Gore Vidal has hailed John Rechy as “one of the few original American writers of the last century,” and Michael Cunningham has called him an author... “whose life is almost as interesting, and meaningful, as his work.” Rechy’s long-awaited memoir,About My Life and the Kept Woman, is the author’s first open treatment of his life—and a testament to the power of pride and self-acceptance. Raised Mexican-American in El Paso, Texas, at a time when Latino children were routinely segregated, Rechy was often assumed to be Anglo because of his light skin, and had his name “changed” for him by a teacher, from Juan to John. As he grew older—and as his fascination with the memory of a notorious kept woman in his childhood deepened—Rechy became aware that his differences lay not just in his heritage, but in his sexuality. A moving, powerful story of a life that bears witness to some of the most riotous changes of the past century,About My Life and the Kept Woman is as much a portrait of intolerance as of an individual who defied it to forge his own path.

For Introductory Philosophy Courses.   An introductory philosophy text that covers all the major fields of philosophy in easy-to-read language,... interspersed with short selections from the major philosophers.  The text has been a best-selling leader in the field for more than thirty years.  It is written by an internationally recognized author of more than twenty books.  He is an important voice in social and political philosophy, Immanuel Kant's philosophy, and the philosophy of education.

Four Decades of Student-Friendly Philosophy   About Philosophy is an introductory text that covers all the major fields of philosophy in an... easy-to-read language, interspersed with short selections from the major philosophers.  It has been a best-selling leader in the field for more than forty years and it is written by an internationally recognized author of more than twenty books.   Note: MyPhilosophyLab does not come automatically packaged with this text. To purchase MyPhilosophyLab, please visit www.MyPhilosophyLab.com or you can purchase a valuepack of the text + MyPhilosophyLab (9780205219070)    

In this unique and extraordinary text, Michael G. Santos helps others learn about the abnormal way of life behind the walls and fences of prisons. To... provide readers with a more complete and realistic picture of the growing subculture that exists in prison, the author provides both his own experiences and observations of living as a prisoner, as well as dialogues, vignettes, and profiles of other prisoners and workers within the prison environment. This text addresses the unprecedented growth in the prison system over the past two decades, and asks future correctional professionals to critically examine the current prison system.

A compendium of more than 240 classroom-tested lessons, this essential resource helps teachers build student understanding and skills and understand how... children best learn math. In this third edition, Marilyn Burns has completely revised the first section to reflect what she has learned over the years from her classroom experience with students and her professional development experience with teachers. This section has also been expanded to address these important topics: teaching math vocabulary, incorporating writing into math instruction, linking assessment and instruction, and using children's literature to teach key math concepts. In an entirely new section, Marilyn addresses a wide range of questions she has received over the years from elementary and middle school teachers regarding classroom management and instructional issues.

Just how did Cal Cunningham -- a twenty-five-year-old bookstore stockboy who is new to Manhattan and who has never written anything -- publish a... bestselling novel that sells to the movies for a million dollars?A mysterious roommate, a timely bike accident, and the rapacious literary agent Blackie Yaeger all play a role in Cal's success.Deception, blackmail, and murder all play a role in his desperate bid to hold on to it.And About the Author is his first-person account of how he performed this remarkable feat.

Grades K-2   About the Authors is about the littlest authors–those in kindergarten through second grade. Based on a profound understanding of the... ways in which young children learn, it shows teachers how to launch a writing workshop by inviting children to do what they do naturally–make stuff. So why not write books? Gifted educator and author of the best-selling What You Know by Heart (Heinemann, 2002), Katie Wood Ray has seen young authors do just that. And she wants your students to be able to do the same. Beautifully describing young children in the act of learning, she demonstrates what it takes to nourish writing right from the start: a supportive environment that enables even the youngest students to write respect and sensitivity to the way children really learn inviting instruction that both encourages and elevates young writers rich language that stimulates writing classroom talk and children's literature that energize young writers developmental considerations that shape the structure of the workshop, making it natural, joyful, and absolutely appropriate. What's more, Ray explains step by step how to set up and maintain a primary writing workshop, detailing eleven units of study that cover idea generation, text structures, different genres, and illustrations that work with text. She also draws on data, projects, and the language of teaching used in the classroom of first-grade teacher Lisa Cleaveland. Ray allows readers to "listen in" to Lisa as she helps her young students learn from professional writers, work with intention, and think about their own process. Chockfull of examples of little books by young children, About the Authors is proof positive that a primary writing workshop is a smart writing move.   Also available: The Teaching Behind About the Authors (DVD) / 0325008361 / 2005 / Grades K-2

In this newly revised and expanded edition About the Bible: Short Answers to Big Questions, Terence E. Fretheim offers straightforward answers to... reoccurring questions about how the Bible was written, organized, and interpreted — and why people have such different opinions about what the Bible has to say.Built on a bestselling volume first introduced to readers in 1999, this edition welcomes added questions to a unique question-and-answer format. Among the questions are: Who wrote the Bible? How did it come to be? Do Lutherans believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible, for instance the Creation Story? Can we draw responsible ethical discernment from the Bible? How do we read the Bible for spiritual growth? Arranged according to topic, the books is ideal for individual and group use. Both devoted Bible readers and Bible novices are sure to find answers to many of their biggest questions here.

