Reading Instruction Books

This is a well-written, beautifully produced book, with much to tell the sort of person who, like me, might normally walk quickly by Pre-Raphaelite paintings in a gallery. Barringer explains the rationale, the techniques, and the lives of these artists in fascinating detail and makes one see what really is of interest in their works. He is extremely sympathetic to their projects, without being blindly uncritical. And he is candid about his debt to other art historians and literary critics. It seems to me that there is no better book on the subject for someone interested in 19th-century England or in the rise and fall of an intellectual movement.

The previous reviewer is, alas, right. A depressingly judgememntal book, far more interested in righteous pronouncement on predictable topics than in the exploration of art works far more complex than this author is willing to allow. The Pre-Raphaelites need new literature. Much of the writing now extant is stale and repetitive, but this is not the way forward. Look at the paintings, Dr Barringer - don't simply 'read' them for coded messages.

The Pre-Raphaelite men, like most masculine hegemonies, could not have survived had it not been for the credible contributions of the women who lurk at the periphery of the Brotherhood. More than mere emotional or sensual inspiration (or support), the Pre-Raphaelite women--Christina Rossetti, Elizabeth Siddal, and Jane Morris--provided the creative impetus for their men, and often even the critical eye needed to master a work of art. History and its historians have not been as generous as they could have been in recounting the contributions of these women.

Often, the summation of any one woman's contributions to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood is left up to individual biographers. Those writing the introductory texts frequently fall short of effectively identifying the enormous contributions of the Pre-Raphaelite women. Two such introductory texts are Timothy Hilton's _The Pre-Raphaelites_ and Tim Barringer's _Reading the Pre-Raphaelites_. Where the Pre-Raphaelite women are concerned, both texts provide a footnote to the art history of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood but really do little more than re-emphasizing the marginal status of the Pre-Raphaelite women.

In his Introduction, Barringer recognizes the artistic aptitude of Christina Rossetti as a poet, of Elizabeth Siddal as an artist, and of Jane Morris as an embroiderer. Furthermore, Barringer claims that the "full contribution of these artists, and a number of women less directly connected with Pre-Raphaelitism, has only recently been acknowledged" (14). With this affirmation, _Reading the Pre-Raphaelites_ promises to bring to the fore a considerable new interest in the works of the Pre-Raphaelite women. Barringer, however, does little to revise and reappraise the contributions of these women.

Where Christina Rossetti is concerned, Barringer mentions her only four times in his text: twice in the introduction (11, 14); once in relation to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, wherein he reprints her sonnet on the disintegration of the Brotherhood (135); and once in the epilogue (168). Jane Morris fares somewhat better with six mentions, including the inclusion of her painting _St Catherine_ (50). Mostly, however, Jane Morris rates mere mention as an appendage to either Dante Gabriel Rossetti or William Morris (136, 155, 156).

It is Elizabeth Siddal, however, who garners the most attention from Barringer, with a total of ten mentions. Barringer offers decent treatment to Siddal's _Pippa Passing the Loose Women_ (144-45) as well as to Dante Gabriel Rossetti's use of Siddal as a model (141-42). Barringer is even so generous as to include Dante Gabriel Rossetti's _The Artist sitting to Elizabeth Siddall_ [sic.] (141).

Timothy Hilton's _The Pre-Raphaelites_ purports to be an art book which "offers some adjustments to the straight art history" of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. Additionally, Hilton's text supposedly offers a reinterpretation of the activities of several members in Dante Gabriel Rossetti's circle (7). _The Pre-Raphaelites_ precedes _Reading the Pre-Raphaelites_ by twenty-seven years and was written during the height of the Women's Movement (in the U.S.). That considered, it should come as no surprise that Hilton dwells slightly on the subjects of Jane Morris and Elizabeth Siddal. What does come as a bit of a surprise is that Hilton glosses over Christina Rossetti, treating her almost parenthetically. She rates a total of four references in Hilton's text (only three of which are indexed).

Hilton first refers to Christina Rossetti simply as one in a series of Rossetti children (26) and then again as one of the "various others" who joined the Brotherhood in their print undertaking _The Germ_ (50). She receives credit for sitting for the Virgin in her brother's The Girlhood of _Mary Virgin_ (94) and for being the recipient of one of her brother's letters (107).

