Award-winning children's author and acclaimed educator Lester Laminack invites you and your students to join him as he peels back the layers of his picture book Saturdays and Teacakes to make the writing moves visible. With Lester as guide on the enclosed DVD, your young writers will observe and explore what he did, how he did it, and why he did it that way. As Lester demonstrates how to read with a writer's eyes and ears, your students will gain increasing control over their own narrative writing. Lester provides you with multiple tools. You'll find 14 ready-to-use mini-lessons to introduce your students to techniques and literary elements. Carefully selected anchor texts provide inspiration for exploring each technique and element. In addition, a professional workshop to use on your own or with colleagues will deepen your own knowledge base. This "workshop-in-a-book," also perfect for literacy coaches and teacher leaders, demonstrates how to read like a writer, identify "craft moves," and form theories about why the moves were made. The DVD features Lester explaining how writers practice audible and visual craft, using Saturdays and Teacakes to illustrate both. The DVD also includes downloadable forms that you can share with your students to explore author's craft and to monitor their evolving understanding. Use the DVD to have Lester talk directly to the class, or use the book to present the lessons yourself. Either method will help you teach your students to develop their own "craft moves," which will enliven and refine their writing. Book jacket.

15 ready-to-use mini-lessons introduce students to techniques and literary elements they can use to craft their own writing. On the companion website, the author explains how writers work with both audible and visual craft.

DIVDIVIn the sequel to her bestselling Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg advises readers on how to capture the flashes of inspiration of a writer’s life, and turn this “thunder and lightning” into a polished final piece/divDIV /divDIVAny writer may find himself or herself with an abundance of raw material, but it takes patience and care to turn this material into finished stories, essays, poems, novels, and memoirs. Referencing her own experiences both as a writer and as a student of Zen, Natalie provides insight into the struggles and demands of turning ideas into concrete form. /divDIV /divDIVHer guidance addresses ways to overcome writer’s block, deal with the fear of criticism and rejection, get the most from working with an editor, and improve one’s writing by reading accomplished authors. She communicates this with her characteristic humor and compassion, and a deep respect for writing as an act of celebration./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Natalie Goldberg, including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection./div /div

A lyrical picture book memoir of one boy and his beloved grandmother, from award-winning author Lester L. Laminack. Every Saturday, a young boy rides his bicycle up and down country roads, past farms and a filling station, until he reaches his Mammaw's house. She is waiting for him. There, the young boy helps her. She picks tomatoes and he pushes the lawnmower through the dew-wet grass. But the best part of the day is helping his Mammaw make teacakes from scratch and eating the hot, sweet cakes fresh from the oven. Lester L. Laminack's richly detailed prose perfectly portrays the special relationship of a young boy and his grandmother. Award-winning illustrator Chris Soentpiet's remarkably detailed watercolor images beautifully capture the setting.

Farah feels alone, even when surrounded by her classmates. She listens and nods but doesn’t speak. It’s hard being the new kid in school, especially when you’re from another country and don’t know the language. Then, on a field trip to an apple orchard, Farah discovers there are lots of things that sound the same as they did at home, from dogs crunching their food to the ripple of friendly laughter. As she helps the class make apple cider, Farah connects with the other students and begins to feel that she belongs. Ted Lewin’s gorgeous sun-drenched paintings and Eve Bunting’s sensitive text immediately put the reader into another child’s shoes in this timely story of a young Muslim immigrant.

A WOMAN’S BATTLE WITH THE BILLION-DOLLAR BABY BUSINESS Cracked Open is Miriam Zoll's eye-opening account of growing into womanhood with the simultaneous opportunities offered by the U.S. women's movement and new discoveries in reproductive technologies. Influenced by the pervasive media and cultural messages suggesting that science had finally eclipsed Mother Nature, Zoll postponed motherhood until the age of 40. When things don't progress as she had hoped, she enters a world of medical seduction and bioethical quagmires. Desperate to conceive, she surrenders to unproven treatments and procedures only to learn that the odds of becoming a mother through reproductive technologies are far less than she and her generation had been led to believe.

From the bestselling author of Thinkertoys, this follow up brings innovative creative thinking techniques within reach, giving you the tools to tackle everyday challenges in new ways. Internationally renowned business creativity expert, Michael Michalko will show you how creative people think—and how to put their secrets to work for you in business and in your personal life. You don't have to be a genius to solve problems like one. Michalko researched and analyzed hundreds of history's greatest thinkers across disciplines—from Leonardo da Vinci to Pablo Picasso—to bring the best of their techniques together and to teach you how to apply them in your own life. Cracking Creativity is filled with exercises and anecdotes that will soon have you looking at problems and seeing many different solutions.