Adolescents on the Edge: Stories and Lessons to Transform Learning »

ReLeah Cossett Lent was a teacher for more than twenty years before becoming a founding member of a statewide literacy project at the University of Central Florida. She is now a consultant, writing and speaking about adolescent literacy issues. Her three most recent books include Literacy for Real: Reading, Thinking and Learning in the Content Areas (Teachers College Press), Engaging Adolescent Learners: A Guide for Content-Area Teachers (Heinemann) and Literacy Learning Communities: A Guide for Creating Sustainable Change in Secondary Schools (Heinemann). ReLeah's first two books, co-authored with Gloria Pipkin and published by Heinemann, At the Schoolhouse Gate: Lessons in Intellectual Freedom and Silent No More: Stories of Courage in American Schools, won the American Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Award and the NCTE/Slate Intellectual Freedom Award. ReLeah was also the recipient of the PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award in 1999. Her latest project with Jimmy Santiago Baca is a new teaching resource for reaching at-risk adolescents, which includes a book and DVD titled Adolescents on the Edge, Stories and Lessons to Transform Learning.

As an abandoned child and a runaway Jimmy Santiago Baca's childhood was spent on the margins of society. In early adulthood he reverted again and again to a life of crime, eventually being sentenced to five years in a maximum-security prison. After years of hellish suffering on administrative segregation and in isolation, he emerges from prison a voracious reader and a skilled, self-taught writer. He miraculously discovers a deep attachment to poetry that becomes his saving grace. Now an accomplished and celebrated author, Baca is the recipient of many honors including the Pushcart Prize, the American Book Award, the Hispanic Heritage Award, and for his memoir, A Place to Stand, he received the prestigious International Prize. In 2006 he won the Cornelius P. Turner Award, a national award that annually recognizes one GED graduate who has made outstanding contributions to society in education, justice, health, public service, and social welfare. Devoting his post-prison life to writing and teaching others who are overcoming hardship, Baca has conducted hundreds of writing workshops in prisons, community centers, libraries, and universities. In 2005 he created Cedar Tree, Inc., a nonprofit foundation dedicated to helping others improve their lives through education. Other books by Jimmy Santiago Baca PoetrySelected Poems/Poemas SelectosRita and JuliaSpring Poems Along the Rio GrandeWinter Poems Along the Rio GrandeC-Train and Thirteen MexicansHealing EarthquakesQue Linda La Brisa/How Beautiful the Breeze IsImmigrants in Our Own LandBlack Mesa PoemsMartin and Meditations on the South Valley Short Stories and EssaysAdolescents on the Edge / Stories from the EdgeWorking in the DarkThe Importance of a Piece of PaperBreaking Bread with Darkness NovelA Glass of Water MemoirA Place to Stand FilmBlood In/Blood OutLate BlossomsLost VoicesMoving the River Back Home

"Literacy is freedom and everyone has something significant to say."
-Jimmy Santiago Baca

Fusing Jimmy Santiago Baca's talents as a writer of memoir with ReLeah Cossett Lent's expertise in building and empowering classroom communities, Adolescents on the Edge offers a completely new approach to reaching at-risk adolescents. Centered around conflicts and life-altering choices, Baca's gripping personal narratives-delivered through short stories and live-from-the-classroom videos-will resonate with students and provide rich opportunities for them to reflect on their own decision making. Through these stories and their accompanying activities, students witness the power of literacy and learn that their power, too, lives in the words they speak, write, and share with others.

The complete teacher's book, Adolescents on the Edge, describes the elements and professional understandings needed to cultivate transformative learning environments. After detailing the role of trust and dialogue in creating a classroom community, ReLeah presents proven strategies for engaging and motivating students.

The second half of the teacher's book provides new stories Jimmy has written especially for adolescents. Each story is reproducible and is supported by teaching strategies.

- An accompanying DVD welcomes your students into a real classroom to watch master storyteller Jimmy Baca in action. After the stories teachers can watch Jimmy and ReLeah lead students in follow-up lessons and reflect on their own practice.

The 10 stories from the teacher's book are also available in an optional book for students. Stories from the Edge enriches and extends Baca's critically acclaimed memoir A Place to Stand. In addition, Jimmy has written three more stories for students to read independently.