Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn
Cathy Davidson

When Cathy Davidson and Duke University gave free iPods to the freshman class in 2003, critics said they were wasting their money. Yet when the students in practically every discipline invented academic uses for the music players, suddenly the idea could be seen in a new light - as an innovative way to turn learning on its head. This radical experiment is at the heart of Davidson's inspiring new book.

Using cutting-edge research on the brain, she shows how "attention blindness" has produced one of our society's greatest challenges: while we've all acknowledged the great changes of the digital age, most of us still toil in schools and workplaces designed for the last century. Davidson introduces us to visionaries whose groundbreaking ideas - from schools with curriculums built around video games to companies that train workers using virtual environments - will open the doors to new ways of working and learning. Now You See It is a refreshingly optimistic argument for a bold embrace of our connected, collaborative future.

Virginia Hefferman, or the New York Times writes: "In her galvanic new book, Ms. Davidson, one of the nation’s great digital minds, has written an immensely enjoyable omni-manifesto. Rooted in . . . rigorous history, philosophy and science, this book . . . doubles as an optimistic, even thrilling, summer read.”
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The New First Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: What Your Child Needs to Know
E. D. Hirsch Jr.

This new, updated edition reflects important changes that have occurred in the world since 1991, changes in history, science, and the arts that have become part of our common awareness, such as Harry Potter, the Persian Gulf War, El Nino, global warming, DVDs, laptop computers, and the recently named Southern Ocean.
Most of the entries that appeared in the 1989 edition still appear here, illustrating how durable literate culture is.

The overlap of the topics in this book with the topics studied in good schools is especially important today, when schools, under the influence of the national No Child Left Behind Act, are spending more and more classroom time trying to improve children’s reading abilities. For children to understand writings in textbooks, magazines, books, and newspapers, they must possess the background knowledge that such writings take for granted. Cultural literacy and literacy are intertwined. Knowing the information contained in this book is a big step toward being a good reader and being a full participant in our society.
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Opening Minds
Peter Johnson

Sometimes a single word changes everything. In his groundbreaking book, Choice Words, Peter Johnston demonstrated how the things teachers say (and don't say) have surprising consequences for the literate lives of students. Now, in Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives, Peter shows how the words teachers choose affect the worlds students inhabit in the classroom, and ultimately their futures. He explains how to engage children with more productive talk and to create classrooms that support not only students' intellectual development, but their development as human beings.

Grounded in research, Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives shows how words can shape students' learning, their sense of self, and their social, emotional and moral development. Make no mistake: words have the power to open minds – or close them.
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New Ways in Teaching Reading, revised
By Richard R. Day

This second edition of New Ways in Teaching Reading bursts with new activities while retaining many of the features that made the first edition a best seller. The activities chosen for this edition are inspired by state-of-the art trends in teaching reading to English learners. Teachers now find numerous creative, classroom-ready activities in new and expanded categories like the Internet, Fluency, Young Readers, and Extensive Reading.

The many activities and exercises come from teachers who have used them in their teaching of reading in ESL and EFL classrooms around the world. It is the best possible type of resource-one that is contributed by ESL and EFL reading teachers for ESL and EFL reading teachers. .
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