Al Rowell

I came to read Overcoming Textbook Fatigue with high expectations, and I was initially disappointed that a book subtitled “21st Century Tools to Revitalize Teaching and Learning” was, well, devoid of them. ReLeah Cossett Lent methodically steps through the best practices that underlie an inquiry-focused classroom. I suppose I was looking for a relationship guide on why I should break up with my textbook, and in the first few chapters I was reading about how best to get along with the textbook I have. “Creating interest in the text by walking students through the chapters before reading it” is mentioned more than once. It was just a bit disconcerting to see only occasional mentions of using a website or having take a virtual field trip.

But the foundation of Overcoming Textbook Fatigue is solid, well-researched, and engagingly written with many examples of how students can be successful in a classroom that, while not barren of textbooks, it is not mechanically driven by their use. While it is not focused on technology tools, she does reference several ways to use technology appropriately to support student learning.

I could recommend this book to a program for new teachers, as many of the practices it introduces are instructionally sound ways to engage students in their learning. Her chapter on assessment shows multiple ways to use assessment to guide instruction, and her discussion of text sets provides a very clear depiction of exactly how content area teachers can support readers of many different ability levels. The book ends with a compelling case for inquiry-based learning that relegates the text to be but one resource in a classroom, and she shows what is required for a school to make the change to such an approach that will best prepare students for a life in which they will be collaborating and developing information–not just responding to canned questions from a text.

Implementing authentic, project-based learning is a strategy that generally sounds great, but rarely gains momentum because, well, we don't have a clear idea HOW to do it. Trevor McKenzie recounts his growth in developing learning projects and describes a structure for gradually weaving in more student autonomy, culminating in a free inquiry project. In Dive into Inquiry Trevor anticipates the “okay..but” reactions educators might have and provides a solid basis for creating an inquiry-based class. The QR linked examples are a valuable addition to the text, and as another reviewer has noted, kudos to Trevor for highlighting the importance of the librarian/media specialist when implementing this approach.

A Death in Brazil is less about a singular death than it is about the transformation of a nation. The novel intimately shares glimpses of the lives of the people Robb encounters, while it also reveals broad swaths of the history of the nation. Corruptions that reach back for generations have kept in power the most wealthy and left the vast majority with a sense of powerlessness, but not all is dark and hopeless. Robb also traces the path of Luis “Lula” da Silva to an unlikely presidential victory, supported by legions of Brazil's youth.

The historical foundation is well-crafted and researched, yet this is not a dry treatise on the after effects of colonialism. It is a vibrant story, sensuously-written and capturing the hopes, fear, and pride of a nation.

I was drawn to this book after reading the author's article “Is Google Making us Stupid” in The Atlantic, and I share some of the author's concerns about becoming less attentive and finding it difficult to concentrate on tasks for any length of time. Carr does a remarkable job of bringing together relevant research, and he provides an impressive history of how technology has changed how people think over time. Obviously new information technologies draw our attention and distract us in many ways, but Carr seems less able to explain how we will continue to adapt than he seems to be defending the necessity of preserving how we have thought in the past.

Immortal Life is an excellent study of the human faces behind the world of bioresearch and patent research using human genes. Rebecca Skloot traces the history of He-La, the cells that will not die, and becomes part of the world of the family Henrietta left behind. Her meticulous research reveals the injustice of the segregated wards of John Hopkins and the motivations of early cell researchers who sought not personal profit but scientific advancement. The book raises important questions about who should gain from these bio products and how a market in human genetics can inhibit as well as encourage science. The singular achievement of Skloot's work, though, is the portrait of the Lacks family as she breaches the barriers of their anger and gains their trust. Immortal Life is as much a study of how our society has treated those who are powerless as it is a treatise on a perpetually-multiplying cluster of cells.

Michael Lewis launches his book with a simple concept: with all the losses at the major Wall Street investment banks, who could have foreseen the impending collapse and shorted the investment firms themselves to make an unprecedented return? Among others, he finds a one-eyed financial trader with Aspergers who had the singular focus to see what all of Wall Street refused to see: the explosion of subprime mortgages, the collusion of the rating agencies in promoting CDO's, and the mind-boggling risks and returns on credit default swaps left the entire financial system at a precipice. Lewis tells the stories of a few men who bet on the collapse of the system, and through their experiences unravels the complex web created by the financial firms to pad their profits and to conceal their risks.The greatest outrage of the collapse is not that it could have been foretold: it was.

