Book picks similar to
Beware the Roadbuilders: Literature as Resistance by P.L. Thomas


education
english-classroom
fiction-poetry-writing
social-justice

No One Ever Asked


Katie Ganshert - 2018
    Jen Covington, the career nurse whose long, painful journey to motherhood finally resulted in adoption but she is struggling with a happily-ever-after so much harder than she anticipated. Twenty-two-year-old Anaya Jones--the first woman in her family to graduate college and a brand new teacher at Crystal Ridge's top elementary school, unprepared for the powder-keg situation she's stepped into. Tensions rise within and without, culminating in an unforeseen event that impacts them all.

Teaching Literature to Adolescents


Richard W. Beach - 2005
    The methods are based on social-constructivist/socio-cultural theories of literacy learning, and incorporate research on literary response conducted by the authors.Teaching Literature to Adolescents - a totally new text that draws on ideas from the best selling textbook, Teaching Literature in the Secondary School, by Beach and Marshall - reflects and builds on recent key developments in theory and practice in the field, including: the importance of providing students with a range of critical lenses for analyzing texts and interrogating the beliefs, attitudes, and ideological perspectives encountered in literature; organization of the literature curriculum around topics, themes, or issues; infusion of multicultural literature and emphasis on how writers portray race, class, and gender differences; use of drama as a tool for enhancing understanding of texts; employment of a range of different ways to write about literature; integration of critical analysis of film and media texts with the study of literature; blending of quality young adult literature into the curriculum; and attention to students who have difficulty succeeding in literature classes due to reading difficulties, disparities between school and home cultures, attitudes toward school/English, or lack of engagement with assigned texts or response activities.The interactive Web site contains recommended readings, resources, and activities; links to Web sites and PowerPoint presentations; and opportunities for readers to contribute teaching units to the Web site databases.Instructors and students in middle and high school English methods courses will appreciate the clear, engaging, useful integration of theory, methods, and pedagogical features offered in this text.

Public Faith in Action: How to Think Carefully, Engage Wisely, and Vote with Integrity


Miroslav Volf - 2016
    But it can be difficult to discern who to vote for, which policies to support, and how to respond to the social and cultural trends of our time.This nonpartisan handbook offers Christians practical guidance for thinking through complicated public issues and faithfully following Jesus as citizens of their countries. The book focuses on enduring Christian commitments that should guide readers in their judgments and encourages legitimate debate among Christians over how to live out core values. The book also includes lists of resources for further reflection in each chapter and "room for debate" questions to consider.

The Teacher Wars: A History of America's Most Embattled Profession


Dana Goldstein - 2014
    In The Teacher Wars, a rich, lively, and unprecedented history of public school teaching, Dana Goldstein reveals that teachers have been similarly embattled for nearly two centuries. From the genteel founding of the common schools movement in the nineteenth century to the violent inner-city teacher strikes of the 1960s and '70s, from the dispatching of Northeastern women to frontier schoolhouses to the founding of Teach for America on the Princeton University campus in 1989, Goldstein shows that the same issues have continued to bedevil us: Who should teach? What should be taught? Who should be held accountable for how our children learn?    She uncovers the surprising roots of hot button issues, from teacher tenure to charter schools, and finds that recent popular ideas to improve schools—instituting merit pay, evaluating teachers by student test scores, ranking and firing veteran teachers, and recruiting “elite” graduates to teach—are all approaches that have been tried in the past without producing widespread change. And she also discovers an emerging effort that stands a real chance of transforming our schools for the better: drawing on the best practices of the three million public school teachers we already have in order to improve learning throughout our nation’s classrooms.   The Teacher Wars upends the conversation about American education by bringing the lessons of history to bear on the dilemmas we confront today. By asking “How did we get here?” Dana Goldstein brilliantly illuminates the path forward.

Shiny, Adidas Track Suits and the Death of Camp: And Other Essays from Might Magazine


Might Magazine - 1998
    Haldeman to David Hasselhoff's world tour. Contributors include David Foster Wallace, Jess Mowry, Donnell Alexander, and R.U. Sirius.

A White Teacher Talks about Race


Julie Landsman - 2001
    She speaks honestly about issues of race, poverty, institutional responsibility, and white privilege by engaging the reader in the experiences of a day in the classroom with some of her remarkable students.Throughout the day, we meet bigotry head-on, struggle with questions of racial identity, and find cultural conflict in the corridors of the school building. Along the way, we come face to face with Tyrone, a young African-American student grappling with the realities of discrimination in suburbia. We encounter Sheila, a teenage mother struggling to raise her baby in poverty, and we get to know Sarah, a white girl living on the streets of Minneapolis.Through the author's eyes, we begin to understand the complexities of teaching in today's society and we learn within the pages of this book, if only just for a moment, what it feels like to be the other.

City of Coughing and Dead Radiators


Martín Espada - 1993
    "With this fine new collection," says Library Journal, Martín Espada "joins the top ranks of poets anywhere"; in the words of Earl Shorris, he is "well on his way to becoming the Latino poet of his generation."

Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education


Alex Shevrin Venet - 2021
    This approach ignores the reality that inequity itself causes trauma, and that schools often heighten inequities when implementing trauma-informed practices that are not based in educational equity.In this fresh look at trauma-informed practice, Alex Shevrin Venet urges educators to shift equity to the center as they consider policies and professional development. Using a framework of six principles for equity-centered trauma-informed education, Venet offers practical action steps that teachers and school leaders can take from any starting point, using the resources and influence at their disposal to make shifts in practice, pedagogy, and policy. Overthrowing inequitable systems is a process, not an overnight change. But transformation is possible when educators work together, and teachers can do more than they realize from within their own classrooms.

