Earning Money in the Beginning Readers and Chapter Books Market

Earning Money in the Beginning Readers and Chapter Books Market Writing beginning readers and chapter books has been the bread and butter of my career. Over the years, I’ve written more than 400 beginning reader stories that have been published in a variety of formats including a bestselling book with Scholastic Teaching Resources, 25 Read and Write Mini-Books That Teach Word Families. This book of 25 reproducible beginning reader stories has sold over 250,000 copies to date. If you’d like to try your hand in this field that is full of variety and fun, here is an overview of some of the opportunities available. Trade Book MarketDr. Seuss invented beginning readers in the trade book market with his book, The Cat in the Hat. Since then most of the big publishing houses have developed their own line of beginning readers. This market is tight, but not impossible to break into. For example, if you’re represented The Educational MarketTeachers as well as homeschooling parents use beginning readers in the form of mini-plays, mini-books, and reproducible stories. They can photocopy these and put them in the hands of their students to help them learn how to read. Visit your local teacher’s supply store to look for publishers such as Creative Teaching Press who publish books of reproducible beginning readers for teachers. Search on Amazon see more examples of their stories using the â€Å"Look Inside† feature. The ESL MarketThere is a variety of opportunity to earn income writing for the English as a Second Language (ESL) market. Publishers for this market need beginning reader materials in a wide range of formats for students from preschool through adult. To learn more about exciting opportunities available to writers of all levels, explore sites such as: TESOL at www.tesol.orgESL Magazine at www.eslmag.comELT Journal at http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/ Readers TheaterWith the nation-wide focus on teaching children to read along with the development of the Common Core State Standards, publishers are seeking to provide resources such as readers theater plays for educators to use. Readers theater plays can be read aloud while students sit in their seats and don’t require a stage, costumes, or a director. Publishers such as Libraries Unlimited and Lerner are often on the lookout for adding more of these book titles to their product line. Children’s MagazinesMany children’s magazines feature some type of beginning reader story. From rebuses to repetitive stories to readers theater, there are a variety of formats you can submit to magazines in order to start gaining experience writing for and building published credits in the beginning readers market. When I first started writing for the beginning readers and chapter book market, I didn’t know the first thing about the opportunities available or the techniques needed to write a manuscript or land a contract. Yet writing for this market became a solid source of income over my career. If I can learn how to experience success, you can, too! Explore the possibilities. Go ahead and give this market a try.

Coming to America Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Coming to America - Essay Example In â€Å"Coming to America†, Byron has discussed his journey from Ireland to America. Byron immigrated to America from Ireland in 1901. That was a time when people used to travel by ships. Byron starts with the discussion of the poor lifestyle he had in Ireland before he resolved to immigrate to America. He had less to eat and no good place to live in. He spent the life of a poor man. Then he decided to immigrate to America as he saw it as a means to enhance his standard of living. After a three week journey in the ship, he arrived in America and got settled in New York. With due effort and uninterrupted search, Byron managed to find a job in one of the largest trucking operations in the world; the REA express. Byron worked in this company for 46 years. During these years, Byron got married with an American lady, Mary Hardy, and raised five children; three of his own and two of his sister who had passed away. â€Å"The reason I wanted to come to America was that America gave me the opportunity to make my own home, make a living, have freedom of speech, and many, many more wonderful things that only exist here† (Byron). Both authors share multiple aspects in their assessment of America as a land of opportunities. Both authors see America as a place that has to offer a lot of opportunities in terms of employment and a high standard of living. The strongest words that both the authors have made use of to emphasize upon the opulence which can be enjoyed in America are that in addition to naming particular things that can be acquired in America, they have given this aspect an infinite dimension in these words, â€Å"many, many more† (Byron) and â€Å"more than you share†

