193 Dutro > Writing Wounded English Education , January 2011 Elizabeth Dutro I n his book, A Scream Goes through the House, literary scholar Arnold Wein- stein writes that he once began the first session of his university literature course by asking his students, “How many of you are hurting now?” His point is that emotions are part and parcel of literature study and of class- room life and too often bracketed from our notions of what constitutes an education or a curriculum. He also writes that he could have asked about other emotions—“How many of you are delighted?” (2003, p. xxii)—and the students would be equally surprised by the question. Equally surprised? Prob- ably. But equally affected? I don’t think so. I think Weinstein asked about hurt because he intuits that pain, loss, trauma—whatever term we might attach to it—is the most resonant emotion to tap for his goals of supporting students’ connections to the visceral aspects of literary engagement. In my university teaching and through my research with students in high-poverty schools, I have come to believe that such an explicit acknowledgment of the hard stuff of life is important in classrooms. I must believe it or I would not choose to share, in the first session of my writing classes, this draft of an autobiographical essay: When the subject of siblings arises at dinner parties, I consider my re- sponses carefully. If I decide to be honest, I know that I will single-handedly The scream that goes through the house is the heartbeat that makes audible, at last, who we are, how resonant we are, how connected we are. —Weinstein, 2003, p. xii Writing Wounded: Trauma, Testimony, and Critical Witness in Literacy Classrooms Extending the Conversation Copyright © 2011 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved.