To the Lighthouse and Back: Writings on Teaching and Living

by Mary Aswell Doll

The book's basic thesis is that learning, like living, is comedic. Comedy instructs through metaphor - seeing likeness between opposites - and in reading everything as text. The book thereby revisions education as Comedy. It suggests that the subjects of all assignments must connect with the subjective reader. Accordingly, it includes student writings, personal memoirs, dreams, poems, myths, journals, and artwork - as well as critiques of mainstream writing and teaching. From classwork with Virginia Woolf, Eudora Welty, and Flannery O'Connor, assignments are offered to prod students into awareness of their deeper selves, their others, nature, and the divine.

Paperback

First published December 1, 1995

Reviews

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written by someone who is fearless about her life ... I so appreciated this book. I think the text will become something that I return to quite often for solace and inspiration.