This cultural who's-who illuminates 50 famous figures, from Leonardo da Vinci to Coco Chanel, through the fascinating trivia of their lives. Artist James Gulliver Hancock depicts historical icons in quirky annotated portraits surrounded by their associated possessions, baggage, and foibles. Hemingway's hobbies, Amelia Earhart's preferred dessert, Martin Luther King Jr.'s favorite TV show—each portrait reveals the ordinary quirks of these extraordinary people and captures their personalities in the process. An exquisitely illustrated almanac and cultural literacy cheat sheet, this fun and informative collection offers both history buffs and art lovers a treasure trove of interesting facts about beloved artists, writers, thinkers, and dreamers.

Improving Writing and Thinking through Assessment is designed to help individual faculty and administrators select assessment approaches and measures to maximize their students’ writing and thinking. The book offers useful guidance, through presentation of recommended assessment guidelines and measurement principles in Part 1 and applications from a variety of contributors in Part 2. It addresses a wide range of audiences, including instructors who want to assess and thus foster writing and thinking in their courses, administrators and instructors planning to assess writing and thinking at the program or institutional level, and graduate students interested in improving students’ writing and critical thinking. This book is more guide than a “cookbook.” By providing comprehensive standards and criteria that help individuals or teams develop plans and measures to improve writing and thinking, the book should be helpful for academic and Student Affairs administrators and faculty - as the principles apply equally to all engaged in assessment. Contributors, representing a wide range of educators, illustrate many of the approaches and methods described in the theoretical section of the book using a variety of assessment strategies at both classroom and program levels. Readers will see how different types of institutions, both private and public as well as undergraduate and graduate, have designed assessment strategies and plans to gauge and enhance writing and thinking growth in the classroom and across programs. They candidly describe challenges encountered and solutions they adopted or suggest. These chapters reflect approaches and perspectives from various discourse communities – including writing program administrators, composition faculty, assessment professionals, and individual faculty representing several disciplines. The author argues the urgent need to develop strong writers and thinkers. She discusses challenges and obstacles, but underscores the necessity for more faculty involvement and institutional commitment. This book will help institutions and individual faculty design and implement sound, meaningful assessment strategies to foster effective writing and thinking that will both advance the goals of the institutional mission and meet faculty’s disciplinary objectives and scholarly concerns.

A concise and practical manual on developing reading, writing, and critical thinking skills in tandem For college students learning how to write on scholarly subjects, writing and critical thinking go hand in hand. And yet most books on these topics are categorized separately: writing guides and critical thinking handbooks. This book is different, offering a manual for developing reading, writing, and thinking skills in tandem. With short, practical chapters, Thinking through Writing helps readers learn to think critically about themselves and the world at large, read carefully and get the necessary literary support, write clearly and persuasively, stay on point, and finish their work as cleanly and compellingly as possible. Drawing on years of teaching critical thinking and writing, including almost a decade of teaching Harvard’s freshman expository writing course, the authors invite readers to consider the intimate relationship between thinking and the creative, critical, self-actualizing act of writing. • Interviews with some of the most interesting and brilliant writers working today • Advice on how to structure an argument, write for an audience, work through writer’s block and anxiety, and much more • Tips on how to make your writing unique and personal • Exercises and templates to help novice writers reach their full potential in practice

In her new book, bestselling author and professional developer Carol Booth Olson and colleagues show teachers how to help young readers and writers construct meaning from and with texts. This practical resource offers a rich array of research-based teaching strategies, activities, and extended lessons focused on the “thinking tools” employed by experienced readers and writers. It shows teachers how to draw on the natural connections between reading and writing, and how cognitive strategies can be embedded into the teaching of narrative, informational, and argumentative texts. Including artifacts and written work produced by students across the grade levels, the authors connect the cognitive and affective domains for full student engagement. “This book seamlessly bridges the gap from research to everyday practice.... You get an extremely well-organized set of overarching instructional principles that are right for our era and brought to life through well-explained instructional guides and classroom activities.” —From the Foreword by Judith Langer, University at Albany, SUNY “I have always admired Carol Booth Olson’s work with secondary students and teachers. She now applies those essential principles and practices to elementary and middle school students. Bravo!” —P. David Pearson, professor emeritus, University of California, Berkeley

