Failing Sideways

Failing Sideways is an innovative and fresh approach to assessment that intersects writing studies, educational measurement, and queer rhetorics. While valuing and representing the research, theory, and practice of assessment, authors Stephanie West-Puckett, Nicole I. Caswell, and William P. Banks demonstrate the ways that students, teachers, and other interested parties can find joy and justice in the work of assessment. A failure-oriented assessment model unsettles some of the most common practices, like rubrics and portfolios, and challenges many deeply held assumptions about validity and reliability in order to ask what could happen if assessment was oriented toward possibility and potential. Working to engage a more capacious writing construct, the authors propose queer validity inquiry (QVI) as a model for assessment that values failure, affect, identity, and materiality. These overlapping lenses help teachers honor parts of writing and learning that writing studies faculty have struggled to hold onto in a world overly focused on quickness and efficiency in schools. Through programmatic and classroom examples, Failing Sideways privileges what is valued in the classroom but traditionally ignored in assessments. Reimagining what matters in the teaching and learning of writing and using assessment data differently, this book demonstrates what writing can be and could do in a more diverse and just world.

Jim Fisher is a first year teacher who quickly learns that his job is more than simply educating his students. He has to battle indolence in the classroom, enabling parents, and an educational system which caters to the lowest level of student and parental incompetence. Fisher tries to keep his standards and expectations high, even when he has to go head to head with an administrator who becomes his nemesis. The novel also takes a glimpse into Fisher's personal life as he tries to balance the perils of dating with the trials and tribulations of his profession. The result is a hilarious explosion of absurdity, both in and out of the classroom, that takes the reader on a rollercoaster ride of entertainment and edification. Failing Mr. Fisher is based on the teaching experiences of James Wintermote and his family and colleagues. Using humor and candor, the novel gives us an insider's perspective into why the foundation of the American public education system is crumbling and how it affects not only the students, but more importantly the teachers who have been given the responsibility to educate our nation's children

Finn Easton, sixteen and epileptic, struggles to feel like more than just a character in his father's cult-classic novels with the help of his best friend, Cade Hernandez, and first love, Julia, until Julia moves away.

Business thinking skills that really work Better creative thinking leads to brilliant decision making and successful, innovative solutions to business problems. Using the proven practical skills, techniques and advice in this book, you will learn how to think better, faster and more productively, enabling you to shape, train and inspire your thinking to deliver more effective results. Improve your critical analysis and thinking skills Become confident in making better and more creative decisions Become faster and more effective at problem solving This book will enable you to become a calm, logical and well-argued decision maker with the ability to deliver better solutions and outstanding results. The full text downloaded to your computer With eBooks you can: search for key concepts, words and phrases make highlights and notes as you study share your notes with friends eBooks are downloaded to your computer and accessible either offline through the Bookshelf (available as a free download), available online and also via the iPad and Android apps. Upon purchase, you'll gain instant access to this eBook. Time limit The eBooks products do not have an expiry date. You will continue to access your digital ebook products whilst you have your Bookshelf installed.

Dr. Faith explains the fundamentals of adulting in this handy guide. Spoiler: None of the requirements are about having certain jobs, kids, possessions and debts, or being totally bored and stressed out and hating your life. This book will not teach you to change your oil or fold fitted sheets. Instead, Dr. Faith offers wisdom from her life experience and counseling practice like, “If it’s not yours, don’t touch it,” “Love people but not their bullshit,” “Invest in small comforts,” and “Either win or learn.” It’s hard work to do adulty stuff well, but the kind of work that’s satisfying because it’s about being good to yourself and other people and building a life that you’re okay with waking up to every day. Keep these hot tips around for when you’re making big decisions, dealing with difficult situations, or to give to a friend or kid who’s making any kind of big life transition. The truth is, adulting is way more fun than kidding. You got this!