Chines Art Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Chines Art - Essay Example ur symbolize the â€Å"five virtues†: civil virtues, because its comb makes it look like a mandarin and therefore suggests advancement and promotion; martial virtues, because of its spurs; virtues associated with courage because of its conduct in battle; virtues in association with kindness, because it protects its hens; virtues related to confidence because of the accuracy with which it heralds the dawn. It also spoke of  reliability, epitome of fidelity and punctuality. Cock fighting is said to be the world’s oldest spectator sport and was entrenched in ancient India, China, Persia, and other Eastern countries, and was introduced into Ancient Greece in the time of Themistocles (c. 524–460 BC). In 1949 Mao Zedong, poet and founder of New China, wrote a verse that included the stanza: "The rooster sings, the bright sky turns.† The rooster is known to be a fierce fighter; this line celebrates its proclamation to the nation of victory over darkness at the start of each day. In this sense the battling rooster is symbolic, but China also has a history of competitive cock fighting that dates back 4,000 years. It is, therefore, deeply rooted in its culture. Goading roosters into fighting is an easy matter, as it is their instinct to ward off any rivals for their hen

Global issues Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Global issues - Assignment Example It is apparent that the city’s culture upholds the challenges faced by the disadvantaged and unfortunate children as necessary to the creation of happiness, a practice despised by the enlightened individuals who resolve to find solace in an unknown destiny. 3. Annie Dillard’s narration of seeing as a factor born to an individual’s verbalization in calling for attention is presumably an ideal illusion (231). Arguably, a person is capable of idealizing the occurrence of an event after realizing the apparent need to pay attention. Therefore, an individual acquires information from seeing and communicating the importance of an event to his brain for the mind to relay additional impulses that will increase the level of attention. 4. Annie Dillard’s narration provokes the perception that the human eye is different from a camera in various aspects. For example, the eye depends on a person’s conscience to conceptualize the events and communicate them to his brain for memorization while a camera depends on the user’s intention to capture and process an occurrence through the device (235). The similarity depicted between a camera and an eye is evident in the visualization and attentiveness provided in capturing a distinct

Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Indus Valley Essay Example for Free

Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Indus Valley Essay Throughout the history of Earth, there have been many fascinating developments, the most prominent being the first civilizations, Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. They had many similarities, such as characteristics of early civilizations and social structures, but they also had their differences. The most embossed differences included the divergent geography, prior belief, trade, relations with other civilizations, and politics. The earliest societies, such as Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt exhibiting indicator traits of civilization developed along the floodplains of great rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates in Iraq, and the Nile in Egypt. People had settled in Mesopotamia by 7000 B. C. and the First Dynasty of Egyptian rulers was founded before 3000 B. C. , implying a much earlier period of occupation in the Nile River valley and delta. To protect themselves and channel the forces of nature, people living near the rivers created new technologies and forms of political and social organization. The geographical similarities were that both civilizations resided on banks of major rivers, Tigris Euphrates, and Nile. Another similarity is that both civilizations developed a writing system. It first appeared in Mesopotamia before 3300 B. C. E.  Cuneiform was the name of it, and wedge-shaped symbols represented words or syllables. Hieroglyphics were the Egyptians’ way of writing, and it had been developed by the beginning of the early Dynastic period. Pictorial symbols represented sounds, syllables, or concepts. Literacy was confined to a relatively small group of scribes and administrators in both of these civilizations due to long period of study required to master the systems. Also, both civilizations had social classes, with the king and the royal families at the top, next were the priests, local leaders and artisans, and lastly, slaves and peasants occupied the bottom. Both Mesopotamians and Egyptians acquired substantial knowledge about mathematics, engineering, medicine, and transportation for various reasons such as, creating calendars, calculating the quantity of agricultural produce, building temples and pyramids, and practice astronomy. Egypt and Mesopotamia were in contrast to one another in many ways. Egypt emphasized strong central authority, while Mesopotamian politics shifted more frequently over a substructure of regional city-states. They were also culturally different; Egypt developed in relative isolation, all foreigners were considered enemies while Mesopotamia was a multicultural society. Also, Egypt was well endowed with natural resources and far more self-sufficient than Mesopotamia. They used papyrus reeds growing in marshy areas to make sails, ropes, and a kind of paper. Hunters pursued the abundant wild animals and birds in the marshes. Egypts art and architecture are very different from Mesopotamia. From pyramids to temples, rigid pharaohs to flowing art of Amarna, Egypts style was totally different from Mesopotamias. Mesopotamian art focused on less monumental structures. In Mesopotamia, women lost social standing and freedoms in societies where agriculture superseded hunting and gathering; whereas in Egypt, they are depicted with dignity and respect, could own properties, and inheritance from their parents was possible. Both civilizations traded differently but Mesopotamia was more productive due to technological advance. Egypt’s interests abroad focused on maintain access to valuable resources rather than acquiring territory. Both Mesopotamia and Egypt were ruled by kings, however, in Egypt, their kings were called pharaohs and they had significantly more power than the Mesopotamian kings of the city-states. Also, relating the above comparisons to larger global context, The Indus Valley is one of the worlds earliest urban civilizations, along with its contemporaries, Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. One of the differences between these three civilizations is that there is a large quantity of metal in the Indus Valley than in Mesopotamia and Egypt, and most metals are utilitarian tools and everyday objects. However, more jewelry and other decorative objects have been unearthed in Mesopotamia and Egypt. Also, Indus Valley people were technologically skilled in irrigation and using the potter’s wheel. They also have a system of writing with more than 400 signs. Like the Mesopotamians, the people of Indus Valley had widespread trading contacts reaching as far as Mesopotamia. There is little known about the political, social, and economic institutions of Inds Valley, however, there is a statue called the â€Å"Priest-King† because some scholars believe it may represent someone with religious and secular authority, but the true identity of this person is unknown. Conclusively, certain traits are indicators of civilization such as: political system based on control of a defined territory, long-distance trade, and major advances in science and the arts are among others, which the earliest societies, such as Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Indus Valley have exhibited. They were the first civilizations to develop high levels of political centralization and urbanization. Because little is known about the Indus Valley people, there is not a lot of information for their political and social status; however, they clearly possessed the technology which par with those found in Mesopotamia and Egypt.

