Free New Prestwick House Products to Bloggers!

Alright folks, here's the deal. We've got a lot of new programs that we'll be releasing with our new Fall Update Catalogue, which will hit the mail in the middle of August.

I'd like to get some of you influential bloggers out there a free copy of any of our new series or books so that you can review them and let the world know what you think, so if you'd like to get a free copy of any of these books and you're willing to review them on your blog, just drop me an E-mail at keith [at] prestwickhouse.com with your address. I'll package up whatever book or program interests you and send it off. All you need to do is share your opinion with the world. It's that easy.

So, here's a first glance at the new products we'll be premiering this fall.

Literary Black Belt Certification Program
SAT Words from Literature
Grammar for Writing
PowerPoint for the Classroom
Standards of Excellence: Excelling on the CAHSEE
Use Rhetoric for Reading and Writing
Writing Rules of the Road

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I'm only releasing the titles for now, but over the next few weeks keep your eyes open for more info. This is the first place we'll announce further details. If any of these titles catch your eye, drop me an E-mail and we'll send a free copy to the first three requesters who promise to share their opinions.

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Prestwick House in the News

The Delaware State News picked up a story about our winning two awards from the AEP, for ShakesFear and Discovering Genre: Poetry check it out.



Link.

Animal Farm: The CIA and the Communist Pigs

In light of the CIA's "Family Jewels" document coming to light, this might be of interest to a few of you out there. I don't think it's necessarily insidious, but it's certainly interesting.

There are two versions of George Orwell's classic available on DVD, the 1954 animated version, and the 1999 computer animated/live action version. The 1954 animated version has the winning vote for interest and accuracy here at Prestwick House, although the newer one is visually quite interesting and packs a fair amount of star-power into the voices.


This article from the London Review of Books taught me something new about the movie though, that will make me go back to it with a little bit different eye.

In 1954, the CIA was in the midst of a battle with Communism for the hearts and minds of the world, so in light of that they sponsored the creation of a film version of George Orwell's classic, Animal Farm.


While Animal Farm has a decidedly Anti-Communist (or at least anti-Soviet) bent, according to this article the CIA wanted it a bit more cut and dry.

They used their influence on the film's ending. Instead of the book's ending where the pig rulers begin to work with the neighbors to oppress the farm animals, this cartoon changed it so that the neighbors came to the aid of the oppressed farm animals to overthrow the pigs. A subtle change, sure but an interesting view. In addition, apparently the CIA consultants suggested that Snowball is too likable a character, so they may have made him a little less appealing.

This is a fantastic opportunity to work with your colleagues in the history department to tie together the cold war, and it provides a new angle for a research report for your students. I love opportunities to discuss with students why decisions were made to vary from the source text. It's a way to get students to think critically about what they're reading (and it makes sure that students don't use the video as a replacement for the text).

Incidentally, the 1999 film also varies the ending of the film to show the eventual decline and fall of communism. Today's students will probably feel that this ending was inevitable and understood even in the day the book was written.

Link to video.
Link to article.

The Shakespeare Question

Until recently, I never gave much thought to the Shakespeare Authorship question (and it looks like I'm not alone from this survey by the New York Times). [UPDATE: Looks like the NYT has put it behind their registration wall. In any case, not many college professors spend much time on "the question."]

On a lark, I picked up the Audio Book Shakespeare by Another Name by Mark Anderson, an account of the life of Edward De Vere, the Duke of Oxford in which De Vere is put forth as the true author of Shakespeare's plays. I can't say that I'm 100% convinced, but his argument was fairly persuasive. At some times, however, it really seemed like he was grasping at straws (the hidden coded images in the first folio's pictures sound like they came from the Da Vinci Code, not real life), and the connection between William Shakespeare the Actor and De Vere seems a little weak.

What's interesting is I also recently read Greenblatt's highly-readable biography of William Shakespeare as the author of the plays, and there are a number of points that seemed a bit odd and forced in that story too, although using Shakespeare's text, Greenblatt draws an interesting characterization of the Bard of Avon's life and mind.

I didn't realize the amount of rancor behind the battle between the Oxfordians, Stratfordians, et al., but it seems to come down to a deeper question than a simple historical question. In some ways, it comes down to a discussion of the nature of the genius behind these works and the nature vs. nurture argument.

Can the genius of Shakespeare come from the mind of a simple glove maker's son, or does it need to develop from a rigorous education? Each theory holds a certain appeal to me. The poor boy makes good through his own powers is the classic American story in some ways, but it smacks of a certain predestination in which Shakespeare is almost super human. This is the Shakespeare that barely ever needed to blot his paper because what was written once was perfect. On the other hand we have De Vere's approach in which a man struggles, writing multiple drafts of his plays over many years, basing them on an education steeped in a wide variety of subject areas. Suddenly, Shakespeare's less of a god and more of a man, and he's certainly much more approachable. This theory leaves me with a bit of hope that anyone can, through hard work, achieve brilliance.

In either case, it's the works of Shakespeare that are important now, rather than the life of he who created it. Still, it's fun to have multiple lenses from which to view the plays.

Book Review: The Secret Life of Bees

I just finished reading Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees, which has quickly become on of our top selling new books, and I can see why.

