Language Arts Books

This book arrived in great shape (better than expected)and fast! I was so glad to find this book and so happy that I now own it. Thank you for the excellent service.

great book for those serious about artist bookmaking and have some prior knowledge of how things are put together.

I was pleasantly surprised. I expected a book full of bookmaking methods from a review I saw on another site but as another reviewer here points out, it strives to make the reader think first, and then, after understanding what they are trying to achieve, THEN make books. Inspirational.

This volume, rather than just providing dry (or gluey) how-to instructions on how to MAKE a book, offers readers new ways to THINK about what a book IS, how to make a book expressive beyond the reader's expectations. Smith is clearly a deep thinker, but not without a sense of humor. He is able to rip apart the structure of the book by examining our preconceptions, and he is then able to assemble a new vision of what the word BOOK means, and he is THEN able to draw on his impressive skills to actually assemble the book that serves up that vision, or to show practitioners how that can be done.

Frankly, I was blown away, first by his ideas and then when I read the copyright date. I can only imagine where he's been going since the '70s!

As a letterpress printer, as a photographer and user of alternative processes and media, I strongly recommend this piece to people who need a little shaking up, or who simply want to be amused and entertained.

I recommended this book to another artist interested in working with the book form and when I came to amazon.com to send a direct link I couldn't believe there is only one review for this book. This is a classic in thinking conceptually about the structure and sequencing of a book, as well as thinking conceptually about what a "book" is as an artifact and an artform.

Although the text is a little intuitive for linear readers at times, anyone who wants to explore the book as an artform must take a look at Keith Smith's work.

Weighing in at a mere 131 pages, Douglas Bauer's book is the Cassius Clay of my craft shelf. And though I am tempted to take this boxing metaphor farther, tempted to say things like, "it floats like a butterfly stings like a bee", and draw parallels between its eight chapters and the eight fast rounds Ali went with Sonny Liston in 65', I'll check myself and simply note the elements of the book that I found most helpful.



The language is so wonderfully straight forward and the examples so clear that I used the chapter on dialogue with a group of high level 8th graders who are working with me on an independent study. We were able to have a wonderful conversation about "TV Dialogue" and how we can best to avoid it in our writing. They were quick to point out how rampant this sort of mundane dialogue is in adolescent and young adult fiction.



Along with clear language, the chapters in Bauer's book are concise. Despite their brevity they draw on a wide range of other craft books and essays. In the dialogue chapter, Brauer mentions Dillard's "Notes for Young Writers." A few of my young writers became curious about Dillard and her work. They expressed an interest in this book, and if I wasn't so personally biased against Dillard's other essays I might have taken it on myself.



This anecdote points to the fact that Brauer does not shy away from the words of others on the subject of craft. To the contrary, this book excels at pairing down those words to essential ideas. He draws from Booth's "The Rhetoric of Fiction" and E.M. Foster's "Aspects of the Novel." He quotes from Gardner's "The Art of Fiction" and Joy William's "Why I Write." I am sure that there are others that he mentions, but those are the ones that I personally underlined in the text.



The two most useful chapters for me, the chapters that answered questions I have long harbored concerning fiction, were chapters 5 and 6. These two chapters examine the issues of what Bauer calls "High Points" and "Sentiment versus Sentimentality."



I especially liked his treatment in the chapter, "High Points," of television violence, "the sort of violence with no accompanying long-lasting emotional consequences." It in some ways resembles television dialogue in that it draws the reader's attention to something that has no real importance to the characters or the story. It is interesting to me, as somebody who has not lived in a house with a television for over a decade, to see how television affects the way people write. I also cannot help but to think that it also changes the general public's expectations of stories.



The chapter on sentiment versus sentimentality, cleared up very nicely the differences between the two. I had always thought of sentimentality as something I could recognize, but nothing I could clearly define. I believe Bauer makes a comparison to pornography--we know it when we see it. But he does not stop there; he gives clear examples of how sentimentality can be avoided and points the reader in the direction of people who define this boundary.



"The Stuff of Fiction" is not the end all and be all of craft books. But it is for me at this point one of the most valuable books on craft I have read. It is a book I can draw from as I teach my students about some of the elements of fiction. It is a book that answered some fundamental questions I have had for some years now. Lastly, it is a book that points the reader in the right directions, bringing into view not only some of the great writers and storytellers of the West, but also the great works by others on craft.