Comparing Characterization in Alias Grace, Their Eyes Were Watching God

Characterization in Alias Grace, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Fools Crow      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood is a novel where the main character Grace is a sort of mystery character.  Ã‚   In the end she is at peace, but there are still many questions about her left unanswered.   Because Atwood's style of writing is informative, yet unclear at the same time, the audience is left to put the pieces of the puzzle that is Grace together themselves.  Ã‚   This leaves the reader guessing about her character.   Two other works that contrast the characterization of Grace Atwood uses in Alias Grace are Janie in Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, and Fools Crow in Fools Crow by James Welch.   The characterization the authors use in these three novels determines how well the reader will get to know the main characters in terms of emotion.      Ã‚  Ã‚   Characterization is one of the main components of writing a novel.   Most of the time in a novel the attributes of the main character are well known.   By the time you've finished the novel, you feel as if you know all that there is to know about that person.   In the case of Alias Grace, Atwood leaves more to questions about Grace's character than are answered.   It seems as if the more you learn about her life, the more of a mystery she becomes.   It is the reader's job to take what is known about Grace and piece her together the best she can. In a review of the book, David Wiley states, "What unfolds is that no one will ever know Grace" (Wiley 3).   Her personality is never totally revealed, and the reader is left wondering who she is. One character, Dr. Jordan never finds out anything new about her personality than any of the other doctors who evaluated her before did.   She t... ...statement:   The characterization the authors use in these three novels determines how well the readers will get to know the main characters in terms of emotion. I.   Characterization of Grace   Ã‚  Ã‚   A.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   What role characterization plays   Ã‚  Ã‚   B.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   How well the reader gets to know Grace II.   Characterization of Janie   Ã‚  Ã‚   A.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Hurston's development of Janie   Ã‚  Ã‚   B.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   What the reader learns about Janie III.   Contrast of Janie and Grace   Ã‚  Ã‚   A.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   What makes the two characters different   Ã‚  Ã‚   B.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Contrasting views on love and marriage IV.   Characterization of Fools Crow   Ã‚  Ã‚   A.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Transformation made by his character   Ã‚  Ã‚   B.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   How his character is developed V.   Contrast of Fools Crow and Grace   Ã‚  Ã‚   A.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Difference in the two character's emotions   Ã‚  Ã‚   B.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Reaction (emotionally) to different situations   