Travis Mossotti writes with humor, gravity, and humility about subjects grounded in a world of grit, where the quiet mortality of working folk is... weighed. To Mossotti, the love of a bricklayer for his wife is as complex and simple as life itself: “ask him to put into words what that sinking is, / that shudder in his chest, as he notices / the wrinkles gathering at the corners of her mouth.” But not a whiff of sentiment enters these poems, for Mossotti has little patience for ideas of the noble or for sympathetic portraits of hard-used saints. His vision is clear, as clear as the memory of how scarecrows in the rearview, “each of them, stuffed / into a body they didn’t choose, resembled / your own plight.” His poetry embraces unsanctimonious life with all its wonder, its levity, and clumsiness. About the Dead is an accomplished collection by a writer in control of a wide range of experience, and it speaks to the heart of any reader willing to catch his “drift, and ride it like the billowed / end of some cockamamie parachute all the way / back to the soft, dysfunctional, waiting earth.”

Travis Mossotti writes with humor, gravity, and humility about subjects grounded in a world of grit, where the quiet mortality of working folk is... weighed. To Mossotti, the love of a bricklayer for his wife is as complex and simple as life itself: “ask him to put into words what that sinking is, / that shudder in his chest, as he notices / the wrinkles gathering at the corners of her mouth.” But not a whiff of sentiment enters these poems, for Mossotti has little patience for ideas of the noble or for sympathetic portraits of hard-used saints. His vision is clear, as clear as the memory of how scarecrows in the rearview, “each of them, stuffed / into a body they didn’t choose, resembled / your own plight.” His poetry embraces unsanctimonious life with all its wonder, its levity, and clumsiness. About the Dead is an accomplished collection by a writer in control of a wide range of experience, and it speaks to the heart of any reader willing to catch his “drift, and ride it like the billowed / end of some cockamamie parachute all the way / back to the soft, dysfunctional, waiting earth.”

Illustrating their conviction that fiction-writing and fiction-reading are natural and mutually nourishing activities, the editors of ABOUT THESE... STORIES: Fiction for Fiction Writers and Readers, have compiled a text of 18-24 short stories, many contemporary designed for creative writing or introduction to fiction courses. Each story is followed by an essay from one of the editors, suggesting approaches to reading, seeing structure and technique, and interpreting the work. As the editors point out, the stories included embody useful answers to questions important to writers, concerning plot, point of view, characterization, and atmosphere. They illustrate methods of dealing with fictional material that students can learn from and draw on for their own creative or interpretive work. The essays are natural responses to the stories they accompany, and will inspire story writers to write more stories and story readers to have their say in writing about these stories.

The acclaimed National Book Award winner gives us a collection of spellbinding new essays that, read together, form a jigsaw-puzzle portrait of an... extraordinary man. With the publication of his best-selling Of Wolves and Men, and with the astonishing originality of Arctic Dreams, Barry Lopez established himself as that rare writer whose every book is an event, for both critics and his devoted readership. Now, in About This Life, he takes us on a literal and figurative journey across the terrain of autobiography, assembling essays of great wisdom and insight. Here is far-flung travel (the beauty of remote Hokkaido Island, the over-explored Galápagos, enigmatic Bonaire); a naturalist's contention (Why does our society inevitably strip political power from people with intimate knowledge of the land small-scale farmers, Native Americans, Eskimos, cowboys?); and pure adventure (a dizzying series of around-the-world journeys with air freight everything from penguins to pianos). And here, too, are seven exquisite memory pieces hauntingly lyrical yet unsentimental recollections that represent Lopez's most personal work to date, and which will be read as classics of the personal essay for years to come.In writing about nature and people from around the world, by exploring the questions of our age, and, above all, by sharing a new openness about himself, Barry Lopez gives us a book that is at once vastly erudite yet intimate: a magically written and provocative work by a major American writer at the top of his form.

Due to its ability to freeze a moment in time, the photo is a uniquely powerful device for ordering and understanding the world. But when an image... depicts complex, ambiguous, or controversial events-terrorist attacks, wars, political assassinations--its ability to influence perception can prove deeply unsettling. Are we really seeing the world "as it is" or is the image a fabrication or projection? How do a photo's content and form shape a viewer's impressions? What do such images contribute to historical memory? About to Die focuses on one emotionally charged category of news photograph--depictions of individuals who are facing imminent death--as a prism for addressing such vital questions. Tracking events as wide-ranging as the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, the Holocaust, the Vietnam War, and 9/11, Barbie Zelizer demonstrates that modes of journalistic depiction and the power of the image are immense cultural forces that are still far from understood. Through a survey of a century of photojournalism, including close analysis of over sixty photos, About to Die provides a framework and vocabulary for understanding the news imagery that so profoundly shapes our view of the world.