Prestwick Cafe

Happy National Punctuation Day!

2008-09-24T12:45:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since we've shared any news, but I couldn't let National Punctuation Day go by without wishing you all a happy National Punctuation Day!

This is the 5th annual day celebrating "the lowly comma, correctly used quotes, and other proper uses of periods, semicolons, and the ever mysterious ellipses."

In the spirit of the day, I'd like to shed light on my favorite controversial punctuation use: the serial semicolon.

I know, semicolons are difficult to use. In fact, I try to avoid using them in almost every circumstance except in this one case.

When creating a serial list in which the items themselves have commas internally, it's sometimes useful to use a semicolon to divide the items of the list. Here's an example from our catalouge that I have to continually defend every year:

"[The Webster's New Explorer Dictionary and Thesaurus] also includes an atlas; foreign phrases; famous names in mythology, the Bible, and history; and a handbook on style and research referencing."

Without this selection using the serial semicolon it's very easy to make the mistake and read that this book includes the entire text of the Bible. I know that to many people it looks awkward, but to me, this is a very appropriate use for the semicolon.

Now, lets see how long it is before someone finds a missing punctuation mark in this post and corrects me. :)

Art Department Showcase

2008-04-22T11:11:00.000-07:00

At the end of the first quarter, the Art Department put together this video for an internal, end-of-quarter report to showcase some of the great work they've done so far this year.

Everyone in-house was so impressed that we thought our customers might enjoy the sneak peek at the books that are coming soon.

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

2008-03-12T13:50:00.000-07:00

My head hurts from this one, but apparently this is a complete, grammatically correct sentence:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Mental Floss has a good explanation of this little grammatical mind-twister. It took me a couple times reading through the article to figure it out. If you're teaching parts of speech, your kids may get a kick out of it. I'd love to see a student explain it through a sentence diagram.

Shakespeare Behind Bars

2008-03-03T12:21:00.001-08:00

Paul Moliken, our Senior Editor, just alerted me to this movie -- looks like my Netflix queue is going to be full of Shakespeare for a while.

"If you’ve ever wondered about the redemptive power of literature on an individual’s life, then you owe it to yourself to watch “Shakespeare Behind Bars,” a documentary about a group of men in prison, who put on a performance of The Tempest. Their nearly half year of rehearsal (time counts for nothing in jail) is broken up by “Antonio’s” stretch in solitary confinement and by “Ariel’s” leaving for a maximum security prison. However, the rest of the cast, which is made up of a non-inmate volunteer director, plus murderers, thieves, and other extremely bad men, carry on splendidly.

We see them in rehearsal practicing lines, learning how to deliver them with meaning; we also see them speaking directly to the camera about their crimes and how Shakespeare has prepared them for life, both behind bars and after parole. The insights and personal revelations that the lines bring to these inmates is startling—almost all cry at their understanding of how the Bard, dead for four centuries, can relate to their particular individual weaknesses and to humanity in general.

“Caliban,” a huge, formidable, frightening prisoner, tries everything he can to get into the psyche of the monster. “Miranda” is especially touched by the similarities between himself and the character and feels that their pasts are exactly the same! “Prospero,” a veteran of several past productions, seems to be the most accomplished actor. The rest do overact for the most part, but their enthusiasm is necessary for the production to succeed, since the audience is composed primarily of other prisoners.

I found myself hoping that the two men who had their parole board hearings shortly after filming would be released into society. The Board disagreed with my opinion, however, and denied the paroles.

The cast offers some startling comments about their lives, along with some vulgarities, either of which might offend a lower high school class, but if you’re teaching The Tempest, or would like to offer a class a different perspective on Shakespeare’s genius, the movie is highly recommended."

Outside Writer of the Year!

2008-02-29T08:36:00.000-08:00

Congratulations and many thanks to Eva Richardson, our inaugural 2007 Writer of the Year!

We have dozens of writers around the country, many who are former English teachers, who help us develop the many different classroom resources that we're able to put out each year.

This year, we're starting a new tradition of nominating the off-site writer who's done some of the best work this year. It's a difficult decision to make but our Sr. Editor and New Product specialist agreed that this year, Ms. Richardson has gone above and beyond in writing products this year, and we have a lot more projects that she's working on for us.

