Can an outrageously immoral man or a scandalous woman teach morality or lead people to virtue? Does personal fallibility devalue one's words and deeds? Is it possible to separate the private from the public, to segregate individual failing from official function? Chaucer addressed these perennial issues through two problematic authority figures, the Pardoner and the Wife of Bath. The Pardoner dares to assume official roles to which he has no legal claim and for which he is quite unsuited. We are faced with the shocking consequences of the belief, standard for the time, that immorality is not necessarily a bar to effective ministry. Even more subversively, the Wife of Bath, who represents one of the most despised stereotypes in medieval literature, the sexually rapacious widow, dispenses wisdom of the highest order. This innovative book places these "fallible authors" within the full intellectual context that gave them meaning. Alastair Minnis magisterially examines the impact of Aristotelian thought on preaching theory, the controversial practice of granting indulgences, religious and medical categorizations of deviant bodies, theological attempts to rationalize sex within marriage, Wycliffite doctrine that made authority dependent on individual grace and raised the specter of Donatism, and heretical speculation concerning the possibility of female teachers. Chaucer's Pardoner and Wife of Bath are revealed as interconnected aspects of a single radical experiment wherein the relationship between objective authority and subjective fallibility is confronted as never before.

"Many physicians think they need to be infallible to be successful, but no one is immune from mental illness."

Fallible Man is the second book in Paul Ricoeur’s early trilogy on the will and the most accessible of his early writings. While the descriptive approach of Freedom and Nature set aside all normative questions, Fallible Man removes those brackets to examine the bad will, asking what makes evil a possibility. Combining rigor and originality, Ricoeur locates the possibility of evil in a self that is fundamentally in conflict with itself. Edited by Scott Davidson, A Companion to Ricoeur's Fallible Man clarifies and contextualizes the central arguments developed in Ricoeur’s philosophy of the will, providing insight into his formative influences and themes. The collection gathers an international group of scholars who specialize in Ricoeur’s thought to shed light on an impressive range of themes from Fallible Man that resonate with contemporary debates in philosophy and religion.

The 3rd Edition of Literacy & Learning in the Content Areas helps readers build the knowledge, motivation, tools, and confidence they need as they integrate literacy into their middle and high school content area classrooms. Its unique approach to teaching content area literacy actively engages preservice and practicing teachers in reading and writing and the very activities that they will use to teach literacy to their own studentsin middle and high school classrooms . Rather than passively learning about strategies for incorporating content area literacy activities, readers get hands-on experience in such techniques as mapping/webbing, anticipation guides, booktalks, class websites, and journal writing and reflection. Readers also learn how to integrate children's and young adult literature, primary sources, biographies, essays, poetry, and online content, communities, and websites into their classrooms. Each chapter offers concrete teaching examples and practical suggestions to help make literacy relevant to students' content area learning. Author Sharon Kane demonstrates how relevant reading, writing, speaking, listening, and visual learning activities can improve learning in content area subjects and at the same time help readers meet national content knowledge standards and benchmarks.

It has often been held that scholasticism destroyed the literary theory that was emerging during the twelfth-century Renaissance, and hence discussion of late medieval literary works has tended to derive its critical vocabulary from modern, not medieval, theory. In Medieval Theory of Authorship, now reissued with a new preface by the author, Alastair Minnis asks, "Is it not better to search again for a conceptual equipment which is at once historically valid and theoretically illuminating?" Minnis has found such writings in the glosses and commentaries on the authoritative Latin writers studied in schools and universities between 1100 and 1400. The prologues to these commentaries provide valuable insight into the medieval theory of authorship. Of special significance is scriptural exegesis, for medieval scholars found the Bible the most difficult text to describe appropriately and accurately.