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. Boyd



ii. 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