Congratulations!

By Eva Richardson this year:

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner - Teaching Unit
Animal Farm - AP Teaching Unit
The Grapes of Wrath - AP Teaching Unit
Animal Farm - Multiple Critical Perspectives Guide
The Grapes of Wrath - Multiple Critical Perspectives Guide
Great Expectations - Multiple Critical Perspectives Guide

Slings and Arrows

2008-02-22T07:52:00.000-08:00

Jason just let me know about a Candian TV series that's jumped right to the top of my netflix queue called Slings and Arrows. It's a dark comedy about the struggles of a fictional Shakespeare Company, and now that I've seen episode 1, I can't wait to see the rest.

Reading is Fundamental in Crisis

2008-02-20T07:21:00.000-08:00

Many of you may be benefiting from Reading is Fundamental's program of inexpensive book distribution for over 4.6 million children, so I thought you might all be interested in the latest news from RIF.

Since Prestwick House is an authorized distributor of materials for RIF, with our inexpensive Literary Touchstone Classics and other classics, we're kept up to date on the goings-on at RIF headquarters.

We were upset to recently receive an E-mail letting us know that RIF's budget for this program has been completely eliminated by the new Bush budget.

The good news is that RIF and their supporters are fighting to get their money back. See what RIF is doing now to get their budget of $26million re-instated and see how you can help RIF.

A Plea to HS English Teachers (From a College Creative Writing Teacher )

2008-02-20T06:46:00.001-08:00

Tayari Jones has a very elegant and readable blog. I found it when I happened on this post about how HS students who read:

1) "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson
2) "Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway
3) "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner

...grow up to be stunted creative writers in college.

A New (Sub) Mission

2008-02-19T08:12:00.001-08:00

I'm on a mission to get people to read this excellent book blog over at enotes.

Jamie has been doing some heroically cool blogging there with little to no praise and a completely unjust deficit of adoring fans.

Happy Valentines-- err. Fredrick Douglass Day

2008-02-14T09:11:00.000-08:00

“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”

Frederick Douglass

Valentine’s Day isn’t just an excuse to eat chocolates out of a heart-shaped box. For the civic-minded, February 14^th* is also a time to honor the life of Frederick Douglass—a well-known abolitionist and a champion of human rights and education.

For English educators in particular, his life’s story is a study in the transformative power of literacy.

As a twelve-year-old boy, Douglass was transformed from a slave into an aspiring human rights activist when he secretly taught himself to read. In fact, his experience with books affected him so profoundly that he would later call education “the pathway from slavery to freedom.”

Within a few years, inspired by what he had read, Douglas would escape slavery and go on to challenge the world with his own words. His numerous abolitionist publications would play a key role in ending slavery in the US.

And that’s precisely why slaves were strictly prohibited from learning to read in the first place. Slave-owners knew that literate people are free people. They won’t be subjugated for long.

You can read more about Douglass’s extraordinary life in his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass .

But keep in mind that Douglass is only one of many African-American writers whose words will inspire your class in February and throughout the year. Here are a few other suggestions from among our favorite novels, poems, plays, and nonfiction works.

Classics:

African-American Poetry, An Anthology: 1773—1927 (from Phyllis Wheatley to Langston Hughes)

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, the autobiography of Harriet Jacobs

The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois’s legendary treatise

Their Eyes Were Watching God, a novel by Zora Neale Hurston

A Raisin in the Sun, a play by Lorraine Hansberry

Beloved, a novel by Toni Morrison (recommended for mature classes)

Contemporary Young Adult:

Gifted Hands, the autobiography of Ben Carson

The Color of Water, an autobiographical novel by James McBride

Slam!, a novel by Walter Dean Myers

The Rose that Grew from Concrete, a poetry anthology by Tupac Shakur

*Douglass didn’t know for sure the day, or even the year, of his birth. He adopted February 14^th as his birthday because his mother called him her “little Valentine.”

The Poe Wars of 2007: or A Tale of At Least Two Cities

2007-10-19T13:08:00.001-07:00

It's been a while, but here's a great story from Doug Grudzina, creator and author of many of our top-selling products such as 3 Simple Truths and 6 Essential Traits of Powerful Writing and Prestwick AP Teaching Units.

