EMC offers "spooktacular" reads for your students!

EMC offers “spooktacular” reads for your students!

Looking for a way to bring the Halloween spirit into your classroom? EMC has many spooky tales to engage your students this Halloween season. One of our favorites here at EMC is the classic, Frankenstein:

“It was a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils…[B]y the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.”

This is how Victor Frankenstein describes his creation, the most famous fiend in the history of horror fiction. Today, over one hundred and eighty years after it was written, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus remains the most widely known and influential example of Gothic Romance. More than a horror story, Frankenstein explores the timeless themes of creation and responsibility.

EMC’s Access Edition of Frankenstein is a multilayered piece of reading and includes the following:

·         A biography of the author, Mary Shelley,

·          The historical context of Frankenstein

·         The characters

·         Echoes and illustrations

·         Plot analysis

·         Creative writing activities

·         Projects

·         Selections for additional reading: The Story of Prometheus and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

·         Glossary

·         Handbook of Literary Terms

·         Assessment Manual 

For more ghostly and mysterious reads check out all of EMC Masterpiece Series Access Edition readers at http://www.emcp.com/product_catalog/index.php?GroupID=74. Happy Halloween!

IRA in Chicago April 25-28

The International Reading Association is holding its annual convention this weekend in Chicago (April 25-28). If you can’t make it to the convention, you can visit the IRA Virtual Exhibit Hall at http://www.iraconvention.org/virtual-exhibit-hall.php.

One of the major strands of the sessions at the convention this year is Promoting Reading Engagement. In our teacher focus groups that EMC conducted during the development of the Mirrors & Windows literature program, we asked teachers what was their most difficult challenge in teaching language arts. The most frequent answer to that question was “engaging and motivating students.” We know that one of the often cited problems for many struggling readers is not that they can’t read, but that they don’t want to read. They don’t see any point in reading--they would rather be surfing the net, or on Facebook or texting their friends.

When we developed our program, we tried to meet that challenge head on. The goal of Mirrors & Windows: Connecting with Literature is to help students connect with what they read and to examine their own ideas and experiences. Great literature provides mirrors that help us reflect on our own world and windows that lead us into new worlds. This metaphor for the reading experience expresses the power of words to engage and transform.

Mirrors & Windows provides multiple opportunities for students to make important connections, including text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections.
Text-to-Self Connections: Reader’s Context questions before reading and Mirrors & Windows questions after reading ask essential questions that encourage students to make connections to their own lives and the world around them.
Text-to-Text Connections: Connections to a variety of primary sources and informational readings give relevance to literature by helping students to see relationships between literature and other content areas and texts. The Comparing Literature feature pairs two selections that are connected by common literary elements to develop analytical comparison skills.
Text -to-World Connections: Cross-curricular connections are embedded within selections and provide relevant background informational on other subject areas.

Mirrors and Windows provides the tools you need to engage your students in reading!

EMC's "Fresh, Modern, Diverse" Selections

A teacher in Denton, Texas commented that many of her colleagues expressed that they were pleased with EMC's "fresh, modern, diverse" selections.

Are you tired of teaching the same old literature selections? Engage your students with works by these contemporary authors found only in EMC’s Mirrors & Windows:

Donald Barthelme, Jean-Dominique Bauby, Christy Brown, Octavia Butler, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Mark Doty, Phil George, Allen Ginsberg, Donald Hall, William Least Heat-Moon, Hergé, Ha Jin, Bill Holm, Khaled Hosseini, Jane Kenyon, Jack Kerouac, Ted Kooser, Anne Lamott, Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Audre Lorde, Robert Lowell, Wing Tek Lum, Kathleen Norris, Gordon Parks, Graham Salisbury, Eric Schlosser, Gary Snyder, Twyla Tharp

Give your students something to read

that will get their attention and hold their interest!

Literature that is current...relevant...compelling...thought-provoking.

EMC's Mirrors & Windows