Why Poetry


Matthew Zapruder - 2017
    Zapruder argues that the way we have been taught to read poetry is the very thing that prevents us from enjoying it. In lively, lilting prose, he shows us how that misunderstanding interferes with our direct experience of poetry and creates the sense of confusion or inadequacy that many of us feel when faced with it.   Zapruder explores what poems are, and how we can read them, so that we can, as Whitman wrote, “possess the origin of all poems,” without the aid of any teacher or expert. Most important, he asks how reading poetry can help us to lead our lives with greater meaning and purpose. Anchored in poetic analysis and steered through Zapruder’s personal experience of coming to the form, Why Poetry is engaging and conversational, even as it makes a passionate argument for the necessity of poetry in an age when information is constantly being mistaken for knowledge. While he provides a simple reading method for approaching poems and illuminates concepts like associative movement, metaphor, and negative capability, Zapruder explicitly confronts the obstacles that readers face when they encounter poetry to show us that poetry can be read, and enjoyed, by anyone.

The Way of Mindful Education: Cultivating Well-Being in Teachers and Students


Daniel Rechtschaffen - 2014
    The Way of Mindful Education is a practical guide for cultivating attention, compassion, and well-being not only in these students, but also in teachers themselves. Packed with lesson plans, exercises, and considerations for specific age groups and students with special needs, this working manual demonstrates the real world application of mindfulness practices in K-12 classrooms.Part I, Why Mindful Education Matters, explains what mindfulness is, the science behind its benefits for students and educators, and the inspiring work that is already underway in the Mindful Education movement.In Part II, Begin with Yourself, we are reminded that in order to teach mindfully, we need to be mindful. Here teachers will learn the when, where, and how of mindfulness so they can effectively embody its practices with their students. Mindfulness practices offer teachers self-care and attention skills that prepare them to teach with greater energy and mastery. Discover how simple exercises can help manage stress, focus attention, develop compassion, and savor positive experiences in everyday life.Part III, Cultivating a Mindful Classroom, explores the qualities of a mindful teacher, the ingredients of a mindful learning environment, and helpful skills for appropriate, supportive work with cultural diversity, student stress and trauma, and varying age groups and developmental stages.Finally, in Part IV, Mindful Education Curriculum, we learn eighteen ready-to-use mindfulness lessons for use in schools. These practical exercises, designed to foster skills like embodiment, attention, heartfulness, and interconnectedness, can be readily adapted for any age group and population, and the author draws from his extensive personal experience to offer a wealth of tips for introducing them to students in real-time.Decades of research indicate the impressive benefits of mindfulness in social, emotional, and cognitive development, and as an antidote to emotional dysregulation, attention deficits, and social difficulties. This book invites teachers, administrators, and anyone else involved in education to take advantage of this vital tool and become purveyors of a mindful, compassionate, ethical, and effective way of teaching.

Education of the Gifted and Talented


Gary A. Davis - 1989
    After a brief overview of current issues in the field, the book discusses crucial topics in the field, including the characteristics of gifted students, strategies for identification, considerations in planning sound gifted and talented programs, contemporary program models, varieties of acceleration, differentiated curriculum models, problems of underachievement of disadvantaged, twice-exceptional, and female gifted students, and the evaluation of gifted programs. The authors also address affective needs, leadership, and counseling. A chapter on parenting gifted children includes a section on advocating for gifted education and communication with schools. The sixth edition has been thoroughly revised, most notably with the latest research on acceleration, curriculum models, underachievement, culturally and economically disadvantaged students, gender issues, and dual exceptionalities. The content is further supported and enhanced by the inclusion of numerous practical strategies that can be implemented in the classroom, case studies that help teachers identify student needs, summaries of research on effective programs, emphasis on pedagogy and on social-emotional needs, heightened awareness of less visible sub-groups within gifted populations, and an amusing, witty writing style that adds to the appeal of this best-selling book.

