SirReadaLot.org
We Review the Best of the Latest Books
ISSN 1934-6557
October 2005, Issue 78
Guide to This Issue
Page Contents: Manuel Neri: Artist Books,
Dramatic Whiteness, Life
on a
Arts & Photography
Manuel Neri: Artist Books / The Collaborative Process by Bruce
Nixon, with an introduction by Robert Flynn
Johnson (Fine Arts Museums of
The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco are among the few museums with an extensive collection of artists' books and fine press publications, primarily due to Reva and David Logan's gift to the museum of their magnificent collection of modern illustrated books, which is one of the most important ever formed in the United States.
The Museums present in Manuel Neri, an exhibition of artists' books by Manuel Neri within this collection. This catalog includes an Introduction by Robert Flynn Johnson, Curator-in-Charge of the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, and a comprehensive essay by Bruce Nixon, an independent scholar, who has written extensively about contemporary art for a variety of publications, former editor-in-chief of Artweek, and it contains color illustrations of the complete book projects and related sculptures and drawings by Neri.
Neri's work with the artists' book is almost certainly his least known. The number of these projects has been few, four so far, all produced in limited numbers. Until now, these books have been scarcely documented, at least in comparison to Neri's voluminous production as a sculptor. Consistent with the substantial tradition of the livre d'artiste, Neri's artists' books represent a lengthy, sometimes difficult, sometimes intense collaborative process between artist and author, one that may consume years or, for that matter, decades. The longest and most significant of his collaborations is with Mary Julia Klimenko, who has been Neri's primary model since 1972. As a poet, she provided the texts for three books, She Said: I Tell You It Doesn't Hurt Me (1991), Territory (1993), and Crossings/Chasse-croise (2002-03); and an Introduction for a series of unique books that combine original drawings by Neri with poems by Pablo Neruda.
The making of an artists' book is a complex undertaking that involves a number of master artisans, each responsible for particular tasks that contribute to the completion of the book.
As an art medium, the livre d'artiste is unavoidably inflected by its incorporation of a literary text and its book-like nature; in form alone, it bears a kinship to the history and critical discourse of the book. The contemporary artists' book maintains a distinctive, if esoteric, discourse with its own history. Although its existence as a marginalized art form grants it a certain freedom, the artists' book is now a historical medium, like sculpture or painting: an open form, to be sure, still available to highly original application.
In his first project, She Said: I Tell You It Doesn't Hurt Me, Neri not only hand-colored each and every portrait etching in the volume, but cut and tore out sections of paper from each print. As can be seen in Manuel Neri, the coloration personalized each print. Even more intimately, the tearing emphasized a sculptural, three-dimensional quality, and its brutalization refers to the emotional tension inherent in the accompanying poetry of Klimenko.
In Territory, Neri abandoned original printmaking altogether in illustrating the book. He created sixty-five vigorous, colorful pastel drawings with Klimenko as the model and incorporated one in each volume of her passionate, erotic poetry. In addition, five charcoal drawings were reproduced in photolithography on translucent paper, floating like ghosts among the verse.
The most ambitious of any of Neri's collaborations is clearly Crossings/Chasse-croise. Again, the poetry of Klimenko is paired with Neri's art. Viewing the work in Manuel Neri, one admires the luxurious complexity of the production. The sheer multiplicity of artistic activity on the part of the other collaborating artists, who included M. Lee Fatherree (photography), Peter Koch (design and typography), Daniel E. Kelm (binding design), Paul Van Melle (Introduction), and Armelle Vannazzi Futterman (French translations), further enhanced the efforts of Neri and Klimenko. Neri provided a single drawing for each copy of the book, and hand-painted eleven of the thirteen photographs bound in each volume. In addition, Neri painted a photograph included with each of the ten deluxe volumes.
Neri's most recent ongoing activity in this field (2004-05) is the creation of seven unique artists' books incorporating his original drawings with the poetry of Pablo Neruda. Neri's drawings are paired with Neruda's text as rendered in the exquisite calligraphy of Thomas Ingmire. Again, Neri has defied the conventions of normal artists' books, eschewing regularity and edition prints for the familiar and direct contact of his original drawings.
For Neri, it seems, art flows out of his being in a natural but sometimes unruly manner. It is through selection, reflection, and refinement that his initial inspiration is fashioned into the finished work. It is refreshing that Neri always leaves the traces of creative struggle and displays a certain rawness that resonates in those who experience his art.
As exciting as Neri's explorations have been in the area of artists' books, their worth can be savored only in the context of his achievements as a sculptor and draftsman. In that context, the artist’s books presented in Manuel Neri may be studied and savored, because more than his sculptures, which are static and finished, the book shows Neri’s process in all its rawness.
Arts & Photography / Performing Arts / Social Sciences
Staging Whiteness by Mary F. Brewer
(Wesleyan University Press) discusses how whiteness is portrayed in
contemporary drama and enacted in everyday life.
As theater informs our views of society, society also informs the
views of the playwright. The playwright's culture and place in time
influence their representation of the world.
Social histories and cultural developments surrounding the meanings of race can often be seen in the theater of the day.
Scholars have explored the depiction of minorities in theater, while the portrayal of ‘whiteness’ has remained largely unexplored. Whiteness in American and British theater is the focus of Mary F. Brewer's Staging Whiteness. In the book, Brewer, Senior Lecturer in the School of English and Performance Studies at De Montfort University, U.K., offers close textual readings of plays by American and British twentieth-century playwrights – some canonical and some who fall outside the mainstream – looking at how ‘whiteness’ as an identity is created onstage, and how this identity has changed historically.
Brewer presents varying perspectives from which the ‘white’ race has been viewed in theatrical productions – from the elitist world of British colonialism seen in Somerset Maugham's The Explorer to the questioning of white authority in the era of Edward Albee's The American Dream and Amiri Baraka's Dutchman. Brewer argues that the use of whiteness in theater has not only been used to broach racial issues, but also issues of class, as in Eugene O'Neill's The Hairy Ape, and of gender and sexual orientation, as in Wendy Wasserman's The Heidi Chronicles and Philip Osment's This Island's Mine. Brewer explores ‘borders of whiteness,’ beyond which we find those who do not fit certain ideals of Whiteness – Poles, Catholics, Native Americans, the working class – and looks at how these groups are portrayed as something other than the ideal of Anglo-American culture.
