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This chapter explains the meaning of meaning-making for the quarterlife generation. It describes what is called the meaning-quest--consisting of nine core meaning-making questions--and offers two examples of the pedagogy that the authors use in working with students.

Robert J. Nash and Jennifer J. J. Jang argue that students have a great need to find a "meaning to live for," à la Victor Frankl, and make a case for creating a space for students and educators to contextualize learning experiences dealing with the universal, existential questions of life.

For years, the authors have heard the pleas of students, administrators, staff, and faculty to be able to write more personally--for publication, course assignments, theses, and dissertations. They have heard educators throughout the United States talk about the value of personal narrative writing as a way to take a different in-depth look at an experience, a social condition, and other profession-related phenomena. The approach that their colleagues want is what the authors call "me-search"--bringing the "me" into the research. In this article, the authors demonstrate how taking a vigorous approach to this "me-search" can positively shift what is perceived of as "knowing" in higher education. While they use an example from student affairs to illustrate how this "me-search" process can combine with traditional research to broaden the understanding of knowing, they are convinced that it applies across contexts, from undergraduate classroom to administrative boardroom.

Conflict can shut down communication, the key to social justice advocacy. In this article, the author shares his insights on how some communication strategies can help manage conflict and sustain open conversation with students about contentious issues. Recently, the author participated in an extremely heated discussion session for student affairs administrators, faculty, and staff at a major west coast university. This colloquium was meant to cover the broad spectrum of social justice issues. What started out as a civil dialogue meant to draw all of them into conversation about social justice on a number of controversial issues deteriorated into an airing of two emotionally charged monologues over religious identity and GLBT identity. (Contains 5 notes.)

This article describes the author's cross-pedagogical approach to co-teaching with student affairs colleagues. The central goal of this approach is to help students create meaning for their lives. The author also gives an account of an incident that occurred in one seminar and illustrates the benefits of a crossover approach.

The major premise of this article is inspired by Viktor Frankl's words: "The truth is that as the struggle for survival has subsided, the question has emerged--survival for what? Ever more people today have the "means" to live, but no "meaning" to live for." Thousands of students who have come through the author's college courses during the last four decades suffer, in some ways, from what he calls "a crisis of meaning." Some students experience the crisis as a clash of conflicting meanings. Others confront it as a surfeit of seductive, albeit risky meanings. Still others contend with an utter vacuum of meaning in their lives. To compensate for the crisis of meaning in the early twenty-first century, the author finds that a growing number of college students are looking to external sources for their sense of worth. Educating for meaning entails a "constructivist" approach to education which applies the belief that students construct meaning for themselves. Teachers are charged with helping their students, their colleagues, and themselves find meaning in their lives. In this article, the author offers his personal reflection on how best to accomplish this responsibility. He presents a personal reflection on what he thinks are the three major constructivist ingredients of teaching for meaning: (1) passion; (2) story; and (3) conversation.

Talking about religion in public middle schools has moved from taboo to necessity during the past few years. Although some middle schoolers hold knowledge of their own religion, most remain uninformed about any of the world's religions, including, for many, their own. The purpose of this article is to make the case for religious literacy--the ability to understand the languages, meanings, and beliefs of the world's major and minor religions--as an important aspect of the middle school curriculum. By describing the diverse and changing religious world in which people live, the authors first put forth why a religiously literate population is critical. Next, they discuss young adolescents' developmental readiness for such an education. They then consider the issues pertaining to the separation of church and state, exploring the clear and crucial parameters of the First Amendment. Following this, they describe multiple strategies that can be helpful in teaching middle schoolers about religion in a non-biased manner, garnered from ongoing conversations with educators and from their own experience. They conclude with a call to middle grades educators to recognize the importance of teaching for religious literacy. (Contains 1 figure.)