Again, Jane Morris receives a slightly greater amount of recognition, although Hilton's references to her total only four. Hilton first mentions Morris as one of the objects of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's "many delineations," a credit which she shares with "Lizzy" Siddal (59). Hilton then dwells on Jane Morris for four pages, wherein he describes William Morris' profound love for her and displays several images of the beautiful Mrs. Morris, including William Morris' _Queen Guinivere_ (166-69). Jane Morris rates still another small note when Hilton inventories Dante Gabriel Rossetti's menagerie at Cheyne Walk, saying that Rossetti had "a Brahmin bull whose eyes reminded [him] of Jane Morris" (182). Finally, the author takes a moment to detail the love affair between Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Jane Morris (183-84).

Elizabeth Siddal, "Lizzy" as Hilton calls her, yet again rates the most references (seven), and not without cause. In addition to her credit as one of Rossetti's models (59, 175), she also receives note (this time parenthetically) as one who attempted to illustrate Wordsworth's "We are Seven" (60). With a series of illustrations and text, Hilton then describes the love affair between Siddal and Dante Rossetti (99-101) and then reiterates the strong affair by stating "Rossetti was busy with Lizzy Siddal" (107). Hilton sums up his mention of Siddal by detailing, if rather briefly, the weakening of the her marriage to Dante Rossetti, her eventual "accidental death," and Rossetti's subsequent depression (178-79).

While Hilton's text may offer slightly more insight into the lives of the Pre-Raphaelite women, neither his nor Barringer's text does justice to the lives of these three women. Yes, Elizabeth Siddal was perhaps the most intricately involved in the goings-on of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, but Jane Morris' and Christina Rossetti's contributions should not receive the degree of dismissal that they do. Barringer's and Hilton's attempts at revisionist art histories fail and once again place the brunt of their focus on the men of the Brotherhood. Both authors allow the Pre-Raphaelite women to remain in the margins of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood history, and, in doing so, do a disservice to all women artists, no matter in whose shadow they may have stood in during life.

Aimed at a general readership, this must be the most recent book on the Pre-Raphaelites. Where most writers have been happy to repeat the standard conventions about the PRB and their paintings, Barringer wants to tell us that issues seep into their brilliantly-lit compositions. Alas for the reader, in avoiding the pictorial complexity and brilliance of PRB painting, Barringer devotes far too much space to fashionable academic jargon on such subjects as colonialism, gender, class and so on. Instead of ceaseless curiosity in the face of these remarkable paintings, Barringer provides us with a series of judgemental cliches about modernity and ideology. Why, the reader is left to ponder, is he embarrassed by PRB paintings? Why the fixation with 'theory'? What is 'wrong' with these paintings?!

"Reading the Pre-Raphaelites" has been on the market for five years now (as of 2004), and continues to hold up well as an introduction to Pre-Raphaelite painting. People who are already familiar with Pre-Raphaelite Art (and its copious bibliography!) will not find too much here that is new, but for the not-yet-expert, this book works well in presenting many of the essential Pre-Raphaelite themes and paintings in an orderly and easy-to-understand manner.

The book is organized topically, with separate chapters on Pre-Raphaelite medievalism, nature painting, modern life, religious painting, and Post-Pre-Raphaelitism (the latter including Whistler, Burne-Jones, and the Aesthetic Movement.)

The author tosses in a bit of "critical theory" from time to time, and on occasion can be judgmental about individual works. These negatives, though, are easily overcome by the author's clarity of writing and competence of interpretation, which lucidly ground these paintings in their social and artistic milieu. The book's bibliography and index are marginal, but the quality of its color printing is exceptional, much better than in many more expensive art books.

In summary, this book would be a good buy for the student or other reader who wants a general, thematic introduction to the Pre-Raphaelites.

This book is a series of essays on the subject of reading instruction, and Frank Smith spends most of his time making his case against phonics. As mentioned in some of the other reviews, he does bring up some excellent points and asks some very tough questions. But again, as brought up by other reviewers, Mr. Smith doesn't provide any direction at all as to how to fix an educational system that he considers broken.