Tamora Pierce


Bonnie Kunzel - 2007
    This volume provides her readers and fans with additional insights into her life and work. The first section provides a biographical chapter and literary heritage. The second and third sections analyze the Tales of Tortall and the Magic Circle Sagas as a whole, providing details into the characters and settings of each. The final section of the book, Perspectives, includes both a section on literary techniques along with an interview of Tamora Pierce herself. Appendices include a section on Power Female Heroes, and Fantasy Adventures.Novels include: *The Song of the Lioness Quartet *The Immortals Quartet *The Protector of the Small Quartet *The Trickster Duology *The Magic Circle Quartet *The Circle Opens Quartet *The Will of the Empress

So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures


Maureen Corrigan - 2014
    It's a book that has remained current for over half a century, fighting off critics and changing tastes in fiction. But do even its biggest fans know all there is to appreciate about The Great Gatsby?Maureen Corrigan, the book critic for "Fresh Air" and a Gatsby lover extraordinaire, points out that while Gatsby may be the novel most Americans have read, it's also the ones most of us read too soon -- when we were "too young, too defensive emotionally, too ignorant about the life-deforming powers of regret" to really understand all that Fitzgerald was saying ("it's not the green light, stupid, it's Gatsby's reaching for it," as she puts it). No matter when or how recently you've read the novel, Corrigan offers a fresh perspective on what makes it so enduringly relevant and powerful. Drawing on her experience as a reader, lecturer, and critic, her book will be a rousing consideration of Gatsby: not just its literary achievements, but also its path to "classic" (its initial lukewarm reception has been a form of cold comfort to struggling novelists for decades), its under-acknowledged debt to hard-boiled crime fiction, its commentaries on race, class, and gender.With rigor, wit, and an evangelistic persuasiveness, Corrigan will leave readers inspired to grab their old paperback copies of Gatsby and re-experience this great novel in an entirely new light.

Jeff Bezos: The Life, Lessons & Rules For Success


Influential Individuals - 2018
     In 2018 alone, his wealth as of June has grown by almost $40 billion dollars. He founded the world’s largest online retailer, and now wants to make it possible for humans to colonize space.In short, Jeff Bezos is the man.In this book we take a look at the life of Jeff Bezos. From humble beginnings in Albuquerque to present day CEO of Amazon. The book takes a look at the inspirations and influences that make Jeff Bezos the man he is today, and his approach towards life that has ensured the success he is now known for. The aim of this book is to not only give you a glimpse into the life of the world’s richest man, but to also inspire and teach you some of the success principles that have guided Jeff Bezos so far.Ready to learn from the richest man ever? Let’s dive in. *INCLUDING* 18 Little known facts  & 10 Success Principles to live by Don't wait, grab your copy today!

The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America's Broken Education System--And How to Fix It


Natalie Wexler - 2019
    The problem wasn't one of the usual scapegoats: lazy teachers, shoddy facilities, lack of accountability. It was something no one was talking about: the elementary school curriculum's intense focus on decontextualized reading comprehension skills at the expense of actual knowledge. In the tradition of Dale Russakoff's The Prize and Dana Goldstein's The Teacher Wars, Wexler brings together history, research, and compelling characters to pull back the curtain on this fundamental flaw in our education system--one that fellow reformers, journalists, and policymakers have long overlooked, and of which the general public, including many parents, remains unaware.But The Knowledge Gap isn't just a story of what schools have gotten so wrong--it also follows innovative educators who are in the process of shedding their deeply ingrained habits, and describes the rewards that have come along: students who are not only excited to learn but are also acquiring the knowledge and vocabulary that will enable them to succeed. If we truly want to fix our education system and unlock the potential of our neediest children, we have no choice but to pay attention.

The Sambia: Ritual and Gender in New Guinea


Gilbert Herdt - 1987
    Sambia boys experience ritualized homosexuality before puberty and do not leave it until marriage, after which homosexual activity is prohibited. The implications are developed cross-culturally and contextualized in gender literature.

Radical Possibilities: Public Policy, Urban Education, and a New Social Movement


Jean Anyon - 2005
    Public policies...such as those regulating the minimum wage, job availability, tax rates, federal transit, and affordable housing...all create conditions in urban areas that no education policy as currently conceived can transcend. In this first book since her best-selling Ghetto Schooling, Jean Anyon argues that we must replace these federal and metro-area policies with more equitable ones so that urban school reform can have positive life consequences for students.Anyon provides a much-needed new paradigm for understanding and combating educational injustice. Radical Possibilities reminds us that historically, equitable public policies have been typically created as a result of the political pressure brought to bear by social movements. Basing her analysis on new research in civil rights history and social movement theory, Anyon skillfully explains how the current moment offers serious possibilities for the creation of such a force. The book powerfully describes five social movements already under way in U.S. cities, and offers readers interested in building this new social movement a set of practical and theoretical insights into securing economic and educational justice for the many millions of America's poor families and students.

Love Kindness: Discover the Power of a Forgotten Christian Virtue


Barry H. Corey - 2016
    It isn’t a soft virtue, expressed only by sweet grandmothers or nice Boy Scouts. Kindness is neither timid nor frail. Instead, it is brave and daring, willing to be vulnerable with those with whom we disagree. It is the revolutionary way that Jesus himself called us to live. The way of selfless risks. The way of staggering hope. The way of authenticity.Dr. Barry Corey, president of Biola University, believes we tend to devalue the importance of kindness, opting instead for caustic expressions of certainty that push people away. We forget that the essence of what God requires of us is to “love kindness.” In this book, filled with stories from his travels around the globe, Barry shows us the forgotten way of kindness. It is a life that calls us to put ourselves at risk. A life that calls us to hope. A life of a firm center and soft edges. It is the life Christ invites us to follow, no matter what the cost.