Betty D. Roe

It is ironic that a textbook on literacy should be so unreadable. "Secondary School Literacy" is a perfect example of the moribund nature of current teacher education. A new copy costs $190, but it is barely worth the cost of paper and printing. Teachers across the country are being required to shell out for and read "Secondary School Literacy" to attain their state certifications (or to be recertified, in my case), and the authors seem to know that they have a captive audience. They have show more produced a boring and brainless hoop for educators to jump through.

Why so worthless? This book is a pile of context-free information; a collection of everything that pertains to high school literacy education, without a clear sense of what information is valuable or useful. This is a problem with textbooks in general, and the reason why a thoughtful teacher will favor primary sources. PLEASE, those of you who teach literacy courses, assemble a collection of primary source readings rather than making your students slog through this mindless textbook. show less