A NEW emphasis IN THIS edition of Spark the Brain, Ignite the Pen is writing to learn in the content areas. This edition of the work first published in 2006 includes a collection of classroom-tested quick writes designed to assist students in thinking and writing about significant content in the disciplines. Contributors to the book teach a wide array of grade levels (K through college) and subject areas e.g., English, social studies, math, science and health), and the quick writes included in the book are ideal for use in a variety of classroom subjects and settings. Given the current research validating the impact of using writing tasks to learn content, this volume should be useful to a wide range of teachers, teacher educators, and professional development trainers K-12.

Unless experienced and well-read English teachers can develop coherent and increasingly demanding literature curricula in their schools, average high school students will remain at about the fifth or sixth grade reading level--where they now are to judge from several independent sources. This book seeks to challenge education policy makers, test developers, and educators who discourage the assignment of appropriately difficult works to high school students and make construction of a coherent literature curriculum impossible.

We’ve been conditioned to think about creative genius as a dichotomy: dreamers versus doers, creativity versus discipline, the spark versus the grind. But what if we’re wrong? What if it’s the spark and the grind? We love people whose creative genius arrives in sudden sparks of inspiration. Think of Archimedes in his bathtub or Newton under his apple tree. But we also admire people who work incredibly hard and long for their creative breakthroughs. Think of Edison in his lab, grinding through hundreds of failed variations on the lightbulb. We remember his words in tough times: “Genius is 1 percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration.” Now Erik Wahl, a visual artist, speaker, and entre­preneur, helps us unite the yin and yang of creativity— the dynamic new ideas with the dogged effort. He shows why we won’t get far if we rely on the spark without the grind, or the grind without the spark. What the world really needs are the creators who can hold the two in balance. Fortunately, it’s possible to get good at both, as Wahl knows from experience. After his corporate career sud­denly ended, he pursued a spark—to paint photorealistic portraits—and ground it out until he got good enough to make very good art very quickly. That’s the basis of his riveting live shows, which have captivated skeptical audiences who never expected to be inspired by art—and taught them to embrace creativity in a whole new way. This book offers surprising insights and practical advice about how to fan the sparks and make the grind more productive. Wahl deftly synthesizes the wisdom of other artists, philosophers, scientists, and business visionaries throughout history, along with his own views. Here’s how he sums up his approach: The world needs people who enjoy swimming in ideas until they discover a great one. The world also needs doers who have a gift for activation, a.k.a. “getting s*** done.” But the most potent individual creators in any industry or environment have learned how to be both. They’ve learned how to spark their grind and they’ve learned how to grind their sparks. As a result, they not only make things happen, they make great things. If you want to ensure constant creativity in your life and produce your most innovative work—this is your guide.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of Small Great Things returns with a powerful and provocative new novel about ordinary lives that intersect during a heart-stopping crisis. “Picoult at her fearless best . . . Timely, balanced and certain to inspire debate.”—The Washington Post The warm fall day starts like any other at the Center—a women’s reproductive health services clinic—its staff offering care to anyone who passes through its doors. Then, in late morning, a desperate and distraught gunman bursts in and opens fire, taking all inside hostage. After rushing to the scene, Hugh McElroy, a police hostage negotiator, sets up a perimeter and begins making a plan to communicate with the gunman. As his phone vibrates with incoming text messages he glances at it and, to his horror, finds out that his fifteen-year-old daughter, Wren, is inside the clinic. But Wren is not alone. She will share the next and tensest few hours of her young life with a cast of unforgettable characters: A nurse who calms her own panic in order to save the life of a wounded woman. A doctor who does his work not in spite of his faith but because of it, and who will find that faith tested as never before. A pro-life protester, disguised as a patient, who now stands in the crosshairs of the same rage she herself has felt. A young woman who has come to terminate her pregnancy. And the disturbed individual himself, vowing to be heard. Told in a daring and enthralling narrative structure that counts backward through the hours of the standoff, this is a story that traces its way back to what brought each of these very different individuals to the same place on this fateful day. One of the most fearless writers of our time, Jodi Picoult tackles a complicated issue in this gripping and nuanced novel. How do we balance the rights of pregnant women with the rights of the unborn they carry? What does it mean to be a good parent? A Spark of Light will inspire debate, conversation . . . and, hopefully, understanding. Praise for A Spark of Light “This is Jodi Picoult at her best: tackling an emotional hot-button issue and putting a human face on it.”—People “Told backward and hour by hour, Jodi Picoult’s compelling narrative deftly explores controversial social issues.”—Us Weekly

A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.

Theres something terrifying around every turn. When the world as we know it has ended and all that remains of humanitys earthly ways are the stories that reside within the libraries of the space habitats, the view of humanity can be skewed. In these twenty-four stories is a sample of how the earthly mind worked, how it delighted in terrifying, how it indulged in the horrific. What must our future selves think of us? This second volume in the Night Chills series offers tales from authors who joined us in Terror by Gaslight, as well as some new and delightful minds. Rie Sheridan Rose, Wayne Borean, R. E. Hinkle, Catherine Stovall, and John Manning himself are among those who have filled the pages of this volume with a sprinkling of humor and a large dose of chills.

Told in their separate voices, sixteen-year-old Prince Oliver, who wants to break free of his fairy-tale existence, and fifteen-year-old Delilah, a loner obsessed with Prince Oliver and the book in which he exists, work together to seek his freedom.