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It was destined from the start to become an internecine battle of epic proportions. If people had fought for his friendship in his life the way they’re fighting for his remains, he might have lived a vastly different life and had a vastly different career. But, then again, he might have had a vastly different impact on American literature. Still, the brouhaha that has erupted between Philadelphia, PA and Baltimore, MD over which city should hold the distinction of Edgar Allan Poe’s burial place is a conflict unrivaled since that last war between the North and the South.

On Thursday, October 4, Philadelphia writer, reviewer and blogger Edward Pettit threw down the gauntlet. Philadelphia, he claimed in an article in the Philadelphia City Paper— and not Baltimore—should be the final resting place of Edgar Allan Poe:

Philadelphia’s claim to burial rights, according to Pettit is that it was “while living in Philadelphia [that] Poe wrote the bulk of his greatest work.”

“Other cities...be warned,” he contends. “Acolytes of Poe will be flocking to Philadelphia [in 2009to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of the writer’s birth] to celebrate our Edgar.” Poe did, after all, live and write in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Richmond. He spent time in West Point and London as well. The man got around.

Still, it was in Baltimore that he died and was buried. Mystery writer—and proud Baltimorean—Laura Lippman immediately joined the fray:

“Possession is nine-tenths of the law, and this fact is indisputable: We have the body,” she retorts in her City Paper rejoinder. “While it's true that the work he produced in Baltimore is not particularly distinctive,” she parries Pettit’s bulk-of-his-greatest-work thrust, “it was in Baltimore that Poe won a literary contest that was pivotal to his sense of himself as a real writer.”

She continues, “What have you done for Poe lately, Philadelphia? We named our football team the Ravens ... We have a Poe room in our Central Library. We even have a housing project called the Poe Homes ... And it is here, every Jan. 19, that the Poe Toaster comes to pay his respects. Granted, the memorial to Poe gets his birthday wrong, but it was the 19th century, before Google made fact-checking so much easier.”

In case you don’t remember the story, Edgar Allan Poe (who in those days simply went by “Edgar Poe”—Eddie to his friends), was traveling from Richmond, Virginia, to either Philadelphia (where he had a business appointment) or New York (where he lived), when he was found in Baltimore on October 3, 1849. He was delirious, in obvious distress, and dressed in ragged clothing that was not his. He was taken to the Washington College Hospital, where he died early on the morning of October 7. He was never coherent long enough to explain why he was in Baltimore and how he came to be in such a predicament. The precise cause of Poe's death remains a mystery although there are numerous theories. His funeral—in Baltimore on October 8—lasted barely three minutes, and was attended by a mere seven people.

Poe was originally buried in his family’s plot in a neglected and overgrown back corner of the Westminster burying ground of the First Presbyterian Church in Baltimore. In 1875, he was exhumed and reburied under a huge marble monument closer to the front of the cemetery. The monument was paid for in part by donations from Baltimore’s school children and in part by a sizeable donation from a George W. Childs—of Philadelphia.

Once the battle lines were drawn, everyone, it seemed, wanted a piece of the action: and the issue escalated from turf war to outright cultural crusade. Baltimore Sun columnist Laura Vozzella asserts that it is no wonder that “A city known for a bell that's broken and a delicacy that's Cheez Whiz-ed” would want to enhance its cultural reputation by stealing Edgar Allan Poe from Baltimore. Sparring against Pettit’s main point she writes, “It was here in Baltimore... where he wrote his first true horror story.”

Baltimore is also where Poe met his cousin and future wife Virginia Clemm. If Philadelphia is so desperate for a famous corpse, Vozella offers, they can have John Wilkes Booth.

Then things got really ugly. On Wednesday, October 10, Philly’s Daily Examiner blogger A.J. Daulerio responded to the Cheez-Whiz crack by calling Baltimoreans “crabcake-stuffed cranks.” City Paper managing editor Brian Hickey wrote of Baltimore’s “offer” to give Philly the body of Booth, “I’d expect nothing less from the syphilis capital of the universe.”

On Thursday (October 11), Boston blogger Jeremy Dibbell, who describes himself as a “bibliophile, haunter of used bookstores, and library science/history grad student at Simmons College” declined to enter Boston into the arena.