Staging Whiteness is a work of great ambition and reach,
providing at once an apt introduction to the critical study of
whiteness and an arresting application of such study to
Anglo-American "theorists and theater makers" over the last century
and more. – David Roediger, Babcock Professor of History and African
American Studies,
This is a thoughtfully and carefully written piece of
scholarship. At the same time, what distinguishes this work is its
readability. Brewer avoids theory-speak without diluting her points
and translates theory into language readers can understand. – Kate
Davy, Dean of Arts and Sciences,
Staging Whiteness, in presenting the exploration of constructions of whiteness in American and British plays throughout the 20th century, sheds light on society's views on race, as well as on class and gender politics. Brewer's highly original reading of familiar works offers a close reexamination of theater as a site of ideological struggle over the meanings attached to race. With clarity and persuasiveness, Brewer argues that configurations of whiteness are dispersed and reflected through discourses that range from theory to literature and common social language, and that discursive performances of whiteness are a crucial feature of everyday social interactions.
Biographies & Memoirs
On Independence Creek: The Story of a
Deep in southwest
The author’s grandfather, Charles Chandler, settled the area of
the mouth of Independence Creek in 1900 and ranched it for many
years. But her father, Joe Chandler, saw more potential for the
green valley than ranchland. Over the years he built there one of
the most popular recreation areas in southwest
Because of its unique ecological situation, the ranch was named a
potential natural landmark by James F. Scudday in 1977, and in 1991
the Nature Conservancy of Texas obtained a conservation easement on
seven hundred acres of the ranch, the first such arrangement in the
state.
In
On Independence Creek Charlena Chandler, a retired district
librarian and teacher of high school English and journalism, goes
beyond the history of the ranch to tell a more personal story of the
experiences of her grandparents and parents and of her growing up on
the ranch. She tells of the good times, such as sleeping on her
grandfather’s porch under starry night skies, successful golf
tournaments, and happy family events, and the bad: Depression days,
family strife, and the time the creek flooded, destroying the camp.
Charlena Chandler’s work is about the dreams and hard work of her
grandfather, Charles Chandler, the vision and tenacity of her
father, Joe Chandler, and the ebb and flow of life along
Independence Creek, a large spring-fed tributary of the
On Independence Creek is a realistic, human-events account of the generations that came to realize there was no other place on earth like the place they lived.
Biographies & Memoirs / Families / ReligionThe Truth Book: Escaping a Childhood of Abuse among Jehovah's Witnesses by Joy Castro (Arcade Publishing) is the courageous personal account of a young girl who endured abuse and the disturbing effects of religious hypocrisy within one of the most enigmatic sects of Christian fundamentalism.
When Castro is ten years old, her parents divorce. Earlier, her father had been ‘disfellowshipped,’ or excommunicated from the congregation, for smoking. When Castro is twelve, her mother marries a respected brother in their church. He has an impeccable public persona, but behind closed doors at home he is a savage brute. Castro and her younger brother Tony are forbidden from seeing their father and are abused mercilessly – to the point they both think they are going to die. Their battered mother does nothing to protect them. Nor does their church, to which Joy voices her appeals. For two years they suffer, until one day Castro reaches out to her father, and together they plan and execute the children's daring escape.
Joy Castro has written an utterly truthful and harrowing book
about the human capacity for hypocrisy and cruelty and also the
human capacity for bravery and love.
The Truth Book is a compelling memoir written in an achingly
beautiful voice. – Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author
of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
Throughout this graceful and powerful memoir we discover, like
Castro, that culture doesn't always shape you wisely, and God is
often absent in religion. A heart-aching read, both redemptive and
hopeful. – Helena Maria Viramontes, author of Under the Feet of
Jesus
By writing her own book – one so insistently, exquisitely honest
that a reader, despite the pain, feels cleansed – Castro gives
witness to a higher truth: that of storytelling. Her bravely
beautiful words can never be taken away. – Michael Lowenthal, author
of Avoidance
Out of a life wounded by brutality and hypocrisy Joy Castro has
made something straight and true – a victory for the writer and the
reader? – Earl Shorris, author of Latinos and Riches for the Poor
I identified so deeply with this memoir because of the sheer humanity of these individuals and my total trust in the narrator. I'm savoring the inexplicable sense of hope it leaves on my tongue. – Ariel Gore, author of Atlas of the Human Heart and The Mother Trip
The debut of a strikingly original voice, The Truth Book is the courageous and gripping memoir of a young woman who endured abuse and the disturbing effects of religious hypocrisy. In prose, beautiful in its simplicity and captivating in its honesty, Castro bears witness to a childhood lost and a life regained.
Biographies & Memoirs / History / US / Civil WarLincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness by Joshua Wolf Shenk (Houghton Mifflin)
Perhaps no one is better qualified than Shenk, essayist and
independent scholar, a contributing editor to the Washington Monthly
and a faculty member at the
Early in
Lincoln's Melancholy, Shenk establishes that, even as a young
man, Lincoln had all the symptoms of what we now define as a mental
illness. He also shows us that
The nineteenth-century view of depression was different from our
own, of course. Melancholy was seen as a natural component of some
of the best human qualities: deep thought, subtle reasoning,
strength in adversity, decisive action – all displayed by
Shenk's interest in the subject came from a mix of personal
experience with depression and a belief in the power of true stories
about others. His idea for a book on
In his introduction, Shenk describes
Shenk organized Lincoln's Melancholy into three sections. In part one, he establishes that Lincoln did suffer what is now called clinical depression, by showing how melancholy (as depression was called then) manifested itself in Lincoln's early life and young manhood, and how it fits – and challenges – the diagnostic categories of modern psychiatry.
In part two, we learn about the medical treatments Lincoln tried,
what he did in response to his melancholy, the strategies he used to
heal and help himself. Shenk chronicles both of
In the final section of the book, Shenk addresses how Lincoln's depression came to contribute to his work as a public figure, how he used the tools forged during his extensive experience of personal suffering to understand and work through the nation's greatest crisis.
… Shenk's innovation is in saying, first, that this knowledge can
be illuminated by today's understanding of depression and, second,
that our understanding of depression can be illuminated by the
knowledge that depression was actually a source of Lincoln's
greatness. Lincoln's strategies for dealing with it are worth noting
today: at least once, he took a popular pill known as the ‘blue
mass’ – essentially mercury – and also once purchased cocaine.
Further,
A profoundly human and psychologically important examination of the
melancholy that so pervaded
A significant contribution to the study of
With empathy and authority gained from his own experience with
depression, Shenk crafts a nuanced, revelatory account of
Business & Investing / Economics
U.S. Direct Investment in China by K. C. Fung, Lawrence, J. Lau & Joseph S. Lee, with a foreword by George P. Schultz (American Enterprise Institute Press)
With an average annual growth rate of almost 10 percent since it
adopted the ‘open door’ policy,
In
U.S. Direct Investment in China, K. C. Fung, Lawrence J. Lau,
and Joseph S. Lee use data from both official and unpublished
sources to answer these questions, and to shed light on the trends,
characteristics, motives, and policy implications of
While critics frequently allege that U.S. direct investment in China costs American jobs, Fung, professor of economics and cofounder of the Santa Cruz Center for International Economics at the University of California–Santa Cruz; Lau, vice chancellor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Kwoh-Ting Li Professor of Economic Development at Stanford University; and Lee, dean of the School of Management at National Central University in Taiwan, argue in U.S. Direct Investment in China that it is not so. On the contrary, empirical survey data presented in this new study does not support these claims.
