Most studies on the history of educational ideas have focused on what influential educational theorists and policy-makers have said and written at particular times, constructing a "view from the top." The project from which this article is derived focused on the ways theoretical debates have been "lived" by teachers in New…

This book is an autobiographical effort to understand life as a person and as a high school English teacher, and how those two lives have intertwined. The text examines how the author, trained in certain ways, thinks of herself as a professional person. In addition to the subject of the teaching of reading and writing, the author explores how her…