Sustaining a career in music by pursuing multiple paths, usually performing and teaching, is neither new nor unusual. In this article, I consider another option--the musician-writer--to demonstrate how the process used to create in one's primary field or career path may be transferrable to the pursuit of new endeavors. Analyzing and comparing the…

This article asks historians of education to think about the influences that we bring to bear on our work. It uses, as an example, Carolyn Steedman's book "The Tidy House: Little Girls Writing" (1982). "The Tidy House" set out to interpret a short story written by three primary school girls in Britain in 1976. Steedman…

Grounded on the tradition of Contrastive Rhetoric (CR), this paper aimed at contrasting the presence of metadiscourse resources in a book preface of Filipino and English authors. It especially sought to see the similarities and differences of interactive and interactional markers between two cultures. A total of thirty book prefaces on language…

This article describes how second-grade students' literacy learning was enhanced as they used their developing knowledge of nonfiction in an integrated English language arts/science unit toward the creation of multimodal nonfiction science books. After explaining the Common Core State Standards that guided the unit, the author outlines the…

Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve, a former English teacher and school counselor, is an award-winning author, best known for her children's books about the Rosebud Sioux life and culture, which combines history and legend to create culturally rich and authentic Native American stories. In this article, the authors share their conversations with Virginia…

A new project called Bookbite, which was launched in February 2010 by the national reading charity Booktrust, aims to encourage people over 60 to engage more with reading and writing for pleasure, and provides a range of web and paper-based resources to get them started. In this article, the author accounts his visit to the project and how he met…

Describes five mental blocks that prevent authors from completing a full-length book. (RB)

Discusses the references of five writers of children's books to "some superconsciousness that they tap into which is greater than themselves" when they are writing. (JM)

The article discusses motivating gifted children to take greater enjoyment and interest in literature and composition through inspiration from in person and mixed media exposure to authors of children's books. Focus is mainly on the "Profiles in Literature" series of videotaped interviews with authors, distributed by Temple University. (DLS)

The author describes the decision making processes involved in writing science books for children. The author must decide on scope and content, be careful about wording to avoid misleading the reader, present scientific classification and measurement clearly, introduce new vocabulary carefully, avoid anthropomorphism; and select useful and…

Comments from young readers can be a valuable way of learning about children's books. (JH)