This book picks some of the finer points of story/novel writing and analyzes them with great elegance and insight. It does so in light of specific in-depth examples. For instance, on the issue of pinpointing exactly where to end a story, it discusses alternative stopping points and the emotional impact they are likely to have on the reader. What you learn is inspiring but also eminently practical, both in the narrow and broad senses. It is not as comprehensive as "The Art of Fiction" by John Gardner or "Getting the Words Right" by Theodore Rees Cheney. It is, however, just as inspiring and satisfying.

What a beautiful book! I can't remember when I've read such an eloquent work about the craft of writing, making me wonder why any of us pay any attention to advice about writing which arrives in less artful form ("the long half-life of sorrow" is one of the many well-turned phrases which clings to memory). This essay collection (nonfiction writers have as much to gain as fiction writers from reading the book) is elegant, compelling, succinct, and breathtakingly clear without being condescending. The author (who also writes gorgeous fiction) covers all of the most important aspects of craft--openings, dialogue, character, high events (dramatic moments), sentiment vs. sentimentality, and closings, and includes advice from the best of the other writing "gurus" and wonderful passages of first-rate literature to illustrate points made. The Stuff of Fiction is truly a book for writers at all levels. I felt an immediate need to underline when I began reading; the book made me seriously re-think a novel on which I'm currently working. What more could a writer ask.

If you want to understand more about how a good piece of realistic fiction is put together, read this book. It provides both rules and the wisdom to make it clear that if a writer is on the right track, he or she can go ahead and break those rules.

*The Stuff of Fiction* explains to ordinary readers what has gone wrong when a book suddenly turns unsatisfying (for example, when it doesn't know when to end), the book gives new writers a set of guidelines to keep in the back of their heads while they are slaving away, a kind of frame to check the day's work against, and the book offers experienced writers a welcome articulation of the things they have been trying to do since they began this strange line of work.

The book explains how to start a story (maybe at the beginning, maybe not), how to write dialogue that doesn't thud or crawl on the page, how to create characters with mixed blessings and curses (like a human being in other words), how to give drama its necessary subtlety, how to create sentiment not sentimentality (a discourse on how to write with taste, which is kind of like explaining how to play jazz, but amazingly it really works), and how to end a story. Bauer uses examples effectively--taking apart work from Denis Johnson, Toni Morrison, Alice Munro, and yes Wm. Shakespeare--and writes directly but also elegantly.

Douglas Bauer is the author of three novels, each of which I loved (he never does the same thing twice, but since the prose always contains the same steely twists, you know it is the same guy), and teaches at the Bennington MFA Program.

Writing programs, take note--instructors can cut to the chase by judicious use of this handy and straightforward volume. I won't say it's the Strunk and White of contemporary realistic fiction writing--only time can tell that--but it's as close as I can imagine. Full disclosure requires me to say that I know Douglas Bauer personally, but honestly, I would say all of this if I didn't know him. It is a terrific and useful volume.

For the beginner or the serious amateur or anyone serious about writing fiction, this is the book to read.

David Morrell opens The Successful Novelist with the most important question a writer will ever answer. "Why Do You Want to be a Writer?" He pushes the reader to go deep into his/her emotional state to answer the question. The rest of the book is filled with examples from Morrell's life that illustrate the importance of knowing the emotional reason a writer writes. Interweaved is practical writing advice and look inside the mind of the man who created Rambo. The Successful Novelist also delves into the writing world, the publishing industry, and the movie industry. Whether you've just written your first novel or your thirtieth novel, you're likely to find something inspiring, informative, and entertaining in the pages of The Successful Novelist.

No matter if you are an aspiring writer or an avid reader, this is a peek into how one author creates his stories.
Although I have no aspirations to be a writer, I am an avid reader and often wonder how one of my favorite authors creates the stories I love.
Mr. Morrell provides a end to end view of both the creative and business aspects of writing.
If you are an aspiring writer Mr. Morrell will help you avoid the pitfalls of your chosen profession.

I purchased the "Successful Novelist". In short: a great book. I also purchased another book from the same author David Morrell. This book is "Lessons From a Lifetime of Writing" and guess what: it is exactly the same book as "Successful Novelist", but for the title.
Amazon has decided to provide a full refund including the shipment costs. Thank you Amazon.