Carr and the Thesis Essay

Edward Carr begins What is History? By saying what he thinks history is not†¦by being negative. In Carr’s words, what history is not, or should not be, is a way of constructing historical accounts that are obsessed with both the facts and the documents which are said to contain them. Carr believes that by doing this the profoundly important shaping power of the historian will surely be downplayed. Carr goes on to argue – in his first chapter- that this downgrading of historiography arose because mainstream historians combined three things: first, a simple but very strong assertion that the proper function of the historian was to show the past as ‘it really was’; second, a positivist stress on inductive method, where you first get the facts and then draw conclusions from them; and third – and this especially in Great Britain – a dominant empiricist rationale. Together, these constituted for Carr what still stood for the ‘commonsenseà ¢â‚¬â„¢ view of history: The empirical theory of knowledge presupposes a complete separation between subject and object. Facts, like sense-impressions, impinge on the observer from outside and are independent of his consciousness. The process of reception is passive: having received the data, he then acts on them†¦This consists of a corpus of ascertained facts†¦First get your facts straight, then plunge at your peril into the shifting sands of interpretation – that is the ultimate wisdom of the empirical, commonsense school of history. 2 Clearly, however, commonsense doesn’t work for Mr.Carr. For he sees this as precisely the view one has to reject. Unfortunately things begin to get a little complicated when Carr tries to show the light, since while it seems he has three philosophical ways of going about his studies – one being epistemological and two ideological – his prioritizing of the epistemological over the ideological makes history a science too complex for comprehension to anyone other than himself. Carr’s epistemological argument states that not all the ‘facts of the past’ are actually ‘historical facts. Furthermore, there are vital distinctions to be drawn between the ‘events’ of the past, the ‘facts’ of the past and the ‘historical’ facts. That ‘historical facts’ only become this way is by being branded so by recognized historians. Carr develops this argument as follows: What is a historical fact? †¦According to the commonsense view, there are certain basic facts wh ich are the same for all historians and which form, so to speak, the backbone of history – the fact, for example, that the battle of Hastings was fought in 1066. But this view calls for two observations. In the first place, it is not with facts like these that the historian is primarily concerned. It is no doubt important to know that the great battle was fought in 1066 and not 1065 or 1067†¦The historian must not get these things wrong. But when points of this kind are raised, I am reminded of Housman’s remark that ‘accuracy is a duty, not a virtue’. To praise a historian for his accuracy is like praising an architect for using well-seasoned timber. It is a necessary condition of his work, but not his essential function. It is precisely for matters of this kind that the historian is entitled to rely on what have been called the ‘auxiliary sciences’ of history – archaeology, epigraphy, numismatics, chronology, and so-forth. 3 Carr thinks that the insertion of such facts into a historical account, and the significance which they will have relative to other selected facts, depends not on any quality intrinsic to the facts ‘in and for themselves,’ but on the reading of events the historian chooses to give: It used to be said that facts speak for themselves. This is, of course, untrue. The facts speak only when the historian calls on them: it is he who decides to which facts to give the floor, and in what order or context†¦The only reason why we are interested to know that the battle was fought at Hastings in 1066 is that historians regard it as a major historical event. It is the historian who has decided for his own reasons that Caesar’s crossing of that petty stream, the Rubicon, is a fact of history, whereas the crossings of the Rubicon by millions of other people†¦interests nobody at all†¦The historian is [therefore] necessarily selective. The belief in a hard core of historical facts existing objectively and independently of the historian is a preposterous fallacy, but one which it is very hard to eradicate. 4 Following on from this, Carr ends his argument with an illustration of the process by which a slight event from the past is transformed into a ‘historical fact’. At Stalybridge Wakes, in 1850, Carr tells us about a gingerbread seller being beaten to death by an angry mob; this is a well documented and authentic ‘fact from the past. But for it to become a ‘historical fact,’ Carr argues that it needed to be taken up by historians and inserted by them into their interpretations, thence becoming part of our historical memory. In other words concludes Carr: Its status as a historical fact will turn on a question of interpretation. This element of interpretation enters into every fact of history. 