“We'll let Baltimore and Philly fight this one out,” he writes, “we wouldn't want to rile up the Brahmins.” Granted, he notes Poe was born in Boston and did sign his first published work Tamerlane and Other Poems, “By A Bostonian.” But Poe and his work were not well-received in Boston. Poe and the other Boston literati did not get along well, and Poe would eventually write that he was “ashamed” to have been born in Beantown. Dibbell quotes a January 28 story in the Boston Globe "His name is not routinely uttered on tours of the city, nor does it appear among the 1,000-plus attractions on the city's tourism website. Boston has neither a Poe statue nor a Poe museum—only a small plaque commemorating his birthplace on the outside wall of a luggage store.” Author Matthew Pearl, however, in an October 18 e-mail to Ed Pettit seems to hint at wanting to pick up the gauntlet on behalf of Boston. Pettit’s reply is a hearty bring it on.

Still Philly and Baltimore, both proud of their associations with the tortured poet, are at the forefront of the mêlée. On Sunday the 14^th, Vozella defended her city against Hickey’s attack
insisting that Baltimore was only fourth on the list of syphilis capitals of the world.   “Philly didn't mind when Baltimore beat back the Brits in 1814,” she writes, “but we defend our most famous author and -- sheesh!”

Finally, on Monday, October 15, the Philadelphia Inquirer couldn’t resist piping in. Book critic Carlin Romano claims: “At one minute after midnight on Sunday—notably after deadline—a dark-haired figure in black cape and boots tossed two sheets of paper into The Inquirer's lobby, then fled. They contained only a poem, written in black ink, apparently in third person... ‘The War Over E.A.P.’ (With Apologies to My Darling, My Darling, Annabel Lee).” The text of the mysterious poem is here.

And that, given Pettit’s Bibliothecary entry of October 18, in which he welcomes Boston’s entry into the tussle, is the closest to an up-to-the-minute report on the Poe Wars we can offer. If you know of any more recent updates, let us know.

Meanwhile, there’s a LOT a teacher can do with his or her kids—research Poe’s life, read the works allegedly written during Poe’s stays in his myriad homes, and have an informed debate on who has the ultimate right to claim the poet’s remains. Maybe they’ll decide, as Pearl concludes in his e-mail to Pettit, “one of the extraordinary and potent things about Poe is that he doesn't belong to any one home, city, country. He's forever the orphan.”

Pirates in the Classroom

2007-09-19T09:26:00.000-07:00

Ahoy!

As some of you may know, today, September 19th, is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Here at Prestwick House, an occasional "arrr" or "avast" can be heard throughout the office.

You're probably wondering what this has to do with teaching or English language arts. Thanks to some great information posted on the official web site for International Talk Like a Pirate Day, you too can partake in a fun pirate-themed day and make it educational for your students! The site lists pirate curriculum and lesson plans (and links) from other teachers, including:

4th to 6th grade language arts lesson plans
Some world history, social studies, and math lesson plans (you could share with other teachers)
A Talk Like a Pirate Day lesson plan based on Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Perhaps you could show the video of Treasure Island, or begin using our Teaching Unit which includes nautical, pirate and general vocabulary, a multiple choice and short essay test, as well as discussion questions.

International Talk Like a Pirate Day is already upon us, but now you can start planning for next year's events, even if yer a landlubber!

In Memoriam: Madeleine L’Engle

2007-09-11T15:04:00.000-07:00

I just got the news today, that Madeleine L'Engle, author of the young adult favorite, A Wrinkle in Time, passed away on Friday.

Ms. L'Engle first wrote A Wrinkle in Time over 45 years ago, yet it's impact is still felt today. It's one of those books that opens a child's eyes to the power of imagination and the joys of reading. Though I can't remember the details of the story clearly, I still remember sitting at my desk in grade school using spare moments to catch a few more pages of A Wrinkle in Time.

Ms. Le'Engle may have passed on, but her books are still popular in classrooms for the joy they bring to students.

Link to New York Times Story.

The Road - Book Review

2007-08-28T12:54:00.000-07:00

I just finished the latest Oprah book club selection, The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, and I'm amazed at how different it is than the stereotype of what her book choices are. It's a far cry from Mitch Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie or Night by Elie Wiesel.