The authors argue that
The authors show that
Fung, Lau, and Lee identify significant and growing mutual
economic benefits from the investment ties between the
- The two countries seldom compete in the same world markets.
- The
- The two countries can provide markets for each other.
- American affiliates participate actively in the production of goods aimed at the rapidly growing domestic Chinese market.
- At the same time, significant amounts of Chinese exports
shipped to the
The authors conclude that, although
Business & Investing / Economics / International
The Power of Greed: Collective Action in International
Development by Michael Rosberg (The
International Development Has Not Worked.
Why do so many international development projects fail? Is it because poor regions are inherently corrupt, or is it because developers and donors from rich countries do not properly take into account how local survival mechanisms in developing nations work?
In
The Power of Greed, Michael Rosberg challenges the received
wisdom of international development agencies, suggesting that in
order for development to be successful, it must speak directly to
the self-interest of individuals in emerging nations. Rosberg,
Lecturer at the
Neither a pro-establishment nor an anti-establishment developer, Rosberg indicates a third way which balances the agendas of donors and recipients in authentic partnerships. Avoiding the sterile debates of morality associated with wealth generation and distribution, The Power of Greed demonstrates how self-interest, or greed as he calls it, can be a powerful motivator for collective good and a key to the success of international development programs.
After half a century of concerted effort by many well-trained and dedicated people, development has not worked, nor have the lives of the poor throughout the world been significantly improved by the multitude of undertakings and the expenditure of billions of dollars. In the engrossing and stimulating pages of The Power of Greed, Michael Rosberg seeks to understand the reasons for this. – Sidney M. Greenfield, from the Introduction
Rosberg...writes that any serious effort at development has to
build local communities where cooperation, social trust, and
entrepreneurship combine to create opportunity and growth, allowing
local people to take greater charge of their lives. The way to do
this is to capitalize on the greed or self-interest of local
communities and align this with opportunity, he argues. – David
Crane, Literary Review of
In an accessible and personal work, The Power of Greed deftly navigates the thickets of morality, theory, and ideology to arrive at pragmatic strategies. Rosberg demonstrates in this lively and provocative analysis that when an individual's self-interest is creatively and appropriately engaged in cooperative enterprise, the greater good of the community can be well served.
Business & Investing / International Policy / Science & Ecology
Public Participation in the Governance of International Freshwater Resources edited by Carl Bruch, Libor Jansky, Mikiyasu Nakayama, & Kazimierz A. Salewicz (United Nations University Press)
Clean water is essential to human survival, yet it is
increasingly scarce. Despite pressures on this crucial resource,
people often have little or no opportunity to participate in
watershed decisions that affect them, particularly when they live
along international watercourses. The United Nations has identified
the rising demand for water as one of four major factors that will
threaten human and ecological health for at least a generation.
Over the coming decade, governments throughout the world will
struggle to manage water in ways that are efficient, equitable and
environmentally sound. Whether these efforts succeed may turn, in
large part, on providing the public with a voice in watershed
management decisions that directly affect them. Public involvement
holds the promise of improving the management of international
watercourses and reducing the potential for conflict over water
issues.
Public Participation in the Governance of International Freshwater Resources examines the experiences in many watercourses around the world, lessons learned and areas for further development. Drawing upon papers presented at a symposium on ‘Improving Public Participation and Governance in International Watershed Management’ co-sponsored by the Environmental Law Institute, United Nations University, and other institutions, the chapters identify innovative approaches, as well as some of the considerations – linguistic, political, legal, traditional and cultural, geographic and institutional – that should be considered when extending and adapting the approaches to other watersheds. Editors of the volume are Carl Bruch, senior attorney at the Environmental Law Institute in Washington; Libor Jansky, senior academic program officer in the Environment and Sustainable Development Program of the United Nations University; Mikiyasu Nakayama, professor of the United Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology; and Kazimierz A. Salewicz, systems analyst specializing in decision support system and water resources management in international river basins.
Recent years, particularly the past decade, have seen a rapid growth of international law regarding the important of participatory decision-making generally and in the specific context of international watershed management. The body of emergent law ranges from provisions in international and regional declarations to binding conventions, for example on trans-boundary environmental impact assessment (TEIA) or international watercourses. The various international norms and practices are examined in detail in chapter 2 of Public Participation in the Governance of International Freshwater Resources.
With the normative framework providing a clear set of objectives – transparency, participatory decision-making, and accountability – attention increasingly has turned to specific approaches for operationalizing these objectives. In some instances, this is done through the development of detailed conventions and protocols, especially at file regional level, for example, within the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). For international watercourses, operationalization has been more through policies of river basin authorities, international financial institutions, and other international organizations. In a number of instances, projects, work programs, and other informal, less-legalistic activities provide an ad hoc approach, also discussed in chapter 2.
Through experimentation in specific instances and specific water-courses, a body of specific practices is emerging to give substance to the general objectives and requirements that have become ubiquitous. Public involvement is moving from theory into practice.
Public Participation in the Governance of International Freshwater Resources collects many of the specific experiences and lessons learned in seeking to enhance and ensure public involvement in international watercourse management. It highlights successful mechanisms, approaches, and practices for ensuring that people have access to information about watercourses and factors that could have an effect on them: that people who may be affected have the opportunity to participate in decisions regarding the watercourse; and that people can seek redress when they are affected by activities in an international watercourse. At the same time, the volume examines conditions that facilitate or hinder public involvement, as well as contextual factors that may limit transference of experiences from one watershed to another.
The introduction to Public Participation in the Governance of International Freshwater Resources provides an overview of the volume, placing the various chapters in an overall context and highlighting some of the key lessons learned. Part I examines some of the theoretical frameworks and considerations relating to public involvement in international watercourse management. Part II provides an overview of experiences in various international watersheds. Part III examines the role of international institutions in promoting public involvement in international watercourse management. Part IV summarizes some of the innovative experiences in engaging the public in domestic watershed management, experiences that could provide conceptual or model approaches to be adapted for specific international watersheds. Part V examines some of the emerging tools that could improve public involvement in the years to come.
The analysis in Public Participation in the Governance of International Freshwater Resources draws upon experiences in various international watercourses, as well as some relevant sub-national watercourses and international institutions. It also considers existing and emerging tools that can improve governance and public involvement. The work will be helpful to those undertaking further policy development as well as those involved in grassroots organizations seeking to affect watercourse management policy.
