A Road Less Traveled: Critical Literacy and Language Learning in the Classroom, 1964–1996 takes us through what Robert W. Blake calls the "jaunty journey" of the English/English Language Arts classroom from its linguistic and literature foundations, to emphases on close reading techniques and structures to composing and responding to literature. A Road Less Traveled heads bumpily into the path of learning how to work with "non-native speakers" and other "basic" students toward a (re)-burst of a renewed interest in poetry and drama, reader response, a process approach to writing, and the diverse student, showing through the often winding and blurry road along the journey of our literacy travels over 30 years, that what we understood best about reading and writing has stood the test of time.

Robert W. Blake received his doctorate in education from the University of Rochester. Since that time he has written over 60 books and articles over his long career as an English educator. He was Professor Emeritus with the State University of New York. Brett Elizabeth Blake received her doctorate in curriculum from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Following in her father’s footsteps, she has published over 20 articles and books in her field of literacy/applied linguistics and ESL. She is currently a professor and senior research fellow in The Vincentian Center for Social Justice and Poverty at St. John’s University in New York City.