Toward a Re-Emergence of James Moffett's Mindful, Spiritual, and Student-Centered Pedagogy

“No history of the National Writing Project, or of English Language Arts teaching more generally, would be complete without a rich engagement with the work and ideas of James Moffett. Written during the tumultuous 1960’s, Moffett’s central books,
Teaching the Universe of Discourse
and
A Student-Centered Language Arts Curriculum,
sparked a paradigm shift in how the profession came to understand the purpose and substance of teaching language and literacy. As current teachers grapple with another tumultuous time,
Toward a Re-Emergence of James Moffett’s Mindful, Spiritual, and Student-Centered Pedagogy
is a book that will help them (re)discover the nurturing and humanistic underpinnings of their calling.”
—Elyse Eidman-Aadahl, Executive Director, National Writing Project

“This collection re-introduces a profoundly influential but largely forgotten voice in English education—especially writing instruction—to a generation that feels his influence in the very intellectual air we breathe, too often without knowing his name. James Moffett was at the molten center of political controversies over language, schooling, and censorship a generation ago that still inflame school board meetings and legislative battles today. Yet he was also a pioneer and prophet of the mindfulness turn in education and the broader culture that is powerfully alive in ways that he advanced from mid-career until his untimely death in 1996. The essays here (including his own, ‘Writing, Inner Speech, and Meditation’) reintroduce and reinterpret him for us at a time when his voice of courage, comfort, and composure are urgently needed.”
—David R. Russell, Professor Emeritus, Iowa State University

Jonathan Marine is a PhD student in George Mason University's Writing & Rhetoric program where his research centers on the life, theory, and work of James Moffett. He was named the 2020 recipient of the James Moffett Award by the National Council of Teachers of English.Paul Rogers is Associate Professor of Writing Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the former Director of the Northern Virginia Writing Project, one of the principal co-founders and the immediate past chair of the International Society for the Advancement of Writing Research (ISAWR), and a co-editor of five collections.Sheridan Blau is Professor of Practice in English Education at Teachers College, Columbia University and Professor of English and Education (Emeritus) at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he directed the South Coast Writing Project and Literature Institute for Teachers. He is also a former President of NCTE. He has published widely on the teaching and learning of composition and literature. His book, The Literature Workshop: Teaching Texts and Their Readers, received NCTE’s Richard Meade Award for outstanding research in English education.Kathleen Kelly has been a teacher for over twenty years. Over the course of her career, she has taught at the middle school, high school, college, and graduate school levels. She has earned two master’s degrees along the way and is currently working to complete her PhD in English Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.