Business & Investing / Management & Leadership
Thinking for a Living: How to Get Better Performance and Results
from Knowledge Workers by Thomas H. Davenport
(
Studies show that knowledge workers make up 25-50 percent of the workforces of advanced economies. Their expertise and experience fuels the success of countless organizations around the world – and their value is reflected in their compensation. But how much do managers really ‘know’ about the knowledge workers they are charged with overseeing? Often a company's knowledge workers are dispersed across the organization, and increasingly across the globe. They are extremely mobile, their work is emergent and unstructured, and much of what they do is invisible.
World-renowned knowledge management and process innovation expert
Thomas H. Davenport argues in
Thinking for a Living that much of the time, most managers don't
know what their knowledge workers are doing – much less whether they
are delivering their best performance. Because knowledge work is by
nature difficult to measure, companies often don't ‘manage’
knowledge workers at all – or they apply traditional management
techniques that are simply ineffective with a group of workers who
literally know more than their bosses do about their areas of
expertise. These laissez-faire and outdated approaches, says
In
Thinking for a Living,
Thinking for a Living outlines five customizable approaches for intervening in and improving knowledge work, and guides managers in choosing specific management strategies that have proven most effective with each category of knowledge worker:
- Process and Measurement. A three-step model for matching different knowledge activities – creating, distributing, or applying knowledge – to specific process interventions.
- Organizational Technology. Alternatives to company-wide knowledge repositories, including strategies such as embedding knowledge into the knowledge workers' job process, performance support and role-specific portals, automated decision‑making processes, and more.
- Personal Technologies. Strategies for utilizing technologies such as PDA's, instant messaging, pagers, laptops, and other devices to help individual knowledge workers to process information and knowledge more effectively and efficiently.
- Social Networks. Ways to facilitate collaborative networks through which high-performing knowledge workers can quickly find and share valuable information.
- The Physical Workspace. Ideas for rethinking the physical work environment in ways that optimize the performance of various types of knowledge workers.
Throughout,
Tom Davenport may be the next Peter Drucker. He has been shining his impressive intellect on knowledge work for over two decades. This seminal book hits the sweet spot at the intersection of knowledge work and process improvement, where executives will find the twenty-first century's growth, innovation, and productivity. If your job is to ‘manage’ any of the 36 million Americans who find, create, or package knowledge for a living, you need to read this book. – Carla O’Dell, PhD., President, APQC
Factiva is devoted to improving the productivity of knowledge workers. Tom Davenport's book treats the issues head-on and provides a clear set of guidelines and examples for addressing them. We will use it heavily in our own research and product development. – Clare Hart, President and CEO of Factiva, a Dow Jones and Reuters Company
Finally, the long-awaited book on knowledge workers: who they
are, what they do, how essential they've become, and how to harness
and deploy their consequential talents. It will soon become the
classic work on knowledge management. – Warren Bennis, Distinguished
Professor of Business at USC and coauthor of Geeks and Geezers
Thomas Davenport has helped midwife some of the biggest trends to
have shaped business over the past twenty-five years – among them,
reengineering and knowledge management. – Bill Breen, Fast Company,
March 2004
The future growth of our companies and our economies increasingly depends on the capabilities and productivity of knowledge workers – written by the field’s premier thought leader, Thinking for a Living reveals how to maximize them. Detailing the factors that most effectively motivate and improve the performance of these critical employees, Thinking for a Living is the guide no manager can afford to be without.
Business & Investing / Management & Leadership / Training
Emotional Intelligence In Action: Training and Coaching Activities for Leaders and Managers by Marcia M. Hughes, L. Bonita Patterson, & James B. Terrell (Pfeiffer)
Just when we thought, heaven knows, everything had been said
about training, here comes a new book which provides realistic
scenarios to guide trainers and consultants in improving people’s
people skills.
Emotional Intelligence In Action has been written by Marcia Hughes, president of Collaborative Growth, a strategic communications partner for organizations and trainers; L. Bonita Patterson, president of Polaris Consulting Group, an organizational effectiveness firm; and James Bradford Terrell, the developer of the network WhatsYourEQ.net. The book is organized into three parts. Part One, Using Emotional Intelligence to Create Real Change, explains the rationale for developing emotional intelligence (EI) and highlights four key EI measures. The first section outlines the case for emotional intelligence. It explains why EI has such a powerful impact on personal effectiveness. The next section introduces the four most significant emotional intelligence measures and presents a matrix for cross-referencing the 46 individual exercises or ‘workouts’ in Emotional Intelligence In Action with the specific competencies for which each measure provides instruction. If readers are working with one of the four major measures – the EQ-I or EQ-360, ECI 360, the MSCEITT, or EQ Map – they can look up the measure of choice in the cross-reference matrix and find the workouts that apply to help clients develop the corresponding competencies.
Perhaps the best part is that readers don't have to be working with a measure at all – they can use these workouts independently to strengthen any competency that is needed. For example, if trainers wanted to work with a team or individual to help him or her develop flexibility, they would look in Part Two for the in-depth description of the competency and then go to Part Three, where, under the heading Flexibility, they would find three choices – Workouts 12.1, 12.2, and 12.3, and they could choose the one that is best suited to the situation.
Part Two, Exploring Fifteen Components of Emotional Intelligence, provides an in-depth description of each of fifteen emotional competencies to help readers and their clients become thoroughly familiar with the dimensions of each skill.
Part Three, Emotional Intelligence Workouts to Build Effective Skills, contains the experiential learning scenarios or ‘workouts’. The first three sections of each workout are Purpose, Thumbnail, and Outcome. Purpose answers WHY trainers or consultants would have the people do this workout; Thumbnail tells HOW participants will engage with the instructional material to generate the learning experience; and Outcome explains WHAT the target is – the desired results that can be achieved. The workouts and the companion CD contain reproducible handouts that readers may copy for participants. Emotional Intelligence In Action closes with a list of resources for finding additional useful information.
Most of the exercises can be used in individual coaching
situations as well as with intact teams and groups. The thumbnail
summaries and instructions usually are written for the team and
group experience. If readers are coaching individuals, they may be
easily reframed for the one-on-one environment.
As a leader introducing our organization to EI, the experiential
learning design provides a practical method for developing our
skills, competencies and capabilities while working in our present
positions within our existing organizations. – Marianne Jones, vice
president, human resource director, California Casualty
Creating the metrics necessary to measure emotional intelligence
was a daunting task. But teaching others how to change their
behavior is an altogether different challenge. This book is an able
teacher for the serious learners and leaders of the field. – Esther
M. Orioli, author, Essi Systems' EQ Map
The authors provide a suite of well-designed tools for increasing
emotional intelligence and then invite practitioners to apply these
to respond to individual development needs. This is a needed
addition to the field of emotional intelligence. The gift that these
practitioners have given is they have helped to make EQ development
a faster and more efficient process for both coaches and clients.
