
Time to Write
The Influence of Time and Culture on Learning to Write
John Sylvester Lofty(Author)
State University of New York Press
Published on 1. July 1992
Book
Hardback
292 pages
978-0-7914-0901-5 (ISBN)
Description
Teaching on an island off the Maine coast, John Sylvester Lofty encountered students whose resistance to writing was grounded in the tension between time values derived from the changing movements of sun, season, and tide, and the time values of school regulated by the measures of clock and schedule. In this graceful account of his experiences, Lofty uses the voices and writings of students in grades one, two, six, and twelve to dramatize students' encounters with the school-based cultures of time and literacy. Against the world of the clock and bell, he places the world of the lobster fisher, the clam digger, the farmer, the cook, the scientist, and the writer-people for whom the time to do things evolves from the nature of the task. Drawing on scholarship in language education, social anthropology, and the philosophy of time, Lofty challenges our industrialized models of schooling and critiques the time order of process oriented writing instruction.
Reviews / Votes
"In the world of language education, there emerge few books that have an immediate and telling message-books that startle by the very simplicity and obviousness of what they say. John Lofty has given us just such a volume. One could see the book as another 'critical' attack on schools as they are presently constituted; like Shaughnessy and Heath, Lofty is above that easy answer, and like them he writes out of love for all those he describes. Awareness of the conflict is a first step towards the offering of alternatives-the possibility of dialogue between school and community, between teacher and student, that should, I think, be the aim of any educational endeavor." - Alan C. Purves, Center for Writing and Literacy, SUNY-AlbanyMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Albany, NY
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
Total Illustrations: 0
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
227 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-7914-0901-5 (9780791409015)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
John Sylvester Lofty is Assistant Professor of English Education at the University of New Hampshire.
Content
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Ways with Lobsters
2. Work on the Island
3. Fay: Time on the Threshold of Writing
4. Mark: Writing in Grade Six
5. Christie: Writing and the Future
6. Timescapes for Literacy
7. Field Notes: Toward the Future
Appendix Approach: Mapping the Timescapes of Literacy
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Ways with Lobsters
2. Work on the Island
3. Fay: Time on the Threshold of Writing
4. Mark: Writing in Grade Six
5. Christie: Writing and the Future
6. Timescapes for Literacy
7. Field Notes: Toward the Future
Appendix Approach: Mapping the Timescapes of Literacy
Notes
Bibliography
Index