban Questions: Teaching in the City (Lang, 2004) and City Kids: Understanding, Appreciating, and Teaching Them (Lang, 2007).