Institutions of higher learning seem traditionally isolated from the realities of the neighborhoods around them. But increasingly, colleges and universities have thrown open their gates and made a public turn toward school-community partnerships, bringing literacy activities to the streets and service-learning opportunities to faculty, staff, and student volunteers. Paula Mathieu is one such faculty volunteer, and in Tactics of Hope she examines the workings behind the public turn in composition studies at several institutions. Recounting various types of initiatives, she describes how these ideas for outreach were received by both local residents and members of the campus, and she outlines how each side worked together to relieve town-gown tensions. More important, Mathieu examines why a tactical, not strategic, approach to outreach provides the most flexibility for all involved and creates the best opportunities for real learning and deeper interaction between volunteers and their community. Outside the dormitories, the classrooms, and the gates of every university live people who can benefit from public-academic partnerships. And on the inside of those very same structures are people who can benefit equally. Read Tactics of Hope and discover ideas and tactics for tapping the transformative power of learning on and from the streets.

This important study affirms that Latinx children and young adults are uniquely positioned to change the world. Using Gloria Anzaldúa’s theories of conocimiento as a critical lens, the authors examine several literary works including Side by Side / Lado a lado; They Call Me Güero; Land of the Cranes; Efrén Divided; and Gabi, a Girl in Pieces. Using these texts and others, Montaño and Postma-Montaño demonstrate how Latinx literature for young readers reveals the oppressions that affect the everyday lives of Latinx youth in order to destabilize the racist notions that inform them. Whether it is injustices in the agricultural fields, weaponization of deportation and deportability, or forms of exclusion based on gender, ethnicity, and race, the books in this study counter by imagining and then participating in social-justice activism that seeks to transform the world. Ultimately the lessons shared in these books will allow Latinx young people to lead us into a future where equity and belonging are as endemic as they currently are rare.

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Institutions of higher learning seem traditionally isolated from the realities of the neighborhoods around them. But increasingly, colleges and universities have thrown open their gates and made a public turn toward school-community partnerships, bringing literacy activities to the streets and service-learning opportunities to faculty, staff, and student volunteers. Paula Mathieu is one such faculty volunteer, and in Tactics of Hope she examines the workings behind the public turn in composition studies at several institutions. Recounting various types of initiatives, she describes how these ideas for outreach were received by both local residents and members of the campus, and she outlines how each side worked together to relieve town-gown tensions. More important, Mathieu examines why a tactical, not strategic, approach to outreach provides the most flexibility for all involved and creates the best opportunities for real learning and deeper interaction between volunteers and their community. Outside the dormitories, the classrooms, and the gates of every university live people who can benefit from public-academic partnerships. And on the inside of those very same structures are people who can benefit equally. Read Tactics of Hope and discover ideas and tactics for tapping the transformative power of learning on and from the streets.

This book provides definitions and real-life examples of complex PTSD and complex secondary PTSD (seen in a rapidly rising number of spouses and children), and the problems that arise when untreated. Arsenal of Hope aims to help soldiers, first responders, their families, and civilians with trauma—including those dealing with COVID-19 chaos or death. Jen Satterly is a certified coach and respected authority on PTSD, having been embedded with Special Operations during large scale military training missions and married to a Delta Force Command Sgt. Major. As a cofounder of a nonprofit for warriors and their families to heal after the trauma of war, her stories, research, realistic advice, and sometimes humor, are told through a military lens. Written with award-winning collaborative writer Holly Lorincz, Satterly uses her firsthand knowledge and medical expertise to deal with each issue. Most importantly, she illustrates how to change and create habits to circumvent the symptoms of post-traumatic stress.

Rewriting Homeless Identity: Writing as Coping in an Urban Homeless Community focuses on the identities of homeless writers, with initially limited or no specialized training in writing, at a homeless community church. Through an ethnographic, two-year study, author Jeremy Godfrey hosted and participated in weekly writing workshops. He also participated in the founding of a street newspaper within that community. This book shows Godfrey’s experiences in leading writing workshops and how they promoted self-exploration within this community. Students of the workshop negotiated their unique, individual writing personas during the study. Those personas were often coping with their experiences on the streets. More importantly, the writers viewed those experiences as central to their writing processes. Much like the setting of the workshop at an urban, non-denominational, community church, the writers honed their coping tactics through conversational and performance-driven writings. Rewriting Homeless Identity highlights those writing samples and the conversations with homeless authors of the samples in relation to identity and a sense of growth.