Charles Pierce sets out in pursuit of cranks and fools in Idiot America after establishing his three great premises:
1) Any theory is valid if it sells books, soaks up ratings or otherwise moves units.
(2) Any thing can be true if someone says it loudly enough.
(3) Fact is that which enough people believe. Truth is determined by how fervently they believe it.
I was sold in the bookstore when I read his description of the dinosaur with the saddle in the Creation Museum, but this is no light expose of conservative idiocy. This is a careful examination of a society that has lost the ability to rationally make decisions. From intelligent design lawsuits in school districts to corporate subversion of the global warming crisis, he explores these great premises and the courage it takes to hold firm to truth. The most gut wrenching chapter is his examination of the events surrounding the death of Terri Schiavo, with the imposition of bumper sticker theology on a personal tragedy, in part by our most powerful legislators.
The book started slowly for me with the history of crank Ignatius Donnelly, but Charles Pierce ties it all together well. I have a new appreciation for Madison and his foresight in the need to create an educated citizenry. One has to wonder if it is too late...

This graphic novel is among the greatest hits of the book banners who in the past few years have been berating librarians and threatening the freedom of others to simply read. As an autobiography, I can see how Gender Queer—with its absolute unveiled description of Maia Kobabe's journey to eir realization of self—might be discomforting to some, but this work could be absolutely life-saving for young people in crisis or just struggling with putting into words who they are.

“Not so with Coriolanus: here we are dealing instead with an overgrown child's narcissism, insecurity, cruelty, and folly, all unchecked by any adult's supervision and restraint.” There seems to a subtext throughout Greenblatt's Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

Constantly re-read this book in high school. I still remember many of the excerpts from the Messiah's Handbook. “You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it come true. You may have to work for it, however.” “There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts.” And many more.

Lewis Black's rumination on religion is at its best when he reveals his personal history with the spiritual: the death of his brother, his encounters with a psychic, and a trip to a commune. There are some definite Lewis Black moments, the best being his rant on creationism. The ending play provides an statement of life, laughter, and the spiritual per Lew, but all in all the book is a loosely-connected collection of Lewis experiences and thoughts that fulfills the promise of the title, but without any satisfaction.

The author utilizes his analysis of existing surveys to dehumanize the critical situation the nation faces with a worsening inequality in the distribution of wealth. The last fleeting references to the devastation of Katrina cannot save this work. It is a purely academic exercise that does little except to substantiate what should be obvious while failing to offer any solutions or proposals to restore greater balance. This was a very tedious read.

As with at least one other reviewer, I really wanted to like this book. Nikhil has genuine concerns about education, and his writing is at its best when reflecting on innovative schools he has personally visited. But I found several parts of the book to be tedious–cobbled together research and loosely-connected quotes talking around and about a topic but leaving me with the distinct impression that he was up against a deadline and ready to be done with it. “Schools on Trial” lacks a consistent voice and is more of a collection of “things I have read” and less a coherent, compelling argument for sustainable, scaleable change in education policy and practice.

I have a new appreciation of Lincoln as a shrewd political tactician and a phenomenally self-made man. His singular focus on preserving the union required great skill and tremendous patience–particularly in assembling his cabinet from his outmaneuvered and dismayed rivals for the presidency. Doris Kearns Goodman portrays a man who takes responsibility for his mistakes (and sometimes for those of his cabinet and generals). For the Great Emancipator, freeing the slaves from bondage was a political calculation balancing demands of republicans and radicals and a strategic decision to build the Northern armies from the ranks of freed slaves. Only later does one get the sense that his commitment to honor the emancipation proclamation and the pursuit of the 13th amendment had a strong moral foundation.

The book is a formidable portrait of a complicated man, brought into sharpest contrast with her attention to Seward, Chase, Stanton, McClellan, and others who served, and in some cases, undermined, the efforts of a determined president. This is a remarkable work.

This book in many places was a long plod through intricacies of mathematics and cryptography with only slight glimpses into the man who was Alan Turing. Persistence will be rewarded, eventually, as the picture of Turing emerges from a tedious chronology– an incredible genius and worthy of the label “visionary,” yet hopelessly naive in the workings of the world, both political and social. He anticipated a universal computer and laid the foundations for artificial intelligence, yet in his later years, he was relegated to a sarcastic footnote in contemporary accounts of the development of the computer.

A reader who dares to attempt this tome surely knows that Alan accepted his homosexuality as a part of his being and that he was crushed by the (conservative) British society he had a significant role in preserving with his code-breaking contributions, particularly in breaking the Enigma encryptions for the Atlantic sea campaigns. The author has made a remarkable effort in assembling from available records this portrait of a complicated man who advanced mathematics and computing, yet tragically was unable to realize all he envisioned.

