Split Just Right

DIVDanny lives in her mother’s world of make-believe, but all she wants is the truth/divDIV Dandelion Finzimer’s mother has always wanted to get her daughter on the stage. Mrs. Finzimer is an actress—aspiring, anyway—who makes a living teaching and doing commercials, but lives for the applause she earns as a member of the Bellmont Players. Danny has no talent for acting—she couldn’t even play Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker—but whether she realizes it or not, she’s part of a play. Because no matter how tough things get, Danny’s mom is always acting happy, telling subtly shifting stories, and doing her best to put a smile on her daughter’s face./divDIV /divDIVThis used to be OK, but Danny is in ninth grade now, and high school is a time to face the truth. She has questions about her father, who left when she was a baby, and her paternal grandparents, who live less than an hour away. Getting answers will mean acting serious, and for this quirky young woman, that will be the performance of a lifetime./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features a personal history by Adele Griffin including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author’s own collection./div

After living her life in her actress mother's world of make-believe, ninth-grader Dandelion comes to realize that it is better to face reality.

Have you ever been frustrated, aggravated, irritated, upset, disturbed, annoyed, bothered, perturbed or discouraged when you are trying to write a decent paragraph in the English language, and suddenly found out that you are not sure of the grammar rules, and it is hard to locate that wizard to tell you once and for all whether you should place a comma here or there? You probably look into your dictionary first and scream out loud or yell at the innocent computer screen because the information you are looking for is not there. Do not panic or dread; help is on the way. This book is an attempt to give you a summary of resources when it comes to grammar in laypersons language. With the index in the back of the book, you will be able to easily and effortlessly locate what you want to look up and find the answer right at your fingertips. Speaking from previous English knowledge, skills, practices, understandings, familiarities and know-how, I realize that sometimes the more grammar books you read, the more confused you get. There are tons of grammar books out there, but upon which one can you rely? There are contradictions constantly when you read more than one grammar book. One book will tell you to use an s after 2005s to execute plurality; others may not recommend the same. In addition, languages are animate. They change all the time. They can get sick and die, and they can have newly generated sounds and words. Language has a life. Born and raised in Bangkok, Thailand, English was taught to me at an early age, but it was taught as a foreign language, where there were only a few English classes per week. I did not have the opportunity of being in a bilingual environment. I struggled and studied hard. My parents made sure that I received a great education. English was taught to me by so many teachers and professors from many different countries, some of whom were not native speakers of the English language. I received many different grammar rules that often confused me, but as I acquired more education, things started to become clearer. As an undergraduate student in Bangkok, I majored in English and double-minored in Linguistics and Psychology. I continued my studies at the University of Illinois Graduate School in Linguistics and Teaching English as a Second Language in the United States. Suddenly, I became an English professor. I received my masters degree in January, and, in the same month, I started teaching at a university. In my profession, there are ESL and EIL. I would like to clarify the abbreviations ESL and EIL. ESL stands for English as a Second Language. EIL stands for English as an International Language. There are also other terms such as ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) and EFL (English as a Foreign Language). Even though English is not the most spoken language in the world, it has, indeed, become international, used by hundreds of millions of people every day. So, I will attempt to write this book from an angle of one who has been there and done that. In other words, I have been an ESL/EIL student and an ESL/EIL professor. I still learn new things about English grammar on a daily basis. There are so many rules out there, but it is fun to continue to learn. One should never stop learning, period! I have been teaching ESL/EIL for over three decades. I have always sympathized with my students as I have seen them struggle to gain command of the English language. My background as an ESL/EIL student and as an ESL/EIL teacher, hopefully, has helped my students a great deal. I have also learned a lot from my students. Therefore, this book is a compilation of what I have learned throughout the years, first as a little girl, as an ESL/EIL student, and now as an ESL/EIL professor.

First the Land, Then Fire Nearly Destroys Them. Will They Still Hold to their Dream? It had taken four long, difficult years to tame the virgin prairie of Dakota Territory. Looking back through all the heartache and the body-breaking labor, Ingeborg Bjorkland knew that God had been with them every step of the way. Dreams that had turned into veritable nightmares had been reshaped with the promise of a new day rising, and her marriage to Haaken had been its sure sign.Hjelmer travels west to work on the railroad, and after sending only one letter to Penny, who has agreed to wait for him, he is not heard from again. As the months pass, Penny is pursued by other eligible suitors, and her love for Hjelmer is sorely tried. Will he ever return to keep his promise? America's westward expansion continues, bringing the railroad to their area. Before them lies the challenge of proving up their homesteads, developing a sense of community, building wooden barns and houses, a schoolhouse and a church, a grain elevator and store.