As readers of All the Pretty Horses know, McCarthy isn't the cheeriest writer on the planet, but his new book does an amazing job capturing the horror and desperation of a post-nuclear world.

McCarthy's spare style is a perfect parallel to the isolation felt by a father and son, known only as "the man" and "the boy," as they walk alone down the titular road. The themes of the role of the family, the decadence of the world, and the search for one's place in the world are all explored in a new way in this book.

I wouldn't recommend this book to young students as it does depict some terrifying scenes of cannibalism and brutality, but if you have a class of mature students looking for something contemporary to read, this would be an engaging choice.

Link.

Prestwick House in Your Mail Box

2007-08-21T15:40:00.000-07:00

Keep your eyes open-- the Prestwick House Fall Update is officially in the mail -- if your school opened before Monday the 20th, you should receive your Fall Update Catalogue any day now! It's packed with lots of great new materials for your classroom this year.

If you'd like to request a Prestwick House Catalogue, click here to make sure you receive one ASAP.

Also, check your E-mail inbox, because we're launching our new Prestwick House E-mail newsletter, Footnotes*, this month. In each month's newsletter, you'll find out about new products, interesting projects, and you'll get a special discount code valid on our site for Footnotes subscribers only. Click here to sign up for the Prestwick House Newsletter.

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*If you've been a Prestwick House customer for a while, you may remember our old physical Footnotes newsletter: filled with articles, contests, and editorials on our favorite new classroom books.

The Delaware Shakespeare Festival

2007-08-09T17:45:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, the author of Vocabulary from Latin and Greek Roots and I went up to Wilmington to check out the Delaware Shakespeare Festival's production of Richard III.

First of all, I've got to say that the Delaware Shakespeare Festival has one of the best locations to see a play, and we caught a perfect night-- cool without a cloud in the sky. Rockwood Mansion serves as a fantastic backdrop to a nice night of Shakespeare. You can bring along a picnic blanket and sit under the stars. The performance is outdoors with a solid lighting system and great sound.

As for the play, they did a very good job. I'm always a bit of a perfectionist geek when it comes to editorial cuts, but they did a good with a play that I've always felt has most of it's great dialog early. The director did manage to cut one of my favorite speeches, Clarence's Dream, in which he describes to his jailer his nightmare of drowning. It always haunts me as a high water mark in this play.

In any case, the actor playing Richard, David Stradley, completely owned the show. He did a fantastic job dominating the stage in the way that Richard is written to dominate the play. Every other actor is left with fairly weak roles to do their best with, and most do admirably well. You both loathe and feel empathy for Richard, one of Shakespeare's most intriguing characters.

If you're in Delaware or Philly, and looking for a nice night out this weekend, I'd highly recommend heading out to see the show's last weekend. At only $10 for tickets, it's a bargain for a nice night out.

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Note: Sorry for the lack of a lot of recent blog entries, but I've been putting the final
touches on our fall catalogue, which should be hitting the mail in a few days. We've got LOTS of new products in this catalogue, so keep your eyes on your mailbox. If you don't think you've ever seen our catalogue before, and you'd like to request one, Click here to get our Fall Update Catalogue.

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Free New Prestwick House Products to Bloggers!

2007-07-20T13:58:00.000-07:00

Alright folks, here's the deal. We've got a lot of new programs that we'll be releasing with our new Fall Update Catalogue, which will hit the mail in the middle of August.

I'd like to get some of you influential bloggers out there a free copy of any of our new series or books so that you can review them and let the world know what you think, so if you'd like to get a free copy of any of these books and you're willing to review them on your blog, just drop me an E-mail at keith [at] prestwickhouse.com with your address. I'll package up whatever book or program interests you and send it off. All you need to do is share your opinion with the world. It's that easy.

So, here's a first glance at the new products we'll be premiering this fall.

Literary Black Belt Certification Program
SAT Words from Literature
Grammar for Writing
PowerPoint for the Classroom
Standards of Excellence: Excelling on the CAHSEE
Use Rhetoric for Reading and Writing
Writing Rules of the Road

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I'm only releasing the titles for now, but over the next few weeks keep your eyes open for more info. This is the first place we'll announce further details. If any of these titles catch your eye, drop me an E-mail and we'll send a free copy to the first three requesters who promise to share their opinions.

