As he walks with us through dark territories, he points out the significant and reflects on its meaning.”—Mary Pipher, Ph.D., author of Reviving OpheliaThe passage from adolescence to adulthood was once clear. Today, growing up has become more complex and confusing, as young men drift casually through college and beyond—hanging out, partying, playing with tech toys, watching sports. But beneath the appearance of a simple extended boyhood, a more dangerous social world has developed, far away from the traditional signposts and cultural signals that once helped boys navigate their way to manhood—a territory Michael Kimmel has identified as "Guyland."In mapping the troubling social world where men are now made, Kimmel offers a view into the minds and times of America's sons, brothers, and boyfriends, and he works toward redefining what it means to be a man today—and tomorrow. Only by understanding this world and this life stage can we enable young men to chart their own paths, stay true to themselves, and emerge safely from Guyland as responsible and fully formed male adults.

    Along the way, he reveals how pairs begin to talk, think, and even look like each other; how the most successful ones thrive on conflict; and why some pairs flame out while others endure. When it comes to shaping the culture, Shenk argues, two is the magic number, not just because of the dyads behind everything from South Park to the American Civil Rights movement to Starry Night, but because of the nature of creative thinking. Even when we're alone, we are in a sense "collaborating" with a voice inside our head. At once intuitive and surprising, Powers of Two will change the way we think about innovation.http://www.shenk.net/

    . . It’s Complicated will update your mind.”—Alissa Quart, New York Times Book Review  “A fascinating, well-researched and (mostly) reassuring look at how today's tech-savvy teenagers are using social media.”—People  “The briefest possible summary? The kids are all right, but society isn’t.”—Andrew Leonard, Salon   What is new about how teenagers communicate through services such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram? Do social media affect the quality of teens’ lives? In this eye-opening book, youth culture and technology expert danah boyd uncovers some of the major myths regarding teens' use of social media. She explores tropes about identity, privacy, safety, danger, and bullying. Ultimately, boyd argues that society fails young people when paternalism and protectionism hinder teenagers’ ability to become informed, thoughtful, and engaged citizens through their online interactions. Yet despite an environment of rampant fear-mongering, boyd finds that teens often find ways to engage and to develop a sense of identity. Boyd’s conclusions are essential reading not only for parents, teachers, and others who work with teens but also for anyone interested in the impact of emerging technologies on society, culture, and commerce in years to come. Offering insights gleaned from more than a decade of original fieldwork interviewing teenagers across the United States, boyd concludes reassuringly that the kids are all right. At the same time, she acknowledges that coming to terms with life in a networked era is not easy or obvious. In a technologically mediated world, life is bound to be complicated.

    Drawing on feedback from thousands of educators around the world who have used the UbD framework since its introduction in 1998, the authors have revised and expanded their original work to guide educators across the K16 spectrum in the design of curriculum, assessment, and instruction. With an improved UbD Template at its core, the book explains the rationale of backward design and explores in greater depth the meaning of such key ideas as essential questions and transfer tasks. Readers will learn why the familiar coverage- and activity-based approaches to curriculum design fall short, and how a focus on the six facets of understanding can enrich student learning. With an expanded array of practical strategies, tools, and examples from all subject areas, the book demonstrates how the research-based principles of Understanding by Design apply to district frameworks as well as to individual units of curriculum. Combining provocative ideas, thoughtful analysis, and tested approaches, Understanding by Design, Expanded 2nd Edition, offers teacher-designers a clear path to the creation of curriculum that ensures better learning and a more stimulating experience for students and teachers alike.

    Harsh budget cuts, the precarious nature of employment in college teaching, and political hostility to the entire enterprise of education have made for an increasingly fraught landscape. Radical Hope is an ambitious response to this state of affairs, at once political and practical—the work of an activist, teacher, and public intellectual grappling with some of the most pressing topics at the intersection of higher education and social justice.Kevin Gannon asks that the contemporary university’s manifold problems be approached as opportunities for critical engagement, arguing that, when done effectively, teaching is by definition emancipatory and hopeful. Considering individual pedagogical practice, the students who are the primary audience and beneficiaries of teaching, and the institutions and systems within which teaching occurs, Radical Hope surveys the field, tackling everything from impostor syndrome to cell phones in class to allegations of a campus “free speech crisis.” Throughout, Gannon translates ideals into tangible strategies and practices (including key takeaways at the conclusion of each chapter), with the goal of reclaiming teachers’ essential role in the discourse of higher education.

