Frank B. Baker Books

Teach middle school students to become savvy consumers of the TV, print, and online media bombarding them every day. In this timely book copublished by Routledge and MiddleWeb, media literacy expert Frank W. Baker offers thematic lessons for every month of the school year, so you can engage students in learning by having them analyze the real world around them. Students will learn to think critically about photos, advertisements, and other media and consider the intended purposes and messages. Topics include: Helping students detect fake news; Unraveling the messages in TV advertising; Looking at truth vs propaganda in political ads and debates; Revealing how big media influences the news we read; Understanding how pictures changed America during the Civil Rights Movement; Exploring the language of film and the symbols of costume design; Thinking about how media appeals to our emotions; Examining branding, product placement, and the role of celebrity; Reading and interpreting iconic news images; And much, much more! In addition, the book¿s lesson plans contain connections to key standards and step-by-step activities you can use immediately. With this practical book, you¿ll have all the tools and ideas you need to help today¿s students successfully navigate their media-filled world.

This graduate-level textbook is a tutorial for item response theory that covers both the basics of item response theory and the use of R for preparing graphical presentation in writings about the theory. Item response theory has become one of the most powerful tools used in test construction, yet one of the barriers to learning and applying it is the considerable amount of sophisticated computational effort required to illustrate even the simplest concepts. This text provides the reader access to the basic concepts of item response theory freed of the tedious underlying calculations. It is intended for those who possess limited knowledge of educational measurement and psychometrics. Rather than presenting the full scope of item response theory, this textbook is concise and practical and presents basic concepts without becoming enmeshed in underlying mathematical and computational complexities. Clearly written text and succinct R code allow anyone familiarwith statistical concepts to explore and apply item response theory in a practical way. In addition to students of educational measurement, this text will be valuable to measurement specialists working in testing programs at any level and who need an understanding of item response theory in order to evaluate its potential in their settings.

A quirky, empowering story about a boy recovering from a bear attack with the help of his friends and maybe, some magic. For fans of Lemons by Melissa Savage, Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer by Kelly Jones, and The Canning Season by Polly Horvath. All Newt Gomez wants for his thirteenth birthday is a bike. After surviving a bear attack last year, he thinks this isn't an unreasonable request. Instead, his hardworking parents give him a former taco truck to help him get around the wacky island where they live in the Pacific Northwest. And then Newt and his best friend Ethan find a life-sized wooden bear washed up on the shore. Ethan is convinced the bear grants wishes; Newt doesn't know what to think. Newt also has a big decision ahead: go to middle school on the island, or to the mainland where his warm extended family lives? There, he won't be the only Latinx kid; he doesn't have bad dreams about the attack, and not everyone knows what happened to him. Newt secretly plots to move to his abuela's house, but his truck is stolen with the maybe-magic bear inside. He must confront his fears and adapt to the reality of a world that's often uncertain, but always full of salvageable wonders.

An endlessly surprising fairy tale from the 1930s, introducing an unforgettable heroine and a story that shows that anything is possible with a little imagination