This book will be an original and indispensable resource for all who believe in the importance of art in the wider educational realm. Framing the recent... "educational turn" in the arts within a broad historical and social context, this anthology raises fundamental questions about how and what should be taught in an era of distributive rather than media-based practices. Among the many sources and arguments traced here is second-wave feminism, which questioned dominant notions of personal and institutional freedom as enacted through art teaching and practice. Similarly, education-based responses by the art community to the catastrophes of World War II and postcolonial conflict critically inform contemporary art confronting the interrelationships of education, power, market capitalism, and--as Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri describe it--the global condition of war. These writings by artists, philosophers, educators, poets, and activists center on three recurring and interrelated themes: the notion of "indiscipline" in theories and practices that challenge boundaries of all kinds; the present and future role of the art school; and the turn to pedagogy as medium in a diverse range of recent projects. Other writings address such issues as instrumentalism and control, liberation and equality, the production and the politics of culture, and the roots of research-based practice and experimental participatory works.

Wiggins makes the most convincing case yet that school-based assessment should aim mainly to improve, rather than to audit, student performance. Thanks... to his penetrating discussions of feedback, the relationship of formal designs to practice, teaching for understanding, and rubrics, this book should dispel common misconceptions and elevate both the understanding and practice of authentic assessment?Fred M. Newmann, professor of curriculum and instruction, University of Wisconsin , MadisonAssessing Student Performance laid out the theoretical foundations of a new assessment system that provides a more authentic picture of student capabilities than standardized testing. In Assessment for Excellence, Grant Wiggins provides guidance on how to design performance-based assessments for use in the classroom. This book covers all aspects of assessment design, including how to craft performance tasks that meet rigorous educational standards, how to score assessments fairly, and how to structure and judge student portfolios. It also looks at how performance assessment can be used to improve curriculum and instruction, grading and reporting?and teacher accountability.

Returning once again to the Port William membership, Berry has written his best novel yet, a book certain to confirm his reputation as one of America's... finest novelists. . For thirty-nine years Wendell Berry has brought us stories from the fictional town of Port William, Kentucky. The latest, Jayber Crow, is the story of a man's love for his community and his abiding and unrequited love for Mattie Chatham, "a good woman who had too early made one bad mistake. " Sent to an orphanage at the age of ten, Jayber grows up knowing of loneliness and want, and learns how to be a watchful observer of human goodness and frailty. With the flood of 1937 he returns to his native Port William to become the town's barber. Slowly, patiently, the observer becomes participant. "This is a book about Heaven," writes Jayber, "but I must say too that it has been a close call. For I have wondered sometimes if it would not finally turn out to be a book about Hell-where we fail to love one another, where we hate and destroy one another for reasons abundantly provided or for righteousness' sake or for pleasure, where we destroy the things we need the most, where we see no hope and have no faith...where we must lose everything to know what we have had. "Sounding themes of love and loss, despair and deepest joy, Berry's clear-sighted artistry in depicting the Port William membership will not soon be forgotten.