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Prestwick House in the News

2007-07-06T09:56:00.000-07:00

The Delaware State News picked up a story about our winning two awards from the AEP, for ShakesFear and Discovering Genre: Poetry check it out.

Link.

Animal Farm: The CIA and the Communist Pigs

2007-07-05T14:35:00.000-07:00

In light of the CIA's "Family Jewels" document coming to light, this might be of interest to a few of you out there. I don't think it's necessarily insidious, but it's certainly interesting.

There are two versions of George Orwell's classic available on DVD, the 1954 animated version, and the 1999 computer animated/live action version. The 1954 animated version has the winning vote for interest and accuracy here at Prestwick House, although the newer one is visually quite interesting and packs a fair amount of star-power into the voices.

This article from the London Review of Books taught me something new about the movie though, that will make me go back to it with a little bit different eye.

In 1954, the CIA was in the midst of a battle with Communism for the hearts and minds of the world, so in light of that they sponsored the creation of a film version of George Orwell's classic, Animal Farm.

While Animal Farm has a decidedly Anti-Communist (or at least anti-Soviet) bent, according to this article the CIA wanted it a bit more cut and dry.

They used their influence on the film's ending. Instead of the book's ending where the pig rulers begin to work with the neighbors to oppress the farm animals, this cartoon changed it so that the neighbors came to the aid of the oppressed farm animals to overthrow the pigs. A subtle change, sure but an interesting view. In addition, apparently the CIA consultants suggested that Snowball is too likable a character, so they may have made him a little less appealing.

This is a fantastic opportunity to work with your colleagues in the history department to tie together the cold war, and it provides a new angle for a research report for your students. I love opportunities to discuss with students why decisions were made to vary from the source text. It's a way to get students to think critically about what they're reading (and it makes sure that students don't use the video as a replacement for the text).

Incidentally, the 1999 film also varies the ending of the film to show the eventual decline and fall of communism. Today's students will probably feel that this ending was inevitable and understood even in the day the book was written.

Link to video.
Link to article.

The Shakespeare Question

2007-07-02T08:30:00.000-07:00

Until recently, I never gave much thought to the Shakespeare Authorship question (and it looks like I'm not alone from this survey by the New York Times). [UPDATE: Looks like the NYT has put it behind their registration wall. In any case, not many college professors spend much time on "the question."]

On a lark, I picked up the Audio Book Shakespeare by Another Name by Mark Anderson, an account of the life of Edward De Vere, the Duke of Oxford in which De Vere is put forth as the true author of Shakespeare's plays. I can't say that I'm 100% convinced, but his argument was fairly persuasive. At some times, however, it really seemed like he was grasping at straws (the hidden coded images in the first folio's pictures sound like they came from the Da Vinci Code, not real life), and the connection between William Shakespeare the Actor and De Vere seems a little weak.

What's interesting is I also recently read Greenblatt's highly-readable biography of William Shakespeare as the author of the plays, and there are a number of points that seemed a bit odd and forced in that story too, although using Shakespeare's text, Greenblatt draws an interesting characterization of the Bard of Avon's life and mind.

I didn't realize the amount of rancor behind the battle between the Oxfordians, Stratfordians, et al., but it seems to come down to a deeper question than a simple historical question. In some ways, it comes down to a discussion of the nature of the genius behind these works and the nature vs. nurture argument.

Can the genius of Shakespeare come from the mind of a simple glove maker's son, or does it need to develop from a rigorous education? Each theory holds a certain appeal to me. The poor boy makes good through his own powers is the classic American story in some ways, but it smacks of a certain predestination in which Shakespeare is almost super human. This is the Shakespeare that barely ever needed to blot his paper because what was written once was perfect. On the other hand we have De Vere's approach in which a man struggles, writing multiple drafts of his plays over many years, basing them on an education steeped in a wide variety of subject areas. Suddenly, Shakespeare's less of a god and more of a man, and he's certainly much more approachable. This theory leaves me with a bit of hope that anyone can, through hard work, achieve brilliance.