Advanced practitioners will find these tools useful for sharpening
their practice. – Geetu Bharwaney, founder and managing director, Ei
World
Emotional Intelligence In Action is a very practical tool
organizations can use to help employees anticipate, understand, and
accept change and thrive in a fast-moving business environment. –
Tad Deering, Sr., director of strategic change, Time Warner Telecom
Wow! What an invaluable resource on Emotional Intelligence. The format is very user-friendly and the use of icons makes it easy to flip through to find exactly what you need at any given time. The matrix cross-referencing the competencies of the four major measures of Emotional Intelligence is incredible and enables use of the exercises regardless of measure utilized. The Star Performer pieces will help people really understand the competencies in action and the movie examples make it fun and help to bring the competencies to life. This guide also contains valuable information that can be used to ‘sell’ Emotional Intelligence programs to senior leaders including the case study information and the power piece. The Reproducible Masters also make this an inestimable training resource on Emotional Intelligence. As a Leadership Development Manager for a Fortune 100 company, I will definitely use this with internal client groups. – Deanna Coffin, Manager, Leadership Development
Emotional Intelligence In Action shows how to tap the power of EI through exercises that can be used to build effective emotional skills and create real change. The workouts are designed to align with the four leading emotional intelligence measures, can be used independently or as part of a wider leadership and management development program. The book’s exercises offer experiential learning scenarios that have been proven to enhance emotional intelligence competencies. This pioneering book makes and important contribution to the EI field because it will help people improve their skills.
Business & Investing / Personal Finance
Yes, You Can Still Retire Comfortably! by Ben Stein & Phil DeMuth (New Beginning Press)
The specter of retirement is haunting the baby-boom generation.
The generation that’s used to having it all is suddenly finding that
it doesn’t have enough. The stock market bubble has deflated,
interest rates are at all-time lows, Social Security is
questionable, pension plans are underfunded, and personal savings
are woefully inadequate. This comes at a time when medical advances
are assuring that they will be the longest lived generation ever.
Ben Stein and Phil DeMuth in Yes, You Can Still Retire Comfortably! grapple with the coming baby-boom retirement crisis and show readers how to get back on track. Stein, finance writer for Barron’s and The Wall Street Journal and one of the chief busters of the junk bond frauds of the 1980s, and DeMuth, an investment psychologist with a longstanding interest in the stock market, writer for The Wall Street Journal and Barron’s, as well as Human Behavior and Psychology Today, outline the steps readers can take today to assure their future tomorrow. Backed up with facts and figures, they lay out exactly how much readers need to save in order to maintain their standard of living, and how to invest dollars to get the maximum return from savings. For those already retired, they explain how to tap their nest egg to get the most income while keeping their money safe.
Ten of the 21 basic rules of retirement, as presented in Yes, You Can Still Retire Comfortably!:
-
Maximize your abilities through self-discipline and the ability to get along with others.
-
Start saving early. If it doesn't hurt, you're probably not saving enough.
-
Never spend more than you earn.
-
Max out all your retirement plans every year.
-
Consider the tax implications of everything you do.
-
Buy your home.
-
Plan far ahead for your retirement, and then stick to your program.
-
Make a plan with a reliable financial advisor. Don't be afraid to ask for advice.
-
Save your hindquarters, not your face – that is, make savings and financial stability more important than showing off or looking cool.
-
Adopt a straightforward investment philosophy that takes advantage of the historical benefits of investing in common stocks but balances it with bonds in a judicious mixture.
According to Stein, money is an astonishingly powerful mind changer. He says the book is meant to be suggestive and to provoke thought, and they understand no one is anywhere near perfect. Okay, but when are boomers really going to stop spending and start saving? Yes, You Can Still Retire Comfortably! is a survival manual for the difficult but, according to Stein and DeMuth, exciting, road to retirement security. They are trying a little too hard to psychologize and lighten this frightening topic for readers – the advice may be sound, if virtually impossible for the spend-spend-spend baby boomers to implement.
Children’s / Ages 9-12 / Biographies & Memoirs
Langston Hughes: Great American Writer by B. A. Hoena (Fact Finders Biographies Series: Capstone Press)
An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose. – Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes knew about having the blues, and he used his knowledge to create poetry based on the blues music form. In his novels, plays, and essays, he explored the African American experience. Langston Hughes shares the writer's life, career, and lasting impact on history. The book belongs to the Fact Finders Biographies Series, in which young readers learn about great men and women who changed history.
James Langston Hughes was born
After graduating from high school, Hughes hoped to go to
As the train crossed the
But when Hughes arrived in
Many African Americans lived in the
Even today, Hughes continues to be one of the most popular of all American poets.
Langston Hughes tells the story of Hughes, his struggle to find his way in the post-war world, facing racial discrimination. Captivating photographs, quotations, and time lines bring the life of Hughes into clear focus.
Children’s / Ages 9-12 /
Grand Canyon National Park by John Hamilton (National Parks Series: ABDO Publishing Company)
President Theodore Roosevelt loved the
A first-time visit to
Traveling north out of
After passing through the park entrance, the rim of the canyon is
nearby, just to the north. The road is lined with pine trees and
sagebrush, but still no sign of the canyon. After finding a parking
space, visitors hurry to the nearest ledge and then gasp in
astonishment. Seeing the
Laid out beyond the rim is a great abyss nearly one mile deep and
in some places 18 miles across. The canyon stretches east and west
across northwestern
Layers of rock range from Kaibab limestone at the top of the canyon to 1.8 billion-year-old gneiss and schist at the bottom. The rocks blaze red, orange, yellow, green, and purple during dramatic canyon sunrises and sunsets. During summer afternoon thunderstorms, shafts of light sometimes pierce the gloom. Rocks struck by dancing sunbeams seem to glow from within. Crowd-pleasing rainbows often appear, straddling canyon walls. In winter, layers of white snow blanket the mesas in hushed silence.
The
Many people are not content to merely gaze into the canyon from
the rim. For these adventurers, there are many paths that descend
into the chasm, with such famous trail names as
Anyone who gazes into the
Millions of years ago the region was at the bottom of a shallow
sea. Layers of sedimentary rock, including Kaibab limestone, formed
on top of older, harder layers of volcanic rock that were created
eons earlier. Seventy million years ago two tectonic plates
collided, causing the western part of
As the
In 1919, the year that the
On peak summer days, tourists jostle with each other for parking
spaces, hotel rooms, and viewing spots along the rim. The National
Park Service restricted private vehicle access to many of the roads
in
Air pollution is a growing threat to the
Readers discover in
Grand Canyon National Park that many people today are working
hard to preserve the
Grand Canyon National Park is part of the National Parks Series.