An instructional writing book...by an actual successful novelist. While David Morrell may be best-known for writing "First Blood" and the subsequent Rambo novelizations, "The Successful Novelist" puts him on the map as a world-class professor of writing as he turns the edict "Those who can't do, teach" on its head. He used to teach in the University of Iowa English Department that was located below the Iowa Writer's Workshop offices. However, his instruction here is contrary to that of most college creative writing workshops, in that he adresses writers of all genres (not just "literary" writers). For that reason, this book will be of particular interest to thriller, science fiction, horror, and other genre writers looking for instruction outside of the university structure.

"The Successful Novelist" is an update edition of Morrell's first writing book, Lessons from a Lifetime of Writing: A Novelist Looks at His Craft with an added chapter on marketing. If you enjoy "The Successful Novelist," you should also check out Stephen King's On Writing and Strunk and White's The Elements of Style to round out your writing "home study" course.

This is a great book on the craft of writing. I believe it is, however, a previously published book under the title "Lessons of a Lifetime of Writing" by David Morrell. For those who have read that book, this is a duplication.

For those who have not already read this book, do yourself a favor and buy it. The reviews under the previous title are excellent and informative.

http://www.amazon.com/Lessons-Lifetime-Writing-Novelist-Looks/dp/1582971439/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204579021&sr=1-1

David is a unique person to share his experience. A former college professor, he knows how to teach. As a brilliant novelist, he knows how to tell stories that entertain. This book accomplishes both of those goals.

I've read many books on writing and, in my opinion, this one ranks up there with Stephen King's "On Writing and the books by Noah Lukeman. This book will certainly compliment any writer's collection of informative books. More than that, the stories that David shares are extremely interesting and entertaining. As I read them, I could vividly imagine myself going through them with my works and one day, aided by David's sage advice, I'm sure I shall.

If you've not already purchased this book under the previous title. Buy it now!

If you need a fun way to reinforce a concept, Last Minute probably has what you need. The activities have substance but are easy enough to leave for the substitute. It's one of the best Cottonwood Press ever put out which is why it's been around a long time. It should be in every teacher's library!

I love, love, love this resource. Every single activity is "do-able" and fun and creative. It promotes creative thinking, and you hardly ever find a ditto book that can do that. Using sources is a standard in my state, and the dictionary scavenger hunts are perfect. Couldn't live without this book!

This has a lot of great ideas for Language Art teachers! I highly recommend it!

The schedule at my independent middle school has a way of changing unexpectedly, leaving me time that needs to be useful but not necessarily curricular. This book is full of wonderful ideas for just such moments. My students will even ask for something from the book if they have finished assigned work. Thank you!

This book contains some of the most inventive and fun ideas to do with middle to high school students in Language Arts. My students have absolutely loved the games and activites, especially the holiday themed pieces.

If you are a teacher or homeschool parent looking for WONDERFUL ways to keep Fridays and especially the days before a holiday full of learning and fun, this is the book for you.

I purchased this book for my brother-in-law and he loves 'cause it's so easy to use.

We've been working on a lot of material on voice and accent for Indian Call Centers dealing with the American market.

This appears to be the best book I have come across.

It is very detailed and easy to understand and beats the current book and CD offerings like American Accent training.

A definite must buy if you are into accent reduction for individuals or training.

Ian Stern
Holistic Enterprise

This is a really good book, but be careful. Don't buy the $33 version of this book (ISBN 0-395-90331-9). It ONLY includes the Book. Buy the $42 version of this book (ISBN 0-395-94540-2). That is the Package Edition, and includes both the Book and the Audiocassettes.

I am a workplace English instructor and find Targeting Pronunciation and the audiocassette package of to be very useful in business settings as well as the classroom as a tool for teaching more effective presentation skills.
It has a fun and clear approach to covering all the essential pronunciation features such as word stress, rhythm patterns, and thought groups, as well as consonant and vowel sounds.

Students enjoy using this book and tapes because of the engaging and varied activities. Whether you are experienced or inexperienced at teaching pronunciation, Targeting Pronunciation a great book to teach from. I recommend the book and audiocassette package: ISBN 0-395-94540-2. It's the best deal and each student has a set of tapes for home practice.

We've been working on a lot of material on voice and accent for Indian Call Centers dealing with the American market.

This appears to be the best book I have come across.

It is very detailed and easy to understand and beats the current book and CD offerings like American Accent training.

A definite must buy if you are into accent reduction for individuals or training.

