This article looks at the gender dimension of religious missions administered by the Presbyterian Church in the inland Australia as represented in Beth Beckett's life memoir written in 1947-1955. It is aimed at obtaining general ideas on the involvement of women, as the wives of missionaries. Focusing on the experience of Beth Beckett, it argues…

"Beneath the rule of men entirely great, the pen is mightier than the sword." Bulwer-Lytton recognized this strength years ago, and its truth continues to ring true in the works of authors: Tzvetan Todorov, Octavio Paz, Carlos Fuentes, Rigoberta Menchu, and Deborah Tannen. Language is a centuries-old weapon wielded in the struggle against…

School librarians often see their collections and programs as vital elements of the reading program in schools. Certainly, school librarians know that library collections filled with rich and varied texts help create eager and adept readers. But what if collections were seen as a teaching resource for writing instruction? Often, today's writing…

Restorative justice (RJ), a distinctive philosophical approach that seeks to replace punitive, managerial structures of schooling with those that emphasize the building and repairing of relationships has been embraced in the past two decades by a variety of school systems worldwide in an effort to build safe school communities. Early studies…

Dorothy Day's love of the poor originated from reading novels that portrayed the poor as persons worthy of respect. This article explores how Day's reading novels opened her mind and heart to the realities of poverty. The methodology is literature-based. Dorothy Day's autobiography reveals the novelists who captivated her mind and cultivated a…

Because video on the web has spread almost virally, video crafted out of an amateur aesthetic has contributed to a disruption of professional communication economies as it prompts us to ask: Can we use digital video to make work-related communication cool? Professional writing pedagogies are beginning to respond to new student expectations about…

The Federal Writers' Project was an arm of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), Franklin Delano Roosevelt's massive program to put the unemployed back to work. The Writers' Project was charged with producing an extensive guidebook for each of the 48 states; and more than 6,000 local newspaper writers, novelists, poets, college professors, and…

After having seen Jody Picoult's "Plain Truth," which is on the paperback best-seller list from "New York Times Book Review," and an ad for a novel called "A Version of the Truth," in this article the author talks about truth and how it is being told by some writers from a different point of view. It seems that truth is everywhere, and also…

This article describes Sarah, a young woman with autism from Frederick, Maryland, who made a choice to forgo traditional employment options for people with disabilities and to pursue the seemingly improbable option of becoming an author. Becoming a successful writer can be a dubious prospect for people without disabilities. And yet with talent,…

The second book edition of Louisa May Alcott's Hospital Sketches eliminated jokes about drinking and religion. Although these were small changes, the edgy theme of drinking and religion as topics that could and sometimes should be taken lightly (even by a writer who also considered both topics as serious) interested Alcott throughout her career.…

Learning the best planning strategies for a memorable and successful visit from a childrens' author can make the prospect less daunting and guarantee that students get the most from the experience. This article provides tips on how to plan this type of inspirational visit: (1) Choosing the author; (2) Visiting day; (3) Go big or stay small?; (4)…

A series of books by a classroom teacher offer an alternative to the curriculum of control with challenging students. Torey Hayden, a former teacher of children with emotional and behavioral disorders, has authored eight books chronicling her day-to-day work in special education and child psychology. Hayden's stories are remarkable for their…

Scholars have consistently claimed that rhetorical patterns are culturally bound, and indirectness is a defining characteristic of Chinese writing. Through examining how the rhetorical mechanism of directness and indirectness is presented in 29 English business communication textbooks published in China, we explore how English business…

This essay is about the process of discovering and trying to help an exceptional student who was grappling with issues of real-life violence and incarceration and the desire to articulate their meaning to his life through writing. It describes how this student empowered himself to reflect on and deconstruct the meaning of his incarceration and how…

Describing, explaining, and discussing various modern indices of scholarly impact as accomplished by Ruscio, Seaman, D'Oriano, Stremlo, and Mahalchik (this issue) is highly commendable, as such measures get increasingly important in hiring and promotion decisions. The author agrees with almost all points made in the target article, except the…