5 This is the substance of Carr’s first argument and the first ‘positionâ€⠄¢ that is easily taken away after a quick read his work. Thereby initially surmising that Carr thinks that all history is just interpretation and there are really no such things as facts. This could be an easily mislead conclusion if one ceases to read any further. If the interpretation of Carr stops at this point, then not only are we left with a strong impression that his whole argument about the nature of history, and the status of historical knowledge, is effectively epistemological and skeptical, but we are also not in a good position to see why. It’s not until a few pages past the Stalybridge example that Carr rejects that there was too skeptical a relativism of Collingwood, and begins a few pages after that to reinstate ‘the facts’ in a rather unproblematical way, which eventually leads him towards his own version of objectivity. Carr’s other two arguments are therefore crucial to follow, and not because they are explicitly ideological. The first of the two arguments is a perfectly reasonable one, in which Carr is opposed to the obsession of facts, because of the resulting common sense view of history that turns into an ideological expression of liberalism. Carr’s argument runs as follows. The classical, liberal idea of progress was that individuals would, in exercising their freedom in ways which took ‘account’ of the competing claims of others somehow and without too much intervention, move towards a harmony of interests resulting in a greater, freer harmony for all. Carr thinks that this idea was then extended into the argument for a sort of general intellectual laissez-faire, and then more particularly into history. For Carr, the fundamental idea supporting liberal historiography was that historians, all going about their work in different ways but mindful of the ways of others, would be able to collect the facts and allow the ‘free-play’ of such facts, thereby securing that they were in harmony with the events of the past which were now truthfully represented. As Carr puts this: The nineteenth century was, for the intellectuals of Western Europe, a comfortable period exuding confidence and optimism. The facts were on the whole satisfactory; and the inclination to ask and answer awkward questions about them correspondingly weak†¦The liberal†¦view of history had a close affinity with the economic doctrine of laissez-faire – also the product of a serene and self-confident outlook on the world. Let everyone get on with his particular job, and the hidden hand would take care of the universal harmony. The facts of history were themselves a demonstration of the supreme fact of a beneficent and apparently infinite progress towards higher things. 6 Carr’s second argument is therefore both straightforward and ideological. His point is that the idea of the freedom of the facts to speak for themselves arose from the happy coincidence that they just happened to speak liberal. But of course Carr did not. Thereby knowing that in the history he wrote the facts had to be made to speak in a way other than liberal (i. e. in a Marxist type of way) then his own experience of making ‘the facts’, his facts, is universalized to become everyone’s experience. Historians, including liberals, have to transform the ‘facts of the past’ into ‘historical facts’ by their positioned intervention. And so, Carr’s second argument against ‘commonsense’ history is ideological. For that matter, so is the third. But if the second of Carr’s arguments is easy to see, his third and final one is not. This argument needs a little ironing out. In the first two critiques of ‘commonsense’ history, Carr has effectively argued that the facts have no ‘intrinsic’ value, but that they’ve only gained their ‘relative’ value when historians put them into their accounts after all the other facts were under consideration. The conclusion Carr drew is that the facts only speak when the historian calls upon them to do so. However, it was part of Carr’s position that liberals had not recognized the shaping power of the historian because of the ‘cult of the fact’ and that, because of the dominance of liberal ideology, their view had become commonsense, not only for themselves, but for practically all historiography. It appeared to Carr that historians seemed to subscribe to the position that they ought to act as the channel through which ‘the facts of the past for their own sake’ were allowed self-expression. But Carr, not wanting to go the route of his fellow historians, nor wanting to succumb to the intellectual complaints about the demise of the experience of originality, says: In the following pages I shall try to distance myself from prevailing trends among Western intellectuals†¦to show how and why I think they have gone astray and to stake out a claim, if not for an optimistic, at any rate for a saner and more balanced outlook on the future. 7 It is therefore this very pointed position which stands behind and gives most, if not all, of the reason for Carr’s writing What is History? Carr himself seems to be quite clear that the real motive behind his text was the ideological necessity to re-think and re-articulate the idea of continued historical progress among the ‘conditions’ and the doubters of his own ‘skeptical days’. Carr’s ‘real’ concern was ‘the fact’ that he thought the future of the whole modern world was at stake. Carr’s own optimism cannot be supported by ‘the facts’, so that his own position is just his opinion, as equally without foundation as those held by optimistic liberals. Consequently, the only conclusion that can arguably be drawn is that ‘the past’ doesn’t actually enter into historiography, except rhetorically. In actuality there should be no nostalgia for the loss of a ‘real’ past, no sentimental memory of a more certain time, nor a panic that there are no foundations for knowledge other than rhetorical conversation.