In either case, it's the works of Shakespeare that are important now, rather than the life of he who created it. Still, it's fun to have multiple lenses from which to view the plays.

Book Review: The Secret Life of Bees

2007-06-28T07:53:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees, which has quickly become on of our top selling new books, and I can see why.

I have to admit that, although I thought this was going to be the saccharine story of a girl's coming of age, I really enjoyed reading it. Although it will draw the inevitable comparisons with To Kill a Mockingbird, a story about a young girl's coming of age in a racially charged South, Kidd's story maintains its own identity in building a strong feminist voice without creating an anti-male feeling.

This book should succeed in many classrooms -- especially if you're looking for a book to engage young female readers.

Who's on First? Shakespeare Style

2007-06-19T08:40:00.000-07:00

Well, I've fulfilled my requirement of a few posts between each interesting and amusing Shakespearean post, so today I've got a video to share courtesy of The Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey (with thanks to News on the Rialto) of what would happen were Laurel and Hardy born in the Elizabethan Age.

Vocabulary from Latin and Greek Flashcards

2007-06-14T12:09:00.000-07:00

This is so cool!

A customer of ours who felt that she needed flashcards for her students using Vocabulary from Latin and Greek Roots Book V, has used the site Flashcard Exchange to make freely available flashcards for the book!

If you're using it, jump on these freebies! You can use them online, you can print them, and with a premium membership you can export them.

I love it.

(I'm not sure who you are, browneyedgirl108911, but thanks!)

Link.

AEP Awards: Two Winners from Prestwick House!

2007-06-13T07:26:00.000-07:00

Well the awards are over, the Capitol Steps have sung, and Prestwick House emerged from our second year of involvement with AEP with two DAA awards for the best products in two categories.

In the category of Fiction, English Language Arts our guided anthology of classic and original poetry Discovering Genre: Poetry was awarded the DAA.

In the category of Professional Development Instructional Books, the new ShakesFear and How to Overcome It beat some very high quality materials to take home the award.

Congratulations to everyone who worked so hard on these projects: Paul, Larry, Ralph Cohen, Jeremy, Lisa, Emily and Mary! (sorry if I forgot anyone!)

More details on the judges' comments coming soon.

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And congratulations to all of the other winners -- coming to an event like this one really makes you excited about all of the great new materials coming to classrooms soon.

Finally, thanks to Doug and everyone from AEP, you put on a great event here.

Live Blogging from the AEP Seminar!

2007-06-12T14:03:00.000-07:00

I'm currently in our nation's capital as we approach the end of this year's Association of Educational Publishers Annual Meeting and Convention, and it's been a good weekend for sparking creativity and bringing about a handful of new ideas.

A few moments ago, I just got out of a Town Hall Meeting with 4 nationally recognized educators from the DC area including Philip Bigler the 1998 National Teacher of the Year, Kim Burke-Ables the 2006 DC Teacher of the Year, Jason Kamras 2005 National Teacher of the Year, and 2007 teacher of the year Githa Natarajan. These town hall meetings are fantastic and we got to hear from some innovative teachers on the big issues and the small ones. One simple question I'd like to pose to all of you is, "What do you want from a supplemental publisher like Prestwick House?"

The teachers on the panel were interested in easy-to-use products (always a focus at Prestwick House), focuses on standards that were clearly labeled (good news on this front -- we're currently working on a project to align our products to every state's standards), with a differentiation component built in (we'll work on this!)

Other big issues from the week was the whole web 2.0 buzz word thing that I'm doing right now ;) and figuring out the best and most valuable way to get you products. Right now, you're probably aware of Prestwick House Downloadables --all of our Teaching Guides are available instantly in a DRM-free, .pdf, E-book format as well as the traditional paper "dead tree" version. We're working on projects to get many of our books available in more formats and hopefully soon you'll be able to get them in any version you'd like.

Tonight is the awards banquet for the AEP's distinguished achievement awards -- last year we won in two products, our Language of Advertising Posters and our Tale of Two Cities Spotlight edition.

This year we've got four new products nominated, and hopefully, I'll be able to log on tonight/tomorrow morning to tell you we won!

Sorry for any typos and lack of formating -- my new laptop doesn't have firefox so this WYSIWYG engine is behaving a little oddly.