Other books in the National Parks Series include:
Children’s / Young Adult / Social Sciences
Is the Gap Between the Rich and Poor Growing? edited by Robert Sims (At Issue Series: Thomson Gale)
The volumes in Greenhaven Press's At Issue series, aimed at young adults, includes a wide range of opinions on a single controversial issue. Each volume includes both primary and secondary sources from a variety of perspectives – eyewitnesses, scientific journals, government officials, and many others. Extensive bibliographies and annotated lists of relevant organizations to contact offer a gateway to further research. Each inexpensive volume enhances critical thinking skills and is an excellent research tool for reports – Is the Gap Between the Rich and Poor Growing? is a volume in this series.
Some people are concerned about the possibility that economic
inequality is growing in the
Conservatives argue that protecting economic freedom and the free market is essential if all Americans are to have the opportunity for economic success. According to their view, a government that allows a free market and promotes unlimited competition in the private sector provides the greatest opportunities for widespread prosperity. A free market motivates people to continually strive to improve and innovate and develop new products because they face few governmental limitations on their productivity and profits.
As entrepreneurs develop their businesses and create wealth, conservatives assert, they are able to provide opportunities for other people in the form of jobs and investments. A free market that promotes production, competition, and consumer confidence thus leads to greater prosperity and a growing middle class that is able to take advantage of these job and investment opportunities. Since the health of a society is often determined by the size of the middle class and the hopes of the lower class, conservatives believe that expanding the free market offers the best way to create a stable and prosperous American society.
One of the major ways conservatives seek to protect the free
market is to limit taxes and regulations, which they believe stunts
economic growth and stifles the innovation of those who have the
capital to invest in entrepreneurial ventures that could spur the
economy and prosper everyone – including the wealthy, the middle
class, and the poor. Conservatives do not view the large
concentration of wealth that exists in relatively few hands in the
Is the Gap Between the Rich and Poor Growing? contrasts
conservative ideology, with the liberal argument that the free
market and laissez-faire government policies do not produce a
prosperous economy with greater opportunities for all classes, but
instead create a rigid economy in which the rich become richer and
the poor stay poor. Liberals assert that in the
Most liberals concede that the United States is a prosperous nation due in large part to free market capitalism, but many also believe that the free market has flaws that have left many people poor or struggling to pay for rising health care, child care, and housing expenses. In order to meet these increasing expenses, liberals argue, the government should use its authority to promote social justice by regulating the free market and implementing new governmental programs to provide a greater safety net for the unemployed, the sick, and the working poor. To fund these programs, the tax increases conservatives abhor are necessary.
Liberals view governmental programs as a vital way to provide a
modicum of financial security to otherwise financially unstable
families. Further, they argue that government programs such as
Social Security, welfare, and the G.I. Bill have helped many poor
and working class people to achieve middle class status. For
example, the G.I. Bill was enacted in 1944 to provide World War II
veterans with tuition for college or vocational education in
addition to one year of unemployment compensation. The bill also
provided low-interest home loans for veterans. A modified version of
the bill, now called the Montgomery G.I. Bill, is still on the books
today. According to many liberals, the G.I. Bill put the American
dream within reach of many servicemen and women because it allowed
many poor people to attain assets such as an education and a home
that would not have been available to them without the helping hand
of the government. They argue similarly that Social Security and
welfare programs have provided financial relief to many poor
families and prevented them from slipping into destitution. The
extent to which the
The book contains twelve articles by different authors of widely varying backgrounds. It also contains a list of organizations to contact and a bibliography including both books and periodicals.
This series on current issues provides ... articles that offer a
range of opinions of various controversial topics. The variety of
the opinions presented ... will help students get a sense of the
various aspects of the issue and encourage critical thinking.
Helpful for social studies classes and high school and public
libraries, for students preparing term papers. – Kliatt
Is the Gap Between the Rich and Poor Growing? contrasts liberal and conservative views regarding the possibly growing gap between the rich and the poor. Appropriate for its target audience of young adults, but also for all those who want to become acquainted with both sides of the issue.
Children’s / Young Adult / Sociology
Legalizing Drugs edited by Stuart A. Kallen (At Issue Series: Greenhaven Press)
The volumes in Greenhaven Press's At Issue series, aimed at young adults, include a wide range of opinions on a single controversial issue. Each volume includes both primary and secondary sources from a variety of perspectives – eyewitnesses, scientific journals, government officials, and many others. Extensive bibliographies and annotated lists of relevant organizations to contact offer a gateway to further research. Each inexpensive volume enhances critical thinking skills and is an excellent research tool for reports – Legalizing Drugs is a volume in this series.
People have been taking drugs for most of human history.
Marijuana was first cultivated over six thousand years ago. The
opium poppy, the source for opiates such as morphine and heroin, was
first grown by the Sumerians in present-day
Legalizing Drugs describes the conflicting attitudes about drugs
which fuel the controversy over drug legalization. Proponents of
legalizing drugs argue that punishment for drug possession is often
too severe and that government has no right to regulate personal
behaviors such as drug use. Proponents and prohibitionists alike
agree that drugs can cause great physical and mental damage to
users. Proponents, however, believe that the number of serious
abusers is relatively small (less than 3 percent in the
Those who think drugs should be legalized point to incarceration
rates as evidence that the war on drugs is too punitive. In 2003
state and federal police agencies in the
Legalization proponents also point out that
According to
Legalizing Drugs concern over such unintended social costs of
the drug war fuels the politically active drug legalization movement
in the
Those who oppose drug legalization do not dispute such statistics. However, they claim that drug use would be much greater without the war on drugs. Those analysts believe that the demand for drugs, especially cocaine, has been significantly reduced by tough sentencing along with efforts to educate the public, especially the young, about the dangers of addiction. To absolute prohibitionists, such reports of progress in reducing drug use show that the drug war is effective. They believe that the legalization of drugs like marijuana and cocaine would increase the incidence of drug addiction, child abuse and neglect, and workplace and traffic accidents. Prohibitionists continue to support the work of the Drug Enforcement Administration, which spent more than $21 billion in 2004 to stop drug production and arrest users and distributors. With so large a budgetary commitment from the federal government, it is likely that efforts to prevent Americans from acquiring and using illicit drugs will continue in the foreseeable future.
Legalizing Drugs is composed of 14 essays:
- Federal Drug Prohibition Should Be Repealed – David Boaz and Timothy Lynch
- Proponents for Legalization Ignore the Harmful Effects of Drugs – James A. Inciardi
- Legalizing Drugs Would Reduce Crime – Douglas N. Husak
- Legalizing Drugs Would Not Reduce Crime – Joe Dombroski
- The War on Drugs Is Destroying Lives – Jack Cole
- Arguments Against the War on Drugs Are Based on Dangerous Myths – Dan P. Alsobrooks
- The War on Drugs Is Racist – Drug Policy
- Marijuana Prohibition Is Misguided – Ethan A. Nadelmann
- Legalizing Marijuana Would Harm Teens – Robert Margolis
- Medical Marijuana Should Be Legalized – Marijuana Policy Project
- Medical Marijuana Should Remain Illegal – David G. Evans and John E. Lamp
- Legalizing Ecstasy Could Help Psychotherapists Treat Patients – David Adams and Ben Fulton
- Efforts to Prove That Ecstasy Can Help Psychotherapist Treat Patients Are Misguided – E. Patrick Curry
This series on current issues provides ... articles that offer a
range of opinions of various controversial topics. The variety of
the opinions presented ... will help students get a sense of the
various aspects of the issue and encourage critical thinking.
