Finding Voice, written by Nancy Dean with Natalie Danaher, is a foundational book for elementary students and teachers that addresses close reading of complex text through understanding and practicing the elements of voice. The book is a collection of classroom lessons that cover the tools authors use to shape voice and meaning: diction, detail, imagery, figurative language, and tone. Every voice lesson includes a quotation selected from a wide range of engaging fiction and nonfiction text...

This book is a journey—a reminiscence of Nancy Dean’s adventures. In Parts One and Two, she travels from a laid-back southern town in Alabama through awe-inspiring wilderness in the western states with two young sons and a husband determined to conquer every mountain along the way. Ancient desert ruins, verdant rain forests, horned lizards and scorpions, beautiful wildflower meadows, a bone-aching mule ride, hidden mountain lakes, an eight-day backpack across snow and lava, frustrating mec...

This collection of Nancy Dean’s best newspaper columns, all drawn from “moments in time” in her life, gives readers insights into human nature as well as plenty of reasons to smile. Join her at skating rinks, gas stations, calf scrambles, soccer games, yard sales, gardens, and on bike treks. Lose yourself in the emotions her stories elicit—excitement, fear, sadness, humor, love, euphoria, and more. Discover what to do when surrounded by a herd of burly cows that wonder why you are collecti...

Discovering Voice is a collection of classroom exercises that helps students deeply understand the reading and writing of complex text. The lessons, which cover diction, detail, figurative language, imagery, syntax, and tone, help students understand voice in what they read and encourage them to develop a strong, personal voice in their own writing. Every voice lesson includes a quotation selected from a wide range of fiction and nonfiction text, two discussion questions, and an exercise t...

In the second book in the Uncomplicating Mathematics Series, professional developer Marian Small shows teachers how to uncomplicate the teaching of algebra by focusing on the most important ideas that students need to grasp. Organized by grade level around the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics, Small shares approaches that will lead to a deeper and richer understanding of algebra for both teachers and students. The book opens with a clear discussion of algebraic thinking...

Literacy continues to be a hot topic for educators and parents. I Don't Get It! Helping Students Understand What They Read is a practical, easy-to-use resource for classroom teachers and literacy coaches. Parents will also find the information helpful as they assist their children with homework and support for reading comprehension.This book will help to improve student literacy by offering a variety of strategies designed to help students think as they read printed text. ...

**This New York Times bestseller is an exciting and fearless investigation of language from the author of Rationality, The Better Angels of Our Nature and The Sense of Style and Enlightenment Now."Curious, inventive, fearless, naughty."--The New York Times Book Review**Bestselling author Steven Pinker possesses that rare combination of scientific aptitude and verbal eloquence that enables him to provide l...

Teachers know how important it is to develop children’s fine motor skills as a stepping stone to future learning. Christy Isbell’s book, Mighty Fine Motor Fun, provides teachers with the tools and information to teach fine motor skills to children ages three to five. Isbell covers a wide range of current research on fine motor development, from developmental differences between boys and girls to guideposts for what is developmentally appropriate for children at each age. The activ...

From the celebrated Ursula K. Le Guin, "a writer of enormous intelligence and wit, a master storyteller" (Boston Globe), the revised and updated edition of her classic guide to the essentials of a writer's craft.Completely revised and rewritten to address modern challenges and opportunities, this essential creative writing handbook is a short, deceptively simple guide to the craft of writing.Le Guin lays out ten chapters that address the most funda...

Organizing your home can be overwhelming. Especially if you have bought too much stuff and have a hard time getting rid of it. However, help has arrived.If It's Clutter... Quick Tips for Decluttering the Home shows you what to do when you have got too much junk. With its quick and easy advice on how to remove and let go of your unnecessary items, this guide can help you get on the path to having peace of mind as well as a tidy home.

From a “graceful, luminous writer with an eye for detail” (Minneapolis Star Tribune), this riveting memoir explores a year on a sustainable farm.When Kristin Kimball left New York City to interview a dynamic young farmer named Mark, her world changed. On an impulse, she shed her city self and started a new farm with him on five hundred acres near Lake Champlain. The Dirty Life is the captivating chronicle of the couple’s first year on Essex Farm, ...

Join Ursula K. Le Guin as she explores a broad array of subjects, ranging from Tolstoy, Twain, and Tolkien to women's shoes, beauty, and family life. With her customary wit, intelligence, and literary craftsmanship, she offers a diverse and highly engaging set of readings. The Wave in the Mind includes some of Le Guin's finest literary criticism, rare autobiographical writings, performance art pieces, and, most centrally, her reflections on the arts of writing and reading.