An introduction to the important areas of mathematical physics, this volume starts with basic ideas and proceeds (sometimes rapidly) to a more sophisticated level, often to the context of current research.All of the necessary functional analysis and differential geometry is included, along with basic calculus of variations and partial differential equations (linear and nonlinear). An introduction to classical and quantum mechanics is given with topics in Feynman integrals, gauge fields, geometric quantization, attractors for PDE, Ginzburg-Landau Equations in superconductivity, Navier-Stokes equations, soliton theory, inverse problems and ill-posed problems, scattering theory, convex analysis, variational inequalities, nonlinear semigroups, etc. Contents: 1. Classical Ideas and Problems. Introduction. Some Preliminary Variational Ideas. Various Differential Equations and Their Origins. Linear Second Order PDE. Further Topics in the Calculus of Variations. Spectral Theory for Ordinary Differential Operators, Transmutation, and Inverse Problems. Introduction to Classical Mechanics. Introduction to Quantum Mechanics. Weak Problems in PDE. Some Nonlinear PDE. Ill-Posed Problems and Regularization. 2. Scattering Theory and Solitons. Introduction. Scattering Theory I (Operator Theory). Scattering Theory II (3-D). Scattering Theory III (A Medley of Themes). Scattering Theory IV (Spectral Methods in 3-D). Systems and Half Line Problems. Relations between Potentials and Spectral Data. Introduction to Soliton Theory. Solitons via AKNS Systems. Soliton Theory (Hamiltonian Structure). Some Topics in Integrable Systems. 3. Some Nonlinear Analysis: Some Geometric Formalism. Introduction. Nonlinear Analysis. Monotone Operators. Topological Methods. Convex Analysis. Nonlinear Semigroups and Monotone Sets. Variational Inequalities. Quantum Field Theory. Gauge Fields (Physics). Gauge Fields (Mathematics) and Geometric Quantization. Appendices: Introduction to Linear Functional Analysis. Selected Topics in Functional Analysis. Introduction to Differential Geometry. References. Index.

How did we get to where we are? John Cassidy shows that the roots of our most recent financial failure lie not with individuals, but with an idea - the idea that markets are inherently rational. He gives us the big picture behind the financial headlines, tracing the rise and fall of free market ideology from Adam Smith to Milton Friedman and Alan Greenspan. Full of wit, sense and, above all, a deeper understanding, How Markets Fail argues for the end of 'utopian' economics, and the beginning of a pragmatic, reality-based way of thinking. A very good history of economic thought Economist How Markets Fail offers a brilliant intellectual framework . . . fine work New York Times An essential, grittily intellectual, yet compelling guide to the financial debacle of 2009 Geordie Greig, Evening Standard A powerful argument . . . Cassidy makes a compelling case that a return to hands-off economics would be a disaster BusinessWeek This book is a well constructed, thoughtful and cogent account of how capitalism evolved to its current form Telegraph Books of the Year recommendation John Cassidy ... describe[s] that mix of insight and madness that brought the world's system to its knees FT, Book of the Year recommendation Anyone who enjoys a good read can safely embark on this tour with Cassidy as their guide . . . Like his colleague Malcolm Gladwell [at the New Yorker], Cassidy is able to lead us with beguiling lucidity through unfamiliar territory New Statesman John Cassidy has covered economics and finance at The New Yorker magazine since 1995, writing on topics ranging from Alan Greenspan to the Iraqi oil industry and English journalism. He is also now a Contributing Editor at Portfolio where he writes the monthly Economics column. Two of his articles have been nominated for National Magazine Awards: an essay on Karl Marx, which appeared in October, 1997, and an account of the death of the British weapons scientist David Kelly, which was published in December, 2003. He has previously written for Sunday Times in as well as the New York Post, where he edited the Business section and then served as the deputy editor. In 2002, Cassidy published his first book, Dot.Con. He lives in New York.

From the bestselling author of Woe Is I: A guide to grammar fundamentals that’s sympathetic to the struggling writer and often just plain funny” (The Seattle Times). Whether you need to improve your skills for work or school, or aspire to the Great American Novel, a grounding in grammar, spelling, and punctuation is essential—not just to make you look like a professional but to communicate effectively in emails, essays, or anything you need to write. This painless, practical book is filled with short, snappy chapters, crystal-clear examples, and a “playful sense of humor” (The New York Times Book Review)—covering everything from “Pronoun Pileups” and “Verbs That Zing” to “What to Do When You’re Stuck.” With these simple, straightforward tips, you can learn how to sort your thoughts and make sentences that make sense. “Students writing papers, employees preparing reports, and those who just want to be understood in print may benefit from this fun-to-use answer to Strunk and White. O’Connor uses humor as she takes apart sentences and their parts and shows how each element is used effectively.” —Booklist