The wreck of the whaleship Essex, stove in by a whale, is an established part of American lore and notably appropriated by Melville for Moby Dick. In the Heart of the Sea weaves together the narratives of the survivors to present their ordeal in a manner that is both clinical (with depictions of the processes of both whale rendering and human starvation) and unsparing in its presentations of the misjudgments of impetuous First Mate Owen Chase and the irresolute Captain Pollard. Beyond the tragedy of the Essex, this book captures in exacting detail life in the whaling community that was 19th century Natucket

Romm's Language Intelligence presents the essentials of rhetoric necessary to survive in a culture that values frames over facts. In a society where creating a compelling narrative trumps reality, where “politics is sport is war,” these rhetorical tools of using simple language, repetition, or extended metaphor (among others)are weapons of both defense and attack.
The illustrations he chooses make his argument compelling. Classical verse, Biblical passages, the plays of Shakespeare, speeches of Churchill and Lincoln–as foreshadowed in the title–reinforce the need for these strategies. I've been considering how effective this book would be as a reading in a high school composition class...and I have reservations. I've studied Shakespeare, read the Bible (less studiously than I did the Bard), and thrived on political debate for decades. Romm's illustrations resonate with me, but I'm not sure how accessible they would be to younger persons with different experiences. He does make passing reference to the most recent political campaigns, and the illustration of Lady Gaga's success emanating from her use of repetition and extended metaphor seem a bit forced.
There is not too much new here. Luntz and Lakoff have plowed much of this ground. Romm does collect it all into one basic handbook, and that should be sufficient, especially for his stated goal to help scientists recover control of the climate debate. He does make clear that to be proficient, one must study and practice these strategies, and he does provide the direction and motivation for that undertaking.

As Banned Books Week ends, I have just finished reading Julia Alvarez's “In the Time of the Butterflies.” Alvarez tells of the Mirabal sisters in the Dominican Republic during the time of ruthless dictator Rafael Trujillo. Las mariposas, the butterflies, each in her own way, find the courage to oppose the brutalities of this despot, and three of them are murdered for their refusal to yield. The work is a historical fiction that develops a haunting and beautiful portrait each of the three murdered sisters and of the sister, Dede, who survives to tell their story. Alvarez weaves a remarkable story that is still compelling, even as the sisters draw toward their inevitable end. But the soul of the book is the celebration of their lives, and not a mordant fascination with their deaths.

The book has been banned for various reasons. It includes a crude diagram of a bomb the revolutionaries construct in their preparation for a revolution. Men and women portrayed in the novel have sexual feelings and act upon them, but not in a prurient manner. And more recently, conservatives are appalled that people being tortured and murdered in their country might speak well of revolutionaries in Cuba who overthrow their government. Mary Grabar is the most ludicrous of this sort of critic. She positively gets the vapors about the implied masturbation in one page and by the characters praising of Castro in some small sections when the entire book graphically portrays the terror of living under an autocratic regime. http://frontpagemag.com/2013/mary-grabar/common-core-exemplars-graphic-sex-and-praising-castro/

Okay, this is going from review to rant, but how can anyone be a professor of literature with this attitude: “I must admit that I would have been too embarrassed to teach Julia Alvarez's sexually explicit novel, In the Time of the Butterflies, to the college students I have taught for over twenty years, much less to ninth- and tenth-graders, as many Georgia high school teachers have been instructed to do.” First, that Georgia high school teachers have been told to teach the work to ninth and tenth graders is a damnable lie. And second, if you have seen Miley Cyrus lately, you aren't going to lose your innocence by reading a novel that's essence is the unyielding resolve of people, especially these women, and our ability to find courage in the most difficult and trying times.

Even today, Georgia's Governor Nathan Deal has asked that the Common Core English Language Arts exemplars be removed by the state board of education. Evidently, the Gov and his circle mistakenly believe that English teachers might see a two-page passage in the Common Core documents and think they must teach the novel to be able to pass the test. The governor has even called for the creation of a single state reading list of “approved” books. http://www.ajc.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/deal-orders-review-of-common-core/nZYbc/

I certainly imagine that Rafael Trujillo would agree with that sentiment.

I really wanted to like this book. As autobiographical rambling, it affords some insights into Bradbury and his unique creative process. The book is a collection of essays with some writing platitudes, like “You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” His observations on writing are, of course, inspired from his life, but his advice to writers, well, seems obvious. I would recommend only for insights into Bradbury and for his specific comments on the creative process for his major works.