First Published in 1990. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Developing Thinking Skills Through Creative Writing: Story Steps for 9-12 Year Olds is a practical and easy-to-use teacher resource helping children across a wide age and ability range to develop the skills necessary to write more effectively. Step-by-step instructions encourage children to tackle tasks of increasing difficulty while broadening their knowledge and experiences of fictional genres. With chapters separated into distinct genres: ghost story, fantasy, science fiction, history, pirate story, thriller and Gothic horror, this book: Offers a summary at the start of each chapter to help teachers select the relevant activities. Covers multiple aspects of storytelling from narrative structure, plots, characters and settings to vocabulary, word choice, sentence structure and punctuation. Provides a cross referencing grid showing which aspects of writing appear in each chapter. Includes guidance notes, extension activities and general tips. Adaptable to different teaching situations, this book offers the opportunity for teachers to work through the book genre by genre or take a 'skills route' with different activities from different chapters to create their own programme of study. Fully illustrated and supporting the requirements of the National Curriculum, Developing Thinking Skills Through Creative Writing is a valuable aid for all Key Stage 2 teachers.

This is a versatile book of inspiring, ready-to-use, creative writing activities. Each activity has been designed to encourage writers, providing interesting and fun projects that promote positive healthy emotions, such as thankfulness, fun, happiness, hopefulness, love, wonder, inspiration, creativity, etc. This title includes activities that are attractively presented to help inspire the writer and enhance the appearance of the project. The activities help writers to explore a wide range of positive emotional experiences that may contribute to their wellbeing and mental health. This title includes simple and fun activities that can be used with individuals or groups. It encompasses a wide variety of practical, everyday writing styles and skills, such as thank you cards, shopping lists, instructions, recipes, etc. The activities are not intended to explore painful emotional experiences so can be used safely by non-professionals and individuals working on their own. This book is useful for anyone working with older children, teenagers, and adults of all ages, and in a wide variety of contexts.

This hands-on guide to advanced critical analysis and argumentation will help readers to communicate in way that is orderly, rigorously supported, persuasive and clear. It demonstrates how criticality can be paired with creativity to produce an insightful and engaging piece of research, and explores how narrative styles and rhetorical devices can be used to boost the persuasiveness of an argument. Chapters blend theory with practice and contain a wealth of activities designed to help students put new skills into practice or revitalise those they already have. This is an essential resource for postgraduates and advanced undergraduates looking to hone their skills in critical analysis and communicate their ideas with precision and clarity.

Thinking through Writing demonstrates that thinking skills are taught best through writing. All parts of the brain and all types of learning styles are used in writing activities, simultaneously developing thinking skills. These skills are invaluable in linking student experience and new information, incorporating content knowledge and exploring ideas and solutions. This book provides an example of a writing course, illustrating how thinking and writing converge, and is addressed to college instructors, although it would be useful for instructors on any educational level. The elements, examples, and guidelines for planning learner-centered instruction and positive assessment practice increase student engagement through writing activities, applicable in all content areas.

Thinking Creative Writing explores the many ways in which creative writing can be critically considered, and understood, as well as the teaching and learning of creative writing. Featuring thematic ideas and practice-orientated thoughts, such as those related to the value of distraction when undertaking creative work, the book also presents contemporary work in the field of what is termed ‘Creative Writing Studies’, and offers an analysis of doctoral research on Creative Writing. Additionally, the book includes reports on cultural and heritage studies of creative writing as a practice, in relation to the literature it brings about and the audiences it engages. Thinking Creative Writing presents a snapshot of contemporary work in and around departments of creative writing in our universities and colleges. It will be of interest to those researching in the field, as well as those with a broader interest in writing creatively. The chapters in this book were originally published as articles in the New Writing journal.