Helping teachers pursue their tasks of teaching critical analysis and modern Jewish literary history in the English-speaking world is a chief goal of JEWISH VOICES faculty development.

There is no reason why we cannot teach literacy in English through Jewish as well as other texts. Working with Jewish poems promotes faculty understanding of the ease with which standard–and progressive--methods of literary criticism can be transferred to materials left out of secular curricula.

seminars in curriculum development for faculty at Hebrew high schools, exploring bibliographical resources and ideas for structuring units of teaching . . .

seminars also integrate primary training in fundamental techniques of literary analysis with materials whose explicit content is Jewish, not Gentile.

Since Jewish poetry in English from the 1800s on has been omitted from mainstream anthologies, JEWISH VOICES helps Hebrew school faculty welcome the abundance and expanse of Jewish writing so that they can transmit that understanding to Jewish students.

Faculty in History and Social Studies (as well as English) departments can benefit from these seminars, since we explore the social and cultural contexts in which Jewish poetry in English, on both sides of the Atlantic, has been produced.

Professor Harris, who has been asked to conduct faculty development seminars at Akiba Hebrew Academy (Upper Merion, PA), Congregation Rodeph Shalom (Marlboro, NJ), and United Jewish Federation/MetroWest (Whippany, NJ) has extensive teacher-training experience. At Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, he was the initial organizer and chair of the Teaching Development Committee in the English Department (1990-1995) and Chair of the faculty staff and teaching assistants for the introductory course to the English major (1986-1993).