Frank Smith is quick to point out his pedigree when it comes to reading research, but he does in in such a condescending manner that even though I agree with his basic premise, I became so frustrated with his double talk and rambling that I tuned out much of what I think he was trying to say. Basically, this book is a soapbox on which Smith rambles on and on about the problems he sees and does it in a manner which confuses and aggravates many that are new to the subject.

While I do agree with many of his points, the attitude that comes through his writing, his lack of support material, the absence of any suggestions of resolution, and his rambling writing style left me very cold to his ideas. I would only recommend this to someone well versed in literacy studies, not a novice to the subject as I was. To be honest, this was one of the most difficult to read books that I have encountered, only surpassed by another of Frank Smith's books.

I found Dr. Smith's book to be condescending, insulting and full of sloppy science. He criticizes the entire process of education research, yet to prove his point, refers to only his own research as valid. Dr. Smith may be a Ph.D., but he is not an educator.

This book provides food for thought and a different perspective on issues that many educators take for granted. The author questions the basic assumptions underlying the concept of teaching reading through phonics, providing logical and intelligent reasons for his position. He argues that systematic phonics instruction makes reading more difficult for many students. Phonics, he explains, is simply too complicated a system, pointing out that even a small vocabulary of 6,000 common English words requires over 200 rules to account for all the ways that individual letters are related to individual sounds. Thus, he says, "Being required to master phonics before one can read is the wrong intervention at the wrong time."

The author appears to favor a more natural approach to reading instruction; one reason I gave the book 4 rather than 5 stars is that he really doesn't outline a specific program or alternative. He raises some excellent questions, but readers will have to go elsewhere for specific answers.

There are three theories to teaching phonics. Intensively, with systematic, direct instruction. "Basic Phonics" which is not intensively systematic but covers all the most important rules we all remember from first grade "when two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking," and zero phonics instruction. Some people equate "whole language" with zero phonics, but Smith shows that this is not true. In this excellent book, he stands up for Basic Phonics and against the ridiculously intensive method proposed by some. Such as Johnson (2001): "the a-e combination is pronounced with the long vowel and the final e silent (except when the final syllable is unaccented - then the vowel is pronounced with a short-i sound, as in "palace," or the combination is "are," with words such as "have" and "dance" as exceptions).

Get real and read Frank Smith. He's always right.

I have been using this textbook to teach my reading development and basic study skills community college class for two years and like it's logical format and easy-to-understand explanations. The examples are good, for the most part. It is good for reviewing concepts learned throughout high school, such as an author's tone, figurative language, distinguishing fact from fiction.

I have great difficulty seeing how this book is holistic or for adult readers. It consists mainly of readings that are less than 3 pages and avoids abstract ideas or inferential questions beyond the lowest level. As another reviewer said, it is good for developmental learners, perhaps.

According to the manual, the essays included are mostly between 9th and 10th grade level, yet the description from the publisher implies that it is for more advanced readers. The book is skills oriented with more pages of isolated skill instruction than actual mature readings. The editorial review is misleading. To call this book holistic is simply inaccurate. Each reading has a few unimaginative comprehension questions and some vocabulary but that is by no means what "holistic" means. I used it once for a college level reading class and found it to be less challenging than some books used in developmental courses.

Doesn't anyone know what "holistic" means?

This book is one of the most intellectual and in-depth books on specific films I've read. It's focus is mostly on older movies (The Sea Hawk, Double Indemnity), but also extensively explores French film, particularly, Jean-Luc Godard. The Interviews at the back of the book are with some of the greatest film composers, alive and dead, including: Miklos Rozsa, David Raksin, Bernard Herrmann, Mancini, John Barry and Howard Shore. A must for any film music fan or composer!

