In efforts to reform English education, little attention is given to English teachers' conceptual understanding of their work; the focus instead is on their actions and whether or not those actions lead to effective instruction. With Composing a Teaching Life, Ruth Vinz digs deeper. She refines her ways of remembering and telling and in the process brings meaning to her own twenty-nine years of teaching. She also presents the perspectives of other practitioners--four student teachers, four first-year teachers, and three seasoned teachers--who describe how their knowledge, preparation, and methods of inquiry affect their actions, beliefs, and practice. Her goal is to involve readers in the complexities of teaching and learning so that they will re-search and re-examine their own teaching lives.

Composing a Teaching Life is divided into two sections. Part One covers the ways different representations of teachers as professionals affect their self-identities, major issues in learning to teach, the advantages of reflective inquiry among experienced teachers, and examples of how teachers actualize their beliefs in their practice. In Part Two, teachers offer glimpses into classrooms that serve as vehicles for drawing out, articulating, questioning, and illuminating what's happening at particular schools, making the book ideal for college methods courses and staff development programs.