Dr. Patrick Groff, Professor of Education Emeritus San Diego State University, has published over 325 books, monographs, and journal articles and is a nationally known expert in the field of reading instruction.

The purpose of this review is to critically comment, in as considerate a manner possible, on a process for teaching language arts with which I disagree. To begin, I concede that my contrariety in this regard is not the most highly popular one.

The 2002 edition of Rethinking Language Arts (RLA), by Nina Zaragoza, is a re-release of her 1997 book by the same name. This suggests that her views have received more than customary acceptance in the past by education professors who assign required reading material in their courses on language arts instruction in elementary schools.

The popularity of the 1997 edition of RLA also implies that the great debate over how to develop and evaluate children's abilities in written composition, oral discourse, listening, drama, reading, spelling, and understanding vocabulary, has not declined. Zaragoza's 2002 book represents the side of the controversy made up of language arts instruction experts who favor what is called student-centered pedagogy. This teaching is accompanied by subjective assessments of students' learning.

The other division of this ongoing dispute consists of authorities in language arts teaching who approve of direct, intensive, systematic, early, and comprehensive tutelage of a prearranged hierarchy of discrete skills and knowledge. This is known as teacher-directed or content-centered tuition. It recommends objective (preferably standardized) measurements of pupils' achievement of prescribed academic standards.

Zaragoza's position on instruction is supported by a poll of elementary school teachers, conducted by the Manhattan Institute in September 2002. That is to say, these teachers by and large prefer to base their instruction on students' interests, rather than on a pre-set curriculum, or state academic knowledge criteria. A majority of teachers want young students to master how to learn, instead of to acquire a great amount of obligatory knowledge. Grading students' attainments should be aimed at the gratification of their individual psychological needs, and not done in reference to a predetermined standard, say a preponderance of today's teachers.

Therefore, it appears that the 2002 edition of RLA will find a receptive audience. A doubtless appeal of the book to teachers will be the animated, autobiographical style Zaragoza adopted in writing it. The empathy of most teachers likely will be roused by her highly subjective message: Read my book to enjoy (as I did in person) the splendid way students respond to my peculiar instructional mannerisms and characteristics. These idiosyncratic aspects are displayed often through records of lengthy conversations held by Zaragoza with single students, or with entire classrooms of children.

The recounting of these conversations reveals what Zaragoza calls contextualized instruction. It is the only way to discuss the skills necessary for the work at hand in language arts lessons, she insists. Contexualized teaching is synonymous with the ideal that first and foremost, all major decisions about language arts teaching must flow from the lives, interests, desires, strengths, and needs of the children. Zaragoza vouches that in this form of tutelage, children's choices of topics, reading materials, and modes of interaction, must drive teachers' planning on a daily basis. In the first of the fourteen letters to teachers that make up her book, Zaragoza explains that the foundation of the exclusive principles, practices, and evaluations she deduces are applicable to language arts tuition. The options in this regard are said to be based on a strong philosophical foundation, i.e., they are grounded in critical theory. Zaragoza's major mentors in this regard are notable educational progressivists: John Dewey, Paulo Freire, Xin Liu Gale, Henry Girdoux, Jesse Goodman, Joe Kincheloe, Ira Shor, and Shirley Steinberg.

Zaragoza declares that critical theory views the language arts teacher as a decision maker, reflective thinker, political being, and social change agent. The latter two characteristics obviously are un-conventional ones. Elementary school teachers normally do not vigorously expound on their political beliefs at school. As well, the number of teachers who actively prepare young students to become zealous advocates of radical social change remains an empirical question.

Zaragoza emphasized that full allegiance of teachers to critical theory is imperative. She observes that in teacher-centered classrooms there is a lock-step, isolated, ungrounded instruction. Here, teachers purportedly are reduced to bureaucratic pawns obediently following directions. By contrast, Zaragoza maintains, teachers converted to belief in critical theory supposedly become transformative intellectuals who remodel their classrooms into just and caring communities.

In her Letter 2 to teachers, it thus is surprising that Zarazoga urges them to construct their own pedagogical philosophies. The importance of a personal philosophy of language arts education can hardly be overemphasized, she highlights. These statements appear out of place in RLA, since they act to downgrade the importance of teachers' unwavering loyalty to critical theory. Also left undisclosed in RLA is what happens when teachers choose a personal type of instruction other than the one based on the critical theory model. That is not likely to happen, Zaragoza implies, since she begins modeling them [her teaching philosophies] the minute student [teachers] step into her classroom. Included in RLA to this effect are lists of loaded questions to teachers, e.g., Do you not believe that you should help all your students tell their dramatic stories with power and conviction? Suggested here is that only teachers who endorse critical theory are able to answer that inquiry in the affirmative. Seemingly ironic, therefore, is Zaragoza's denunciation of teachers who have developed one standard or a perfect way of proceeding in their classrooms, and thus find all other ways less acceptable. Zaragoza seems oblivious to the fact her book is replete with explicit pedagogically and critically radical directives to teachers as to how to comport themselves with school children.

These virtual mandates for teacher behavior are expressed in exquisite detail throughout Zaragoza's letters, especially in Letters 3, and 5 through 8. There is no doubting the fact that she does not countenance teachers straying from the influence of her pronunciamentos, once they are persuaded to accept them. It is clear that Zaragoza aims to condition teachers to rethink, on her terms, about: the nature of instruction, authentic evaluation, the reflective educator, and teaching as human community.

The self-assurance by Zaragoza that she can make teachers feel secure, confident, and powerful, after they decide no longer to operate content-centered classrooms, may stem from the fact that she holds an advantage that defenders of teacher-centered language arts curricula do not enjoy. The latter must reinforce whatever conclusions they draw about language arts instruction from relevant experimental evidence.

To the contrary, Zaragoza faces no such restriction as to her remarks about the merits of the critical theory of language arts instruction. That is because resorting to empirical data for confirmation of the theory is deemed unnecessary. All that seemingly is required for arguments that Zaragoza broaches to gain validity is that they coincide with those of her mentors. There is, therefore, no conviction expressed, in the varied language arts teaching anecdotes that she relates, as to whether any of them have universality--in the scientific sense of this term.

As a consequence, RLA will not resolve the great national debate as to whether pertinent experimental evidence, as versus progressivist ideology, should rule language arts instruction. Each teacher unquestionably will have to continue to make a forced-choice between these two types of guidance to his/her classroom conduct. Individual readers of RLA thus must make a decision as to whether its challenge to the prestige of the science of education is constructively compelling, or merely dangerous folly.

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