Ian Stern
Holistic Enterprise

After reading Gebhard's book, I decided to see what others thought about the book. I was quite surprised to see one reviewer give the book only one star. But, then I read the review and realized that this person had not actually read the book. He simply decided that he did not like the book because he thought the author had friends write the reviews. His review without reading the book is like not liking a person because someone told you a few things about her.

I like Gebhard's book because he does not claim to know the best way to teach. Rather, he wants us, as ESL teachers or future teachers, to learn how to make our own decisions about what to do in the classroom. He gives lots of examples of things we can do as teachers. (I especially like his section chapters on teaching skills -- conversation, listening, reading, writing -- and his chapter on culture and teaching.)He also provides real problems that real teachers have, and gives multiple examples of activities and materials that experienced teachers use. But, he does not tell teachers how they should teach.
The book is full of ideas and easy to read. As an ESL teacher, I can highly recommend it.

This is an absoulute work of superb scholarship. Dr. Gebhard is obviously speaking from years of both research and real-life experience. In an area filled with dull and lifeless preachings by secluded scholars tucked away in ivory towers, this work stands out as a testament to thorough reaseach complimented by understandable and readable conclusions. A must read for anyone in this field!

Excellent resource. I teach ESL to the Hispanic Immigrant Population in Anniston AL and have found this book full of useful suggestions and techniques for the classes we teach.

Have you been asked what TESOL is? This book gives you all the keys you need to understand teaching English to speakers of other languages. It works as an introductory texts for those majoring TESOl or will work in the ESL EFL arena.

This is a book on language teaching for language teachers. The book takes the view that language teachers must be responsible for making the ideas in the book real for their own particular contexts. The book starts with self-development as a theme and then moves on to teaching skills. Jerry Gebhard is careful to point out that he is not providing a bag of tricks as each application is backed-up with a sound theoretical perspective. The references in each section are excellent if the busy teacher has some time to read in more depth. Also, each chapter has activities that teachers can explore in order to apply the chapter information to their own particular context. What I especially like is that these activities encourage teachers to talk to other teachers and colleagues. This is where real self-development starts. This book, then, is a welcome user friendly addition to the field of English Language Teaching. If the user is a teacher, you have found the right book!

This book is really good. It allows me to make sure my daughter is really comprehending what she is reading. It also allows us to discuss the book and different ideas.

Very helpful and useful guide for this novel.

This book helped my immensely when I taught Roll of Thunder in middle school.

I love the DISCOVERING LITERATURE SERIES! There are questions for every chapter, a chapter synopsis ...tests (multiple choice, vocabulary, essay), and several student worksheets.

Excellent resource. I have many resource booklets, but this one is my favorite. It has many activities that follow my curriculum guidelines and creative ideas for exteding the lessons.

If I order a journal, I get it from Paperblanks. This particular journal is beautiful. All are beautiful. This journal has a magnetic ribbon that comes around to keep it closed. It lays flat which I greatly appreciate.

The Paperblanks line is great. A couple of things about this one - the spine is exposed on the outside which is how it is supposed to be but you can't see that in the picture. Also, it doesn't really look like stained glass, it's painted with some type of raised paint. Still, I challenge you to find a journal more beautiful. I give it four stars not because of its own merits, but only because the pictures on Amazon aren't quite accurate. On its own I would definitely give it a five.

This journal was even more beautiful when I actually had it than when I was purchasing it. I highly recommend this product to any female.

Bought this as a gift so I didn't get to spend too much time with it, however I couldn't help notice how beautiful the cover was and the high quality of the pages and binding. The cover has an embossed design and the colors are wonderful. This makes a great gift, almost too beautiful to use! (Although one caveat for gift-giving; mine arrived with a 1-inch indentation in the cover, presumably from the shipping or packaging.)

First off, in response to L. Lindsey's original comment (the reason, above all, I chose to comment on this in the first place), is that this is also suitable for a male, such as myself. :) just thought I'd point that out. ;)

On to the product itself, well, as the title suggests, it's an amazing journal, should you choose to use it that way. For myself I use it as as an all-in-one memory keeper. A pensive, if you will indulge a little mysticism. I also ordered Varsity fountain pens to use while writing in this thing, and let me say, it's amazing. By the time I'm done writing, I have ink all over my fingers. >.< It makes me feel almost like an old-fashioned writer. The pages aren't thick, but they aren't thin enough to where the ink from my pen will bleed through the other side and garble whatever I was writing previously. I also use a straight razor to slit the paper on some pages where I want to keep Polaroid pictures of things seen, done, experienced, etc.