    As the nation watched on in horror, the police uncovered the body parts of fifteen more children in the same location. These grisly killings were found to have been the handiwork of Surinder Koli, a serial killer who lived in a house nearby.In Red-Handed: 20 Criminal Cases That Shook India, lawyers Souvik Bhadra and Pingal Khan narrate the stories behind some of the most sensational criminal cases to have caught the attention of the country in the last few decades. From the murder of Nitish Katara in a case of ‘honour killing’ to the shooting of Jessica Lal; from the Harshad Mehta scam to the Best Bakery arson of 2002; and, from the horrifying ‘tandoor’ case, in which Naina Sahni was killed and then cremated, to the trial and conviction of Sanjay Dutt under TADA, Red-Handed examines the motives behind these crimes even as it aims to lay bare the inner workings of the Indian judicial system. Additionally, the authors illuminate the crucial role that the media has come to play in judicial matters—it shapes public opinion, and often even investigates cases and delivers justice, much before the judges do.

    But Brown's troubling past was far from unique. In Ebony and Ivy, Craig Steven Wilder, a rising star in the profession of history, lays bare uncomfortable truths about race, slavery, and the American academy.Many of America's revered colleges and universities—from Harvard, Yale, and Princeton to Rutgers, Williams College, and UNC—were soaked in the sweat, the tears, and sometimes the blood of people of color. The earliest academies proclaimed their mission to Christianize the savages of North America, and played a key role in white conquest. Later, the slave economy and higher education grew up together, each nurturing the other. Slavery funded colleges, built campuses, and paid the wages of professors. Enslaved Americans waited on faculty and students; academic leaders aggressively courted the support of slave owners and slave traders. Significantly, as Wilder shows, our leading universities, dependent on human bondage, became breeding grounds for the racist ideas that sustained them.Ebony and Ivy is a powerful and propulsive study and the first of its kind, revealing a history of oppression behind the institutions usually considered the cradle of liberal politics.

    Macy and director Gregory Mosher. It is written for any actor who has ever experienced the frustrations of acting classes that lacked clarity and objectivity, and that failed to provide a dependable set of tools. An actor's job, the authors state, is to "find a way to live truthfully under the imaginary circumstances of the play'.' The ways in which an actor can attain that truth form the substance of this eloquent book.

    Rather than a set of fixed lessons, Visible Thinking is a varied collection of practices, including thinking routines, small sets of questions or a short sequence of steps as well as the documentation of student thinking. Using this process thinking becomes visible as the students' different viewpoints are expressed, documented, discussed and reflected upon. Helps direct student thinking and structure classroom discussion.Can be applied with students at all grade levels and in all content areas. Includes easy-to-implement classroom strategies.The book also comes with a DVD of video clips featuring Visible Thinking in practice in different classrooms.

    His experience as founder of the acclaimed Annoyance Theatre/Annoyance Productions, as well as Resident Director and Artistic Consultant for The Second City, has led him to continually question why and how scenes work or don't work and what one must do in order for a scene to be successful.In this book, Napier takes an irreverent, but constructive look at the art and practice of improvised scenes. He covers such topics as: two-person scenes group scenes entering scenes techniques to achieve richer, more layered scenes auditioning solo exercises for practice at home. Napier also challenges the conventional wisdom of the "rules" of improvisation, examining what's behind them and how they came to be in the first place.Get helpful, tangible guidelines for bringing strength and direction to your scenes. Just "Improvise."

    When teachers offer themselves as moralists, political activists, or agents of social change rather than as credentialed experts in a particular subject and the methods used to analyze it, they abdicate their true purpose. And yet professors now routinely bring their political views into the classroom and seek to influence the political views of their students. Those who do this will often invoke academic freedom, but Fish argues that academic freedom, correctly understood, is the freedom to do the academic job, not the freedom to do any job that comes into the professor's mind. He insists that a professor's only obligation is "to present the material in the syllabus and introduce students to state-of-the-art methods of analysis. Not to practice politics, but to study it; not to proselytize for or against religious doctrines, but to describe them; not to affirm or condemn Intelligent Design, but to explain what it is and analyze its appeal."Given that hot-button issues such as Holocaust denial, free speech, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are regularly debated in classrooms across the nation, Save the World On Your Own Time is certain to spark fresh debate—and to incense both liberals and conservatives—about the true purpose of higher education in America.

     A detective has the chance to solve cases that have baffled her colleagues for decades. But only if she can work out who he is, before he gets to her. Because - in a story where not everything is what it seems - not even murder is black and white. Killing Kind is a tense novella with a twist that will stay with you. From UK and US bestselling author Gregg Dunnett.

    But in the absence of life, undead energy surges. Millennia after the last humans fled the galaxy only the dead are left to roam the earth. On this barren wasteland, Solus awakens. With no memories or even a personality, he is cast into a dangerous world. He will need to learn fast if he is to keep his new existence, for he is not alone.--Post-apocalyptic, Undead, Sci-fi, LitRPG

    

    Once in a while, you come across someone who had the energy and determination to see it through and you are happy he did. Such is the case with Justin Dwayne Foxworth in his breakout novel, Valerie. I highly recommend you give a new talent a chance and read his work. I'm sure you'll want more of his character development and plots developed into more novels to enjoy... Andrew Neiderman, author of The Devil's Advocate