Friday, March 11, 2011

Call for E-book Pilot Partners

Is your literature class currently using an e-book reader, electronic notebook, or tablet computer for delivery of textbook content in lieu of a hardcover student edition?

EMC is looking for partners to pilot a sample from our literature program (grades 6-12) in portable electronic devices. For more information, please contact us at litmail@emcp.com.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

EMC Authors Host Annual Writers Week


February 28 through March 4, Gary Anderson and Tony Romano, authors of EMC’s Expository Composition: Discovering Your Voice, are hosting the seventeenth annual William Fremd High School Writers Week. During this week-long celebration of writing, Fremd students, faculty, and staff learn about the art and craft of writing from nationally-known and local authors, as well as from Fremd student and faculty authors. Since its beginning in 1995, Writers Week has brought more than 200 writers to the Fremd campus in Palatine, Illinois.

Writer’s Week XVII guest writers include Chris Crutcher, Sierra DeMulder, Buddy Wakefield, Dave Cullen, Jonathan Eig, Billy Lombardo, Mary Fons, Julie Halpern, and Fremd alumni authors Daphne Willis ('05), Kathryn Janicek ('94), and Mark Buenning ('03).

I was lucky enough to attend a session on Writers Week presented by Gary Anderson and Tony Romano at NCTE last fall, and it was truly inspiring. To find out more about Fremd Writers Week, visit the website at http://fremdwritersweek.ning.com/.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Read Across America Day March 2

The National Education Association’s Read Across America day is March 2, the birthday of Dr. Seuss. The goal of the NEA’s signature program, now in its thirteenth year, is to build a nation of readers. Thousands of schools, libraries, and community centers across the country participate in this national reading celebration by bringing together kids, teens, and books. The program focuses on motivating children and teens to read through events, partnerships, and reading resources year-round.

In Anna Quindlen’s essay, “How Reading Changed My Life,” that appears in EMC's Mirrors & Windows Level V, she writes,
In books I have traveled, not only to other worlds, but into my own. I learned who I was and who I wanted to be, what I might aspire to, and what I might dare to dream about my world and myself.…There was waking, and there was sleeping. And then there were books, a kind of parallel universe in which anything might happen and frequently did, a universe in which I might be a newcomer but was never really a stranger.
Make sure to celebrate Read Across America by sharing a favorite book with a young person on March 2. For more information about ways to participate and activity ideas go to http://www.nea.org/readacross.