The Personality Puzzle


David C. Funder - 1996
    A new capstone chapter on personality disorders synthesizes these domains/paradigms. The Fourth Edition adds a new chapter on cognition and the self, new coverage of the Big Five personality traits and of personality in a developmental context, and a new Student Website to enable effective study and review.

Introduction to Teaching: Becoming a Professional [With Online Access Code and DVD]


Donald P. Kauchak - 2001
    Three themes central to teaching today-- professionalism, diversity, and decision-making-- are woven through the text to give students deeper understanding of the teaching profession and to better prepare them for that profession. Two questions frame the text, "Do I want to be a teacher?" and "What kind of teacher do I want to become?." Case studies at the beginnings of chapters provide a frame of reference for understanding chapter content while numerous teaching vignettes throughout the chapters provide vivid examples that increase reader understanding and interest.

Fluids and Electrolytes Made Incredibly Easy!


Lippincott Williams & Wilkins - 1990
    This informative and indispensable reference reviews fundamental information about fluids, electrolytes, and acid-base balance; identifies electrolyte, fluid, acid, and base imbalances; describes imbalances in major health problems and their consequences; and explains how to treat those imbalances—all in an easy-to-understand, comprehensive, enjoyable format.

101 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum


Cathy Duffy - 2012
    Since 100 Top Picks was published in 2005, many great new products have been introduced. While many of Cathy's Top Picks from 2005 remain, many others have been replaced with even better options.Cathy's book makes the job of selecting the right curriculum easy! It includes extensive reviews of each of her Top Picks.101 Top Picks is a must-have for new home educators.

The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care


T.R. Reid - 2009
    R. Reid shows how all the other industrialized democracies have achieved something the United States can’t seem to do: provide health care for everybody at a reasonable cost. In his global quest to find a possible prescription, Reid visits wealthy, free market, industrialized democracies like our own—including France, Germany, Japan, the U.K., and Canada—where he finds inspiration in example. Reid sees problems too: He finds poorly paid doctors in Japan, endless lines in Canada, mistreated patients in Britain, spartan facilities in France. In addition to long-established systems, Reid also studies countries that have carried out major health care reform. The first question facing these countries—and the United States, for that matter—is an ethical issue: Is health care a human right?The Healing of America lays bare the moral question at the heart of our troubled system, dissecting the misleading rhetoric surrounding the health care debate: Is health care a human right?

Academic Writing for Graduate Students: Essential Tasks and Skills


John M. Swales - 1994
    Like its predecessor, this edition of Academic Writing for Graduate Students" explains understanding the intended audience, the purpose of the paper, and academic genres." includes the use of task-based methodology, analytic group discussion, and genre consciousness-raising." shows how to write summaries and critiques." features "language focus" sections that address linguistic elements as they affect the wider rhetorical objectives." helps students position themselves as junior scholars in their academic communities.The Commentary has also been revised and is available.

Thinking with Type


Ellen Lupton - 2004
    What type of font to use? How big? How should those letters, words, and paragraphs be aligned, spaced, ordered, shaped, and otherwise manipulated? In this groundbreaking new primer, leading design educator and historian Ellen Lupton provides clear and concise guidance for anyone learning or brushing up on their typographic skills. Thinking with Type is divided into three sections: letter, text, and grid. Each section begins with an easy-to-grasp essay that reviews historical, technological, and theoretical concepts, and is then followed by a set of practical exercises that bring the material covered to life. Sections conclude with examples of work by leading practitioners that demonstrate creative possibilities (along with some classic no-no's to avoid).

