“This Is a Great Book!” champions the belief that having a wide range of “great” books to read is essential to students’ becoming readers — both inside the classroom, and beyond. Based on extensive research, this highly readable book explores a range of recommended titles that cover a spectrum of developmental stages, from early chapter books to young adult novels. The 101 literacy events outlined within include a wealth of practical strategies: more than fifty reproducible activities, assessment profiles, and inventories for easy classroom use. Committed to nurturing the love of reading, this passionate book invites readers to dig deeper by responding through writing, discussion, the arts, media, and more. Special attention is given to the world of leisure reading, where readers make choices based on their preferences and tastes as they build a lifelong interest in fiction that will enrich their lives.

New from award-winning Michigan writer Bonnie Jo Campbell, American Salvage is rich with local color and peopled with rural characters who love and hate extravagantly. They know how to fix cars and washing machines, how to shoot and clean game, and how to cook up methamphetamine, but they have not figured out how to prosper in the twenty-first century. Through the complex inner lives of working-class characters, Campbell illustrates the desperation of post-industrial America, where wildlife, jobs, and whole ways of life go extinct and the people have no choice but to live off what is left behind. The harsh Michigan winter is the backdrop for many of the tales, which are at turns sad, brutal, and oddly funny. One man prepares for the end of the world--scheduled for midnight December 31, 1999--in a pole barn with chickens and survival manuals. An excruciating burn causes a man to transcend his racist and sexist worldview. Another must decide what to do about his meth-addicted wife, who is shooting up on the other side of the bathroom door. A teenaged sharpshooter must devise a revenge that will make her feel whole again. Though her characters are vulnerable, confused, and sometimes angry, they are also resolute. Campbell follows them as they rebuild their lives, continue to hope and dream, and love in the face of loneliness. Fellow Michiganders, fans of short fiction, and general readers will enjoy this poignant and affecting collection of tales.

This remarkable book includes more than one hundred games and drama activities, all with a clear learning focus. The activities use themes as a springboard for easy drama through games, movement, tableau, role playing, improvisation, readers theatre, choral speaking, and much more. Teachers will find opportunities to explore literary genres that include the picture book, novel, rhyme, folktale, poem, script, and photograph. New drama structures look at relevant topics that range from personal narrative and the immigrant experience to bullying and building a community. This comprehensive approach to drama illustrates how teachers can reach each learner in the classroom.

In our society, where emerging technologies unite us in new ways, bullying is reaching epidemic proportions. The Bully-Go-Round provides strategies for a better understanding of all aspects of bullying from the perspective of the bully, the bullied, and the bystander. This handbook offers more than thirty-five activities, including responding in writing, in art, and in role play; lists of resources; discussion prompts; and tips for teachers on providing a safe forum in our classrooms to explore the complexity of the bullying issue.

This passionate book is about community, compassion, and creativity; it is about caring for others. It is also about helping students care about their work. Teachers will learn how to establish inclusive classrooms where kindness and concern become crucial backdrops for critical conversations. They will be introduced to simple but profound strategies that initiate and maintain respectful dialogue, promote collaboration over competition, and confront difficult issues such as bullying and exclusion. Creating Caring Classrooms is committed to building respectful relationships among students, teachers, and the school community. Through active, engaging, relevant, open-ended activities, students will be encouraged to explore events, ideas, themes, texts, stories, and relationships from different perspectives, and then represent those new understandings in innovative and creative ways.

Many people are unaware of how influential Mormons have been on American popular culture. This book parts the curtain and looks behind the scenes at the little-known but important influence Mormons have had on popular culture in the United States and beyond. Mormons and Popular Culture: The Global Influence of an American Phenomenon provides an unprecedented, comprehensive treatment of Mormons and popular culture. Authored by a Mormon studies librarian and author of numerous writings regarding Mormon folklore, culture, and history, this book provides students, scholars, and interested readers with an introduction and wide-ranging overview of the topic that can serve as a key reference book on the topic. The work contains fascinating coverage on the most influential Mormon actors, musicians, fashion designers, writers, artists, media personalities, and athletes. Some topics—such as the Mormon influence at Disney, and how Mormon inventors have assisted in transforming American popular culture through the inventions of television, stereophonic sound, video games, and computer-generated animation—represent largely unknown information. The broad overview of Mormons and American popular culture offered can be used as a launching pad for further investigation; researchers will find the references within the book's well-documented chapters helpful.

A one-of-a-kind teacher shares her creative ideas for helping students get the most out of their school year. Illustrations.