Enhancing your decision-making skills to make smarter decisions is the best way you can purposefully improve your life.

Imagine if going to school meant more than preparing kids for a test, teaching a canned curriculum, and training students for their future as workers. What if school were also about cultivating students to be caring, community-involved citizens and critical, creative thinkers who love to read? In Caring Hearts & Critical Minds, teacher-author Steven Wolk shows teachers how to help students become better readers as well as better people. I want [my students] to be thinkers and have rich conversations regarding critical issues in the text and be able to formulate opinions regarding these issues, says Leslie Rector, a sixth-grade teacher who collaborated with Wolk on some of the units featured in this book. Wolk demonstrates how to integrate inquiry learning, exciting and contemporary literature, and teaching for social responsibility across the curriculum. He takes teachers step-by-step through the process of designing an inquiry-based literature unit and then provides five full units used in real middle-grade classrooms. Featuring a remarkable range of recommended resources and hundreds of novels from across the literary genres, Caring Hearts & Critical Minds gives teachers a blueprint for creating dynamic units with rigorous lessons about topics kids care about'sfrom media and the environment to personal happiness and global poverty. Wolk shows teachers how to find stimulating, real-world complex texts called for in the Common Core State Standards and integrate them into literature units. I know from experience that a great book changes the reader, says Karen Tellez, an eighth-grade teacher featured in the book. For me, books have helped me escape, fall in love, recover from heartbreak, and have broken open my mind from the age of twelve. . . . I hope [my students] gain better reading comprehension, confidence as readers, connections to the characters and events, a curiosity for the world, and tolerance for others. Caring Hearts & Critical Minds shows teachers how to turn these hopes and goals into reality.

To everyone who will purchase and read this book. All words, thoughts, and concepts are for you. I pray that it is not just another book but a revelation to those who need to know how to navigate trials in their lives. A comfort to those that need to know everything will be ok. This book is also for those who need to know God has plans for their lives, and He’s on the job. And most importantly, to God who elected and selected me before the earth was even formed. Who fashioned and purposed me even while I was in my mum’s womb. This book would not be possible if You did not deposit it into my spirit and anoint me with the gift to teach. I offer this back to you as an offering of what you have given me, and I know it’s just the beginning of the many books locked away in my heart. I’m nothing without You, and I only wrote this book because You predestined it. Thank You for making this book a reality even before it was published. I love all of you, and this is for you!

Where are you looking for joy, contentment, and purpose? Stevie and Sazan Hendrix show us that the good life we're looking for won't be found in our latest purchase, achievement, or dream vacation--it's found by intentionally cultivating the simple, everyday moments that make up a real, good life. We say we want "the good life," but that often leads us to constantly chase after the next thing, compare ourselves to others, and feel disconnected and unable to enjoy the good things that are right in front of us. Stevie and Sazan know what it's like to search for the good life and, having achieved "success" at a young age, they know firsthand that the success we think we want isn't what truly satisfies. Even as their careers and social media popularity grew, Stevie and Sazan were still searching for the good life, just like everyone else. What they discovered in that search completely changed how they lived their days––and by extension their lives. In A Real Good Life, you’ll join them on their journey identifying how you can set yourself up for a good day by being intentional with all of your hours; discovering your unique process for building faith and connection in yourself, your home, and your relationships; rethinking your routines so you can establish life rhythms that are sustainable and unique; recognizing that reflecting, focusing, gathering, and resting are crucial values; and inspiring you to see life as a gift that should be cherished every single moment. Slow down and trade the endless cycle of striving and competing for real, good days filled with purposeful reflection, intentional focus, gathering with loved ones, and true rest.

An inspiring, practical A-Z guide for encouraging graduates as they confront chaotic life change, this volume is full of time-tested truths that will spark godly journeys into life, making readers confident and excited about what lies ahead.

Creative thinking is something everyone can do. It's a way of looking at the world afresh, doing new things in new ways, taking risks. With The Creative Nudge, use 'nudge theory' to unleash your innate originality. A new behavioural science that reveals how small actions can have big impacts on our thinking, nudge theory powers this book. Using simple behaviour changes, retrain your brain and live a more creative and rewarding life.

This title provides: example sentences which show how words are used in context; clear notes on grammar, irregular verbs and easily confused words, and pronunciation information for all main entries.