The Importance of Being Little: What Preschoolers Really Need from Grownups


Erika Christakis - 2016
    But our fears are misplaced, according to Yale early childhood expert Erika Christakis. Children are powerful and inventive; and the tools to reimagine their learning environment are right in front of our eyes.           Children are hardwired to learn in any setting, but they don’t get the support they need when “learning” is defined by strict lessons and dodgy metrics that devalue children’s intelligence while placing unfit requirements on their developing brains. We have confused schooling with learning, and we have altered the very habitat young children occupy. The race for successful outcomes has blinded us to how young children actually process the world, acquire skills, and grow, says Christakis, who powerfully defends the preschool years as a life stage of inherent value and not merely as preparation for a demanding or uncertain future.           In her pathbreaking book, Christakis explores what it’s like to be a young child in America today, in a world designed by and for adults. With school-testing mandates run amok, playfulness squeezed, and young children increasingly pathologized for old-fashioned behaviors like daydreaming and clumsiness, it’s easy to miss what’s important about the crucial years of three to six, and the kind of guidance preschoolers really need. Christakis provides a forensic and far-reaching analysis of today’s whole system of early learning, exploring pedagogy, history, science, policy, and politics. She also offers a wealth of proven strategies about what to do to reimagine the learning environment to suit the child’s real, but often invisible, needs. The ideas range from accommodating children’s sense of time, to decluttering classrooms, to learning how to better observe and listen as children express themselves in pictures and words.           With her strong foundation in the study of child development and early education and her own in-the-trenches classroom experience, Christakis peels back the mystery of early childhood, revealing a place that’s rich with possibility. Her message is energizing and reassuring: Parents have more power (and more knowledge) than they think they do, and young children are inherently creative and will flourish, if we can learn new ways to support them and restore their vital learning habitat.

The Power of Our Words: Teacher Language That Helps Children Learn


Paula Denton - 2007
    Since the first edition was published in 2007, thousands of educators have used The Power of Our Words as their guide to getting the most from positive teacher language.The second edition includes the concise explanations, concrete examples from real classrooms, and quick-scan charts showing recommended language for many classroom situations that made this book a bestseller, and adds:Greater academic focus: More on using teacher language to boost academic engagement and achievementLighter, more open page design: Easier reading and scanningInspiring foreword: A powerful vision linking teacher language, Common Core State Standards, and 21st century learning.Index: Quick help finding the topic you need

You May Ask Yourself: An Introduction to Thinking Like a Sociologist


Dalton Conley - 2008
    

Fire in the Ashes: Twenty-Five Years Among the Poorest Children in America


Jonathan Kozol - 2012
    A winner of the National Book Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, and countless other honors, he has persistently crossed the lines of class and race, first as a teacher, then as the author of tender and heart-breaking books about the children he has called “the outcasts of our nation’s ingenuity.” But Jonathan is not a distant and detached reporter. His own life has been radically transformed by the children who have trusted and befriended him.   Never has this intimate acquaintance with his subjects been more apparent, or more stirring, than in Fire in the Ashes, as Jonathan tells the stories of young men and women who have come of age in one of the most destitute communities of the United States. Some of them never do recover from the battering they undergo in their early years, but many more battle back with fierce and, often, jubilant determination to overcome the formidable obstacles they face. As we watch these glorious children grow into the fullness of a healthy and contributive maturity, they ignite a flame of hope, not only for themselves, but for our society.    The urgent issues that confront our urban schools – a devastating race-gap, a pathological regime of obsessive testing and drilling students for exams instead of giving them the rich curriculum that excites a love of learning – are interwoven through these stories. Why certain children rise above it all, graduate from high school and do well in college, while others are defeated by the time they enter adolescence, lies at the essence of this work.   Jonathan Kozol is the author of Death at an Early Age, Savage Inequalities, and other books on children and their education. He has been called “today’s most eloquent spokesman for America’s disenfranchised.” But he believes young people speak most eloquently for themselves; and in this book, so full of the vitality and spontaneity of youth, we hear their testimony.

Essentials of Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach


James M. Henslin - 1991
    This text is a brief version of the highly regarded hardcover introductory text, "Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach, 7/e." The essential 15 chapters cover all of the topics in the 22-chapter text, and retain the dual emphases on micro and macro (individual and structural) sociology. James Henslin has a unique ability to engage students without talking down to them or sacrificing content. With wit, personal reflection, and illuminating examples, he shares with readers a passion for sociology unmatched by any other introductory text.