Helpful for social studies classes and high school and public
libraries, for students preparing term papers. – Kliatt
Legalizing Drugs contrasts pro and con views regarding the
legalization of drugs in the
Cooking, Food & Wine
Brazil: A Culinary Journey by Cherie
Hamilton (Hippocrene Cookbook Library Series: Hippocrene Books,
Inc.) is a gastronomic exploration of
The largest nation in
Modern Brazilian cuisine is the result of the contributions of
several peoples, most notably the native Amerindians, African slaves
and their descendents, and, of course, the Portuguese colonizers.
The indigenous inhabitants of modern-day
Brazil explores the nation's distinct regional cuisines, and
explains how Amerindian, European, and African contributions have
come together to form modern Brazilian cookery. The book, as
translation of a Portuguese-language cookbook, was written by Cherie
Hamilton, who has lived and traveled extensively throughout the
Portuguese-speaking world, developing a love for Brazilian cooking
while living in
Cooking, Food & Wine
Entertaining in the Northwest Style: A Menu Cookbook by Greg Atkinson, with photographs by Anne Herman (Sasquatch Books)
A gentle climate, great scenery, and wonderful food make the
lifestyle of the
Entertaining in the Northwest Style captures that way of life with thematic menus and over 90 recipes for every season and occasion ranging from sophisticated beach picnics to a spring menu to hail the return of the salmon. Each menu is a culinary composition designed to celebrate a memorable moment, or pay tribute to a primary ingredient.
Here is a sampling of menus in Entertaining in the Northwest Style:
-
After the Cider Bash: A Feast for Autumn
-
Where a
-
Observing the Winter Solstice: A
-
After the Egg Hunt: A Feast for Spring
-
On Board Carmelita: Brunch on the
-
From
Atkinson choreographs each of these special occasions with
appetizers and salads, main courses, wines to pour, and deserts. For
example, Atkinson's menu for a romantic summer dinner includes
‘Matisse Bread’ or Fougasse, Three Shellfish with Three Citrus
Fruits, Provençale Chicken with Tomato and
In this highly anticipated, colorful cookbook, Atkinson graces the culinary world with his delicate prose and delicious menus. For holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, and rejoicing with family and friends, this is a cookbook readers can turn to again and again. Atkinson's stories of events that call for great meals make the menus in Entertaining in the Northwest Style warm, and charming.
Cooking, Food & Wine
The New York Times Chicken Cookbook edited by Linda
Amster, with a foreword by Julia Reed (
The editors of The New York Times are cooking everyone's favorite meal – chicken – in a classic new cookbook The New York Times Chicken Cookbook edited by Linda Amster with a foreword by Julia Reed.
Whether it’s fried, roasted, barbecued, served in flat bread or with fluffy dumplings, chicken is certainly one of the most popular mealtime choices the world over. Bestselling cookbook editor Amster has searched through The New York Times’ vast recipe archives, as well as through cookbooks by Times writers, to hunt down and showcase some of the best New York Times chicken recipes in The New York Times Chicken Cookbook. Along with the simple crunchy heaven that is Edna Lewis’s Virginia Fried Chicken, there are surprising twists on this All-American classic – recipes like Mark Bittman’s Cinnamon-Scented Fried Chicken and Nancy Harmon Jenkins’s Deep-Fried Chicken with Lemon Grass.
If readers are thinking about baking, poaching, braising and great one-pot cooking, try recipes like Jamie Oliver’s Braised Ligurian Chicken, Marian Cunninghams Popovered Chicken, Florence Fabricant’s Chicken Putanesca, Eric Ripert’s Chicken Bouillabaisse and the sentimental favorite of many, Mimi Sheraton’s Subgum Chicken Chow Mein.
Readers will learn the best ways to grill and broil, steam and poach, sauté and braise and are treated to such recipes as Grilled Mexican Chicken, Tandori Chicken Fingers, and Deviled Chicken Legs. The recipes of some of the most celebrated chefs and restaurants in the country are included: Craig Claiborne's Chicken Fricassee, Judy Rodgers of The Zuni Cafe's Winter Chicken, Nobu's Chicken Teriyaki, and Moira Hodgson's Chicken Tagine. In addition, each section of the book has some recipes classified as ‘Easy’ or ‘Easy/Fast’, which makes it possible for anyone to put a chicken dinner on the table at the end of a busy day with minimal time and effort.
In this latest collection, the editors of The New York Times have
assembled a number of verifiably delicious chicken recipes taken
from the newspaper or from the cookbooks of its writers.
Contributors include famed restaurants like
In
The New York Times Chicken Cookbook Amster has collected over
200 of the best chicken recipes to appear in The New York Times over
the years. This cookbook has something for every chicken lover – it
is a classic that will remain on any cook's cookbook shelf for a
long time to come and will be a cherished gift for birthdays,
weddings, family celebrations and holidays year round. Completed
with an appendix about all things chicken, the result is a
globe-trotting treasure trove of mouth-watering favorites from great
chefs, restaurateurs, and food writers.
Cooking, Food & Wine
To Serve with Love: Simple, Scrumptious Dishes from the Skinny to the Sinful by Carnie Wilson, with Cindy Pearlman (Hay House, Inc.)
Author, singer, and actress Carnie Wilson brings readers
To Serve with Love, a lifestyle cookbook that is a celebration
of our love affair with cooking, as well as the enjoyment we get out
of eating meals that have been prepared for us. This book will stir
up universal feelings about food, life, love, and having the
‘home-plate’ advantage because of
With the assist of Cindy Pearlman, nationally syndicated writer,
Since she believes a cookbook shouldn’t just be just a list of
meals,
Even though
This beautiful, inspirational cookbook will appeal to those who like to cook for their families and who like their food with visual appeal, which is just about everybody, and especially to those who, like Wilson, have undergone gastric-bypass surgery and still love to eat.
Education
Mentoring in Action: A Month-by-Month Curriculum for Mentors and
Their New Teachers by Carol M. Pelletier
(Allyn & Bacon) a one-of-a-kind resource to facilitate the mentoring
process.
Mentoring is one of the fastest-growing areas of teacher
development. It is essential to teacher retention in an age of
teacher shortages and teacher recruitment.
