Reviewed books: Trained Capacities: John Dewey, Rhetoric, and Democratic Practice Brian Jackson and Gregory Clark, editors Columbia: U of South Carolina P, 2014. 256 pp. Political Literacy in Composition and Rhetoric: Defending Academic Discourse against Postmodern Pluralism Donald Lazere Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2015. 342 pp. Producing Good Citizens: Literacy Training in Anxious Times Amy J. Wan Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh P, 2014. 232 pp.

Given the war that has been waged for several decades now against working students and their families, as well as against teachers, community college faculty are called upon to invent creative, local, and evolving knowledges of social class with their students.

This essay discusses the emergence of whiteness studies in the study of English rhetoric and composition in the U.S. History of whiteness studies; Function and definition of whiteness in the U.S.; Role of race in different U.S. cultural logics; Relationship of whiteness studies with teaching composition.

An Unquiet Pedagogy argues for a new approach to teaching English in the high school and college classroom, one that reconceives the relationship of literacy and the learner. The title is taken from an essay by Paulo Freire in his book with Donaldo Macedo entitled Literacy: Reading the Word and the World. Like Freire, the authors believe that pedagogy must be critical -- that it must examine the assumptions that teachers and students bring to any educational enterprise, that it must take into account the contexts of learners' lives, and that it must question, rather than quietly accept, existing practices. Voices of beginning and experienced teachers are heard often in the book, exploring how such an unquiet pedagogy might come to be. The authors examine the experiences of these teachers, as well as their own, showing how the classroom can become a place of inquiry for both teachers and students and how theory and research that provide an integrated perspective on language, literacy, and culture must inform teaching practice. Their aim is to transform the English classroom into a place where the imagination becomes central and where learners construct knowledge in the development of real literacy.

for the Classroom is an anthology of essays by teachers using Paulo Freire's methods in their classrooms. These essays, collected from professional journals, represent some of the best experimental teaching done to adapt Freire's liberatory pedagogy to North American classrooms. The articles show the creative enthusiasm many teachers gain from Freire's ideas, as well as the critical literacy and political awareness students gain through this approach. The book offers critical theory side by side with actual reports of teaching practice, so that philosophy is brought down to earth in terms familiar to practicing teachers. Included in the volume is a Letter to North American Teachers written by Paulo Freire expressly for this book, along with an essay by Cynthia Brown discussing the original methods used by Freire.