This book cannot be summed up. It is too disorganized for that. When arguments become intelligible in it, which is rare, they make "paper thin" an understatement. The first one is that most film music is tonal. A shocking, mind-blowing revelation, without a doubt. The only problem is that the author's explanations of what tonality is are too sophisticated for the initiated, let alone the reader without an academic education in music, who is, ironically enough, his intended audience. In a chapter on Bernard Herrmann, the thesis appears to be that his music for Hitchcock is "irrational." The way in which this reasoned out is astonishingly ridiculous. A minor triad with a major seventh is the defining sonority in many Herrmann scores for Hitchcock (e.g. Vertigo and Psycho). This chord is also common is "Jazz." Jazz is considered irrational, therefore this chord, and by extension all Hermann/Hitchcock music, is irrational. I know, I was totally convinced also. Then in the afterword, things become fully self-parodic. The author imagines a world in the not to distant future where people will be assembling their own movies cum soundtrack from scratch or something close to it, thanks to advances in editing technology and software. Of course, this has come true. But when he says that this will lead, or, at any rate, contribute to collapse of the bourgeois subject, he seriously "misunderestimates" the infinite adaptability of capitalism. It would be better to point to the way all those changes were blessings in the disguise for venture capitalists in the emerging markets of the digital age. "Interacting" with the product is hardly subversive (hello, video games?) nor is it particularly liberating (hello, video games?). Don't read this book, unless you want to understand film music less.

As a long time user of the original and more complex RMI by Goodman and Burke, I welcome this revision in general but, particularly the provision of a shorter, less complex form that the inquiring classroom teacher can use.

This is a difficult book to sift through unless you're using it for a class and are getting some training. It's not the kind of thing you can easily pick up and use. It's thick, unweildy and has a lot of information, but I regret buying it because I don't know when if ever I'll use it.

Just learn melodies up and down a single string .
Then learn arpeggia , again on a single string .....
Another pointless ' jazz instructional book '

I thought this was a very good for one purpose, to learn/know where all the notes are on the guitar without having to actually look at the guitar. If you are desiring to learn to site read, this may help, but i wouldn't recommend it because this wasn't written with that in mind. I agree this book is a bit boring, but this is one of those inevitable aspects of guitar that you just gotta get through if progress is to be made, at least thats how i see it.

I recommend this book for people who are already pilots, and would like to pick up some text that help them keep their skills up and their head out of the sand. A couple of years after finishing my primary training, I was looking for something that was more "advanced" than my training manuals yet something that will keep me thinking about the issues and dangers.

The book is organized by phases of flight- I find myself thumbing through the preflight section often. But the style of the authors to present their work in essays written individually feels a bit disconnected at times.

- Neeraj

There are many strategies for variations of the same work in this book, like different vocabulary activities or some good reading strategies minilessons. I wanted more of a structure for a classroom - like take the top 10% from the pretest and go this route with them, then with the next group ... But that was not the layout of this book.
This book would be great for a content area teacher that has not taken an indepth reading (for information or in the content area) class at some point in their career. Possibly a beginning teacher in a secondary content area would benefit most from this.

This book is a very interesting and useful compendium of traditional philosophies of art and artistry. Included are writings by such seminal thinkers of the traditionalist movement as Coomaraswamy, Guenon, and Schuon, and the book is worth the purchase price for these hard to obtain essays of Coomaraswamy's alone. However, this book is needlessly skimped on eastern philosophy (according to Seyyed Hossein Nasr's foreward the size of this anthology was limited due to the lack of space available, but other works in this series are more than twice the length of the present tome). The traditional philosophy of art is a fascinating and oft neglected subject, but one wishes it could have been more comprehensively treated here, especially as the editor obviously knows this field so well.
This volume also contains some fascinating articles by modern or contemporary practitioners of traditional arts such as Eric Gill, the poet Kathleen Raine, and the composer Sir John Taverner who provide a point of view different to, but still mostly consonant with, the above mentioned traditionalist metaphysicians. Also as above, one is grateful to have these works collated together in a single volume.
This book would normally get 5 stars alone from me for its subject matter, but due to its limited scope I must (sadly) give it three.

This book has a lot of good information, but like most education resource books, it is heavy on theory and doesn't have enough activities that you can use right away in your classroom. From the description I thought that I was going to get several reproducible charts, etc. that I could simply copy and use with my students. The book has many wonderful examples, but I have had to type/recreate them into a student-usable form on my own.