Mentoring in Action walks mentors and their mentees through a
full school year of exercises addressing everything from lesson
planning to behavior management. The book outlines how to identify
and discuss difficult issues as mentors work together with their
beginning teachers throughout the year.
Features include:
- A month-by-month guide for both mentors and the new teachers
they guide.
- Numerous forms and practical tips for creating mentoring
meetings with both the new teacher and the student teacher.
- Classroom management and discipline ideas for beginning
teachers.
According to Carol Pelletier, teacher and teacher educator for 33
years, 21 years in a public school and 12 years as the Director of
Practicum Experiences at
Using Mentoring in Action, mentors can go beyond the one-on-one conversations in a dyad with one mentor and one new teacher to a collegial group where all members, including the mentor, participate and learn. This curriculum relies on the expertise of the experienced teacher as a mentor/facilitator, but recognizes that one mentor cannot know all things and be all things for any new teacher. The collaborative approach allows everyone in the group to share ideas, issues, and solutions to problems. Not only does it take the pressure off the mentor, it enriches the discussions. If readers find themselves working with only one new teacher, they can invite others in the school to take part in some of the discussions during the school year.
Mentoring in Action provides a common language and curriculum that mentors can use to frame discussions with new teachers. It is designed to be used with small groups of new teachers, allowing a district with a few mentors a viable mentoring option. Although the curriculum discussions will be richer with small groups, they certainly can be successful in a one-on-one mentoring model. The key component to the book is the structure for weekly and monthly meetings that offer a variety of possible topics to discuss. It responds to a common question mentors often ask, "What are we supposed to talk about every week'?" and by using the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) Principles in each chapter, mentors and mentees will have a common language of standards. There are quotes from students of all ages and comments from new teachers in their first year of teaching that help maintain the spirit of both teaching and learning each month.
Mentoring in Action suggests that mentors can be facilitators of small groups of new teachers and shows them how to do it. We know that meeting with new teachers and using a mentoring curriculum can add to the effectiveness of school and district induction programs. Teachers who want to be mentors will find inspiration and motivation in this book as well as support them in their work with new teachers.
Education
Faculty Priorities Reconsidered: Rewarding Multiple Forms of Scholarship by KerryAnn O'Meara & R. Eugene Rice (Jossey-Bass)
Faculty Priorities Reconsidered, written by KerryAnn O'Meara,
who is on the faculty at the
In this volume the leading pioneers of the movement reflect on
their own work with campuses nationwide and examine concrete issues
involved in introducing new perspectives on the different forms of
scholarship. In addition, the book contains studies of nine very
diverse institutions – Madonna,
Faculty Priorities Reconsidered includes a distinguished panel of contributors: Talya Bauer, Dennis Bozyk, David G. Brailow, Victoria L. Clegg, Robert M. Diamond, Amy Driscoll, Gretchen R. Esping, Don Evans, Jerry G. Gaff, Catherine Garner, Judy Grace, Robin A. Harvan, Barbara DeVeaux Holmes, Mary Taylor Huber, Pat Hutchings, Diane Kayongo-Male, Steven R. Lowenstein, Bill Pepicello, Carol J. Peterson, Duane Roen, John Rueter, David K. Scott, Lee S. Shulman, Craig Swenson, George E. Walker, and Kenneth J. Zahorski.
Faculty Priorities Reconsidered offers practical advice to
academic leaders considering similar changes and responds to
questions for the future about encouraging, supporting, assessing,
and rewarding multiple forms of scholarship.
Education / Health, Mind & Body
Communication Disorders in the Classroom: An Introduction for Professionals in School Settings, 4th Edition by William O. Haynes, Michael J. Moran, & Rebekah H. Pindzola (Jones and Bartlett Publishers)
Speech, language, and hearing disorders have the potential to affect each student communicatively, socially, psychologically, and academically.
Most of us take the ability to communicate for granted, unaware of the vast complexity of the communication process. For instance, it takes the action of about 100 muscles to say even a simple word such as ‘pop’. These muscle actions must be coordinated in simultaneous and serial movements at a speed of about 13 speech sounds per second. In addition to the actual production of speech, a person must think of something to say (cognitive activity), select words and sentence structures (language ability), and adapt the utterance to the appropriate communication context (noisy versus quiet room, child versus adult listener, and so on). The steps in this process are accomplished in fractions of seconds. Unfortunately, many conditions, both physical and behavioral, can interfere with this complicated process and create a communication impairment.
The fourth edition of Communication Disorders in the Classroom presents an updated portrait of the far-reaching impact that communication impairments have on the lives and success of students from preschool through adolescence. Authors William O. Haynes, Michael Moran, and Rebekah H. Pindzola, all professors in the Department of Communication Disorders, Auburn University, discuss the range of impairments found in school-age children with suggestions for teacher intervention. A specialist in the particular subject area wrote each chapter in this book; the authors have had many years of clinical experience in their areas and have studied application of speech-language pathology in public school settings.
Today, a typical classroom may have children with a variety of disabilities included with normally developing students. The current trend toward inclusion of students with disabilities in the normal classroom is predicted to increase even more with continued changes in legislation and educational philosophy. It is not unusual to enter a classroom and find a child with a mobility impairment, a child with hearing loss, a student with a serious medical condition, a child with brain injury, students with attentional and learning problems, and many with communication disorders. As a result of inclusion, both regular and special education teachers have more demands placed upon them than ever before. Not only are they required to teach academic content, but they also must make numerous adjustments in their teaching styles and interaction patterns to accommodate students with various disabilities. In this technological age, the amount of information to be taught to students doubles in less than a decade. This information explosion, coupled with increased demands associated with inclusion, makes the job of a teacher challenging, sometimes frustrating, and occasionally impossible.
Topics covered in Communication Disorders in the Classroom, 4th edition include:
-
Legal issues and service delivery models
-
Normal aspects of communication
-
The development of language and phonology
-
Phonological disorders
-
Children with limited language
-
School-age and adolescent language disorders
-
Dialectal differences: African American English as a case study
-
Fluency disorders
-
Voice disorders
-
Hearing impairment
-
Craniofacial anomolies
-
Neurological impairment
-
Communication disorders and academic success.
Communication Disorders in the Classroom suggests a variety of strategies and interventions for professionals in the education, special education, and speech pathology disciplines to employ as they deal with students with communication impairments. With up-to-date information and minimal jargon, each chapter contains a section on the nature of a specific communication disorder, assessment issues, and direct and indirect treatment options. In addition, each chapter includes teacher tips, key terms, study questions, and suggestions for further reading.
For the past 15 years, Communication Disorders in the Classroom has been used by training programs in the disciplines of education, special education, and communication disorders as an example of how professionals from these diverse areas can cooperate in helping students with speech, hearing, and language problems in