This baby works extremely well for me. Not to mention the cover, which is worth almost five stars in and of itself. I'm extremely pleased that I was able to find this, because I know already that it has become part of me, it represents a stage in life where I'm trying to figure things out, and it does marvelously at filling in where my permanent memory fails sometimes.

Happy hunting.

I have always used Amazon to buy my school books, but man...a few years out of the game, and everything is just a little more complicated. I bought 4 books and all of them were the wrong editions. Man was I bummed, but I got what I ordered. Next time I will pay more attention.

Good tips and games for readers workshops. I enjoyed it. My college professor introduced this to us.

Janet Allen's Tools for Teaching Content Literacy is a fantastic tool for all teachers. It is a flipbook with various instructional strategies that can be used to help students access information effectively while increasing student engagement and understanding. Not only does it provide information about the strategy, but it also includes examples and organizes them into before, during, and after reading. Keep this handy when planning lessons! It is a tool teachers will come to rely on.

This is a flip book style book with literacy activities briefly explained and color coded/grouped into before/during/after activities. The back of this book has some blackline masters. This is a BARGAIN! Buy this if you want to mix up some reading activities in your content area classroom.

This small book, in a flipchart format, provides 33 strategies for teachers to use to improve students' content area reading. Directions are succint and clear. The strategies listed are invaluable in helping the teacher create varied activities geared towards improving students' reading comprehension. I use this flipchart every week when preparing my lessons.

I agree with one of the previous reviewers, as 'every new writer does need this book'... to bolster their understanding of the craft of writing. In his preface, the author notes that it was the offhand comment of one of his creative writing students which inspired him to write this book in the first place. She had commented that creative writing was the only course she'd ever taken in which students were expected to know everything before they started such a class. By everything, of course, I think she meant a foundation for writing. In The Truth About Fiction by Steven Schoen, you'll find a comprehensive treatment throughout the book of such a foundation in such dedicated chapters as details, character, plot, story structure, and on through dialogue, point of view, and style. Besides appendixes on research, publication and market research, and manuscript style, a glossary and index are included.

The book is a standalone for anyone who wants to begin writing. In fact, it was the only required text for an online short story class I took from a major university. The material is concise, in that it truly does express a lot in a minimum amount of words, and straightforward, as it offers no-nonsense beginning-level emphasis on craft.

For the price now (which has increased remarkably since I first purchased the book little more than a year ago), you simply cannot go wrong if you are still considering the purchase of this book. As another reviewer wrote (again, within the preface of the book), "The book is lean and efficient. No fluff, no nonsense - everything is to the point." As my instructor always said in regard to good fiction "...it's what's on the page that is important," this book will give you a running start so that you can concentrate on the creative aspect of your work. This really is one book you don't want to miss having if your're a writer... at any level.

Steven Schoen does an absolute thourough job in "The Truth About Fiction." If you are just starting to mark up some pages or if you have some stories or poems already finished, this book should be your bible for writing.

You get examples, exercises, do's and dont's and just strait rules of common sense for writing. There are so many aspects of writing and Schoen formats them to help guide you through with less frustration, causing your creativity to flow more naturally.

I read this book for a college class and I doubt I will be selling it back to the bookstore.

Check it out!

Teaching creative writing is harder than it looks, and Schoen offers a set of neatly organized topics with succinct overviews, limited examples and useful exercises. At 100 pages the book leaves room for supplemental readings.

A seminar-based course might not need this book, but for beginning writers it should fill the need for hands-on instruction in story-telling techniques.

The writing course could use a clearer plan of action. How will a student compose a story using this book? Also, the teacher should bring a stronger sense of mission than Chapter 1 ("Lying 101") offers.

Finally, though, Schoen does emphasize the central importance of dynamic characters driving plot. This will allow me, for example, to make moral agency (briefly, every character's freedom of choice, causative craftsmanship in multiple contexts, internal and external reaction, and the actor's past and future responsibility) the center of the story that my students will write.

I plan to use this book to teach a community ed. fiction writing class. It is very approachable with practical, usable advice. Also, the format works well for quick reference. A very handy introduction to fiction writing.

I had the distinct pleasure of taking Steve Schoen's creative writing class a but back. He had just got the deal for this book to be done, but used early drafts to teach the class (and get reader feedback). Anyone who wishes jump into beginning level story writing will enjoy this. It covers all the bases well, from idea formulating to conventions to writing to an audience. I recommend this heartily.