Contending with Gun Violence in the English Language Classroom

Shelly L. Shaffer is an assistant professor of Literacy at Eastern Washington University, USA.Gretchen Rumohr-Voskuil is an associate professor and chair of English at Aquinas College, USA.Steven T. Bickmore is an associate professor of English Education at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA.

• i. Preface by Ashley S. Boydii. Introduction by Steve Bickmore, Gretchen Rumohr-Voskuil, and Shelly Shaffer iii. Section 1: Gun Violence in Schools: What Does History Tell Us? Chapter 1. Exploring School Violence as a YA Author by Chris Crutcher Chapter 2. History of Violence: Guns, U.S. Education, and American Exceptionalism by Paul Thomas Chapter 3. Unreal: How the Rest of the World Views U.S. Gun Policy by David Belbin Chapter 4. #NeverAgain: Considering the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Student Activists’ Media Representations through a Youth Lens by Chris Goering iv. Section 2: Reading About School Violence: Books that Explore School Shootings and Their Aftermath Chapter 5. What Do We Know? and What Can We Do?: Using Mercy Rule to Help Students Understand the Causes and Warning Signs of School Violence by Jim Blasingame Chapter 6. Looking for Hope--and Helpers--in Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Gretchen Rumohr-Voskuil Chapter 7. Adolescent Counter-Storytelling: Finding Youth Voice and Truth in That’s Not What Happened by Shelly Shaffer. Chapter 8. Exploring the Blame Game Through the Lens of the Scout: Reading and Writing about Give a Boy a Gun by Melissa Williamson-Pulkkinen v. Section 3: Recovering from Trauma, Finding Allies, and Taking Action Towards Social Justice Chapter 9. Welcoming Ghosts into Our Classroom: Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds by Sarah Donovan Chapter 10. This is not a Drill: Exploring the After-Effects of Traumatic Events with Are you still there? by Sarah Lynn Scheerger by Maria Hernandez Goff Chapter 11. What He Knows and What He Will Say: Voicing for Justice in All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely by Alice Hays Chapter 12. Making Good Trouble: John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell’s March Trilogy and the Lessons of the Civil Rights Movement by Meghan Sweeney vi. Section 4: Writing Beyond Fear by Addressing the Issues Chapter 13. On Rhetorical Analysis, Teaching, and the American Culture of Guns by Jonathan Bush Chapter 14. Writing through Pain: How Teachers can Support Writing as Therapy for Students Processing Trauma by Jason Griffith Chapter 15. Writing in the Margins: Students’ Voices in the Aftermath of Trauma by Jim Fredricksen and Joe Dillon vii. Section 5: Arming Teachers with Words, Stories, and Power Chapter 16. When the Gun isn’t Metaphorical: Educating Teachers in the Age of School Shootings by Melanie Shoffner