I have to admit that, although I thought this was going to be the saccharine story of a girl's coming of age, I really enjoyed reading it. Although it will draw the inevitable comparisons with To Kill a Mockingbird, a story about a young girl's coming of age in a racially charged South, Kidd's story maintains its own identity in building a strong feminist voice without creating an anti-male feeling.

This book should succeed in many classrooms -- especially if you're looking for a book to engage young female readers.

Who's on First? Shakespeare Style

Well, I've fulfilled my requirement of a few posts between each interesting and amusing Shakespearean post, so today I've got a video to share courtesy of The Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey (with thanks to News on the Rialto) of what would happen were Laurel and Hardy born in the Elizabethan Age.

Vocabulary from Latin and Greek Flashcards

This is so cool!

A customer of ours who felt that she needed flashcards for her students using Vocabulary from Latin and Greek Roots Book V, has used the site Flashcard Exchange to make freely available flashcards for the book!

If you're using it, jump on these freebies! You can use them online, you can print them, and with a premium membership you can export them.

I love it.

(I'm not sure who you are, browneyedgirl108911, but thanks!)

Link.

AEP Awards: Two Winners from Prestwick House!

Well the awards are over, the Capitol Steps have sung, and Prestwick House emerged from our second year of involvement with AEP with two DAA awards for the best products in two categories.

In the category of Fiction, English Language Arts our guided anthology of classic and original poetry Discovering Genre: Poetry was awarded the DAA.

In the category of Professional Development Instructional Books, the new ShakesFear and How to Overcome It beat some very high quality materials to take home the award.

Congratulations to everyone who worked so hard on these projects: Paul, Larry, Ralph Cohen, Jeremy, Lisa, Emily and Mary! (sorry if I forgot anyone!)

More details on the judges' comments coming soon.

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And congratulations to all of the other winners -- coming to an event like this one really makes you excited about all of the great new materials coming to classrooms soon.

Finally, thanks to Doug and everyone from AEP, you put on a great event here.

Live Blogging from the AEP Seminar!

I'm currently in our nation's capital as we approach the end of this year's Association of Educational Publishers Annual Meeting and Convention, and it's been a good weekend for sparking creativity and bringing about a handful of new ideas.

A few moments ago, I just got out of a Town Hall Meeting with 4 nationally recognized educators from the DC area including Philip Bigler the 1998 National Teacher of the Year, Kim Burke-Ables the 2006 DC Teacher of the Year, Jason Kamras 2005 National Teacher of the Year, and 2007 teacher of the year Githa Natarajan. These town hall meetings are fantastic and we got to hear from some innovative teachers on the big issues and the small ones. One simple question I'd like to pose to all of you is, "What do you want from a supplemental publisher like Prestwick House?"

The teachers on the panel were interested in easy-to-use products (always a focus at Prestwick House), focuses on standards that were clearly labeled (good news on this front -- we're currently working on a project to align our products to every state's standards), with a differentiation component built in (we'll work on this!)

Other big issues from the week was the whole web 2.0 buzz word thing that I'm doing right now ;) and figuring out the best and most valuable way to get you products. Right now, you're probably aware of Prestwick House Downloadables --all of our Teaching Guides are available instantly in a DRM-free, .pdf, E-book format as well as the traditional paper "dead tree" version. We're working on projects to get many of our books available in more formats and hopefully soon you'll be able to get them in any version you'd like.

Tonight is the awards banquet for the AEP's distinguished achievement awards -- last year we won in two products, our Language of Advertising Posters and our Tale of Two Cities Spotlight edition.

This year we've got four new products nominated, and hopefully, I'll be able to log on tonight/tomorrow morning to tell you we won!

Sorry for any typos and lack of formating -- my new laptop doesn't have firefox so this WYSIWYG engine is behaving a little oddly.

Ayn Rand Essay Contest

When I (Jasmine) was in high school, there was a small poster from the Ayn Rand Institute by the door proclaiming two essay contests; one was on Anthem and the other one on The Fountainhead. The essays had to be on the philosophical themes in the works respective to the grades (Anthem was for Grades 9-10, The Fountainhead for Grades 11-12).

I had heard of the third book (the third essay contest for college-level students) Atlas Shrugged and had a faint idea of what Ayn Rand wrote about, but to my knowledge no one in my high school classes did.

However, since the essay contests can act as a scholarship opportunity (the Grand Prize for the Anthemcontest is $2,000, with the Grand Prize for The Fountainhead contest being $10,000) an easy way for teachers to introduce the material and encourage students to enter is to contact the Ayn Rand Institute directly. They offer lesson plans for teachers, as well as free sets of books, a teacher's kit, and various other materials and resources. Another resource may even be local college/university students or professors; the books can be dense and intimidating, but if you want to introduce the material, put out the news and perhaps someone will come and volunteer to give a brief introduction to Objectivism, the philosophy underlying Ayn Rand's literary works and critiques.

Links:
Essay Contest Details
The Ayn Rand Institute's Teaching Resources
Prestwick House Ayn Rand Materials
Fountainhead Materials
Anthem Materials

Note from Keith: Jasmine is our newest Prestwick House employee working on a special project for us correlating all of our products to each state's standards, so that we can more easily let you know what meets your needs. We've got lots of great plans on how to use this information to help you find exactly what you're looking for. In the meantime, if you need some info on how our books meet your specific states' standards, let us know and we'll let you know what we've found so far!