Dying to Teach: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Learning

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State University of New York Press, 2012 M02 1 - 296 pages
In Dying to Teach, Jeffrey Berman confronts the most wrenching loss imaginable: the death of his beloved wife, Barbara. Through four interrelated narratives—how Barbara wrote about her illness in a cancer diary, how he cared for her throughout her illness, how his students reacted to his disclosure that she was dying, and how he responded to her death—Berman explores his efforts to hold on to Barbara precisely as she was letting go of life. Intensely personal, Dying to Teach affirms the power of writing to memorialize loss and work through grief, and demonstrates the importance of death education: teachers and students writing and talking about a subject that, until now, has often been deemed too personal for the classroom.
 

Contents

INTRODUCTION
1
1 BARBARAS CANCER DIARY
11
2 BARBARAS DEATH
63
3 MY EULOGY FOR BARBARA
99
4 AN OPTIONAL WRITING ASSIGNMENT
117
5 THE OTHER EULOGIES
165
6 STUDENTS READING ABOUT BARBARAS LIFE
185
7 LIFE AFTER BARBARA
209
Appendix
237
Works Cited
263
Index
273
Copyright

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About the author (2012)

Jeffrey Berman is Professor of English at the University at Albany, State University of New York. His previous books include Empathic Teaching: Education for Life and Risky Writing: Self-Disclosure and Self-Transformation in the Classroom.

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