For readers of such crusading works of nonfiction as Katherine Boo’s Beyond the Beautiful Forevers and Tracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains comes a powerful and captivating examination of two entwined global crises: environmental destruction and human trafficking—and an inspiring, bold plan for how we can solve them. A leading expert on modern-day slavery, Kevin Bales has traveled to some of the world’s most dangerous places documenting and battling human trafficking. In the course of his reporting, Bales began to notice a pattern emerging: Where slavery existed, so did massive, unchecked environmental destruction. But why? Bales set off to find the answer in a fascinating and moving journey that took him into the lives of modern-day slaves and along a supply chain that leads directly to the cellphones in our pockets. What he discovered is that even as it destroys individuals, families, and communities, new forms of slavery that proliferate in the world’s lawless zones also pose a grave threat to the environment. Simply put, modern-day slavery is destroying the planet. The product of seven years of travel and research, Blood and Earth brings us dramatic stories from the world’s most beautiful and tragic places, the environmental and human-rights hotspots where this crisis is concentrated. But it also tells the stories of some of the most common products we all consume—from computers to shrimp to jewelry—whose origins are found in these same places. Blood and Earth calls on us to recognize the grievous harm we have done to one another, put an end to it, and recommit to repairing the world. This is a clear-eyed and inspiring book that suggests how we can begin the work of healing humanity and the planet we share. Praise for Blood and Earth “A heart-wrenching narrative . . . Weaving together interviews, history, and statistics, the author shines a light on how the poverty, chaos, wars, and government corruption create the perfect storm where slavery flourishes and environmental destruction follows. . . . A clear-eyed account of man’s inhumanity to man and Earth. Read it to get informed, and then take action.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “[An] exposé of the global economy’s ‘deadly dance’ between slavery and environmental disaster . . . Based on extensive travels through eastern Congo’s mineral mines, Bangladeshi fisheries, Ghanian gold mines, and Brazilian forests, Bales reveals the appalling truth in graphic detail. . . . Readers will be deeply disturbed to learn how the links connecting slavery, environmental issues, and modern convenience are forged.”—Publishers Weekly “This well-researched and vivid book studies the connection between slavery and environmental destruction, and what it will take to end both.”—Shelf Awareness (starred review) “This is a remarkable book, demonstrating once more the deep links between the ongoing degradation of the planet and the ongoing degradation of its most vulnerable people. It’s a bracing reminder that a mentality that allows throwaway people also allows a throwaway earth.”—Bill McKibben, author of Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet

This book is the result of a conference sponsored by the Educational Testing Service and the University of Wisconsin's National Center for Research in Mathematical Sciences Education. The purpose of the conference was to facilitate the work of a group of scholars whose interests included the assessment of higher-order understandings and processes in foundation-level (pre-high school) mathematics. Discussions focused on such issues as the purposes of assessment, guidelines for producing and scoring "real-life" assessment activities, and the meanings of such terms as "deeper and higher-order understanding," "cognitive objectives," and "authentic mathematical activities." Assessment was viewed as a critical component of complex, dynamic, and continually adapting educational systems. During the time that the chapters in this book were being written, sweeping changes in mathematics education were being initiated in response to powerful recent advances in technology, cognitive psychology, and mathematics, as well as to numerous public demands for educational reform. These changes have already resulted in significant reappraisals of what it means to understand mathematics, of the nature of mathematics teaching and learning, and of the real-life situations in which mathematics is useful. The challenge was to pursue assessment-related initiatives that are systematically valid, in the sense that they work to complement and enhance other improvements in the educational system rather than act as an impediment to badly needed curriculum reforms. To address these issues, most chapters in this book focus on clarifying and articulating the goals of assessment and instruction, and they stress the content of assessment above its mode of delivery. Computer- or portfolio-based assessments are interpreted as means to ends, not as ends in themselves. Assessment is conceived as an ongoing documentation process, seamless with instruction, whose quality hinges upon its ability to provide complete and appropriate information as needed to inform priorities in instructional decision making. This book tackles some of the most complicated issues related to assessment, and it offers fresh perspectives from leaders in the field--with the hope that the ultimate consumer in the instruction/assessment enterprise, the individual student, will reclaim his or her potential for self-directed mathematics learning.

Standardizes the definition and framework of analytics #2 on Book Authority’s list of the Best New Analytics Books to Read in 2019 (January 2019) We all want to make a difference. We all want our work to enrich the world. As analytics professionals, we are fortunate - this is our time! We live in a world of pervasive data and ubiquitous, powerful computation. This convergence has inspired and accelerated the development of both analytic techniques and tools and this potential for analytics to have an impact has been a huge call to action for organizations, universities, and governments. This title from Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) represents the perspectives of some of the most respected experts on analytics. Readers with various backgrounds in analytics – from novices to experienced professionals – will benefit from reading about and implementing the concepts and methods covered here. Peer reviewed chapters provide readers with in-depth insights and a better understanding of the dynamic field of analytics The INFORMS Analytics Body of Knowledge documents the core concepts and skills with which an analytics professional should be familiar; establishes a dynamic resource that will be used by practitioners to increase their understanding of analytics; and, presents instructors with a framework for developing academic courses and programs in analytics.

June 13, 1886, in the new city of Vancouver, fifteen-year-old Noble enters the office of the Northwest Timber Company in a hand-me-down suit. He tries to pass for a man fit to work on a logging crew. A spark from a brush fire ignites the wooden building. The office and much of the city are incinerated. Noble too is caught in the fire. More than a hundred years later, while on vacation in Mexico, Sean Hughes finds a message on the beach. Back in Vancouver, the messages continue and become more ominous. Sean is convinced that his apartment is haunted by malevolent spirits. Mandy, his neighbor, is certain that the messages are a plea for help. Sean and Mandy’s determination to decipher the messages leads to questions of trust and betrayal, loneliness and forgiveness. The answers they find will challenge them to believe that hope can outlast death.