2018 recommended reading

This year's list of top books from my 2018 reading is as eclectic as ever. A number of the books come from my masters studies in teaching English; others come from my reading to my children, and still others are from my reading for enjoyment or learning, which are often the same thing.

Theological

Family of Pi in Matthew & Reliability of Our New Testament by Russell N. Champlin - These two works were written by a distant relative whose other major publications were in Portuguese. He died this year, but I benefited from his firsthand work with the Greek manuscripts which form part of the textual legacy of the New Testament. The first work is his PhD dissertation; the second is a booklet which he wrote to present the evidence for the New Testament's reliability for non-scholars.

Historical 

John Adams by David McCullough - This book had been waiting in my reading list for quite a while, and it lived up to its reputation. It gave fascinating insights not only into America's second president, but also into the time period in which he lived. A man of the soil in ways that many of America's (famous) early nation builders were not.

Means of Escape by Philip Caputo - This was a gift to me last Christmas; and as the giver has never given me a book I did not enjoy, I gladly read it though I would not have bought it for myself and had never heard of it. It was worth it! It ranges all over the modern world and era as the author relates episodes from his work as a journalist while also managing to turn his story into a narrative.

Teaching English / Education

The Grammar Book by Diane Larsen-Freeman & Marianne Celce-Murcia - My only regret with this book is that I did not spend the money to get the most recent edition when I purchased this. In another context I commented about the book as follows, "I am beginning to associate Diane Larsen-Freeman’s name with the highest quality of materials. As I have explored chapter 33 on “Reported Speech and Writing,” the breadth and depth and level of detail in the chapter was phenomenal, and very useful. Nearly every page of my book has new markings, many with whole paragraphs of key information." The only other grammar book that I feel about like this is Murphy's English Grammar in Use, which has a completely different, and rather minimalistic, approach.

Other People's Children by Lisa Delpit - I have not yet posted about my takeaways from Delpit's book; this is because there are so many of them, not because they are in any sense lacking - and I haven't even finished it yet. It's worth any teacher's/educator's time.

Türkçe ve İngilizce Açıklamalı English Grammar by Seven and Seven - This fascinating work is written by two Turks as an English grammar with explanation in both English and Turkish. As such, it contains fascinating insights and is useful in some unexpected ways.

Second Language Acquisition by Rod Ellis - This is a solid overview on how additional (aka "second) languages are acquired. (previous post)

Fiction

Barbarossa by Iskender Pala - I have not quite finished it yet, but this book has been a fascinating and surprisingly positive journey across the Mediterranean world of the 1500s. This would be a great read for someone who wanted to venture into another nation's literature and worldview.

River of Death & The Dark Crusader by Alistair MacLean - I enjoyed these two books by MacLean; I thought I had read all his works but was pleasantly surprised to find that I had no memory of these two, though they do not rank with his great classics.

Children's

Last Stop on Market Street by Matt De La Pena - This was a book that was quietly beautiful; its message was not flashy. Rather it allowed its message to develop and be powerfully latent within the story and the illustrations without finding it necessary to verbalize it explicitly.

The Quiltmaker's Gift  - This book is another example of exquisite illustrations complementing a deeply-told story. The 'moral' in this story is somewhat more explicit, but it is not preachy. While there is no suggestion that it is "Christian" in the book itself, I feel the story harmonizes at a quite deep level with the message of Jesus.

Songs & Artists

Song: "Awesome" (artist: Charles Jenkins)

Group: The Gray Havens (song - "The Train Station")


Recommendations from years past: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011

Who owns your beautiful idea? Who should? - African Insight

  After teaching a class in which we talked about plagiarism and how to avoid it one week in Expository Writing, the next week I was struck by the below paragraph about music and musicians within African society. This paragraph suggests, of course, one of the major problems that is associated with the concept of plagiarism... who can possibly own an idea? are ideas ever really developed in isolation from the community?

Musicians are respected, but only in the context that the music itself belongs to the community - not to the person who is playing an instrument or singing a song. Those instruments have been developed over many years, while the songs themselves are inspired by the people as a whole rather than by any individual.

~ "The Art of Africa: The 50 best African artists" (emphasis added)

  This topic has a multitude of roots and branches to explore, but it deserves much more nuanced consideration than the average person gives it when they encounter it, often in high school or some related educational setting. Often, the word "plagiarism" seems to be a collect-all term for shared community wisdom, re-used clear expression, laziness, concept-theft, inability to paraphrase, flattery (imitation), and more. Fantastic differences lie concealed within this offensive word.     

another less-explored refuge of quiet in Istanbul

  About an hour by ferry ride from Istanbul (though technically still within the city limits) lies the chain of islands known as the Princess Islands. I have previously posted about the largest one, Büyük Ada and one of the smaller, rarely-visited ones, Sedef Adası. This year, after many times of passing by them, I have visited two of the other main islands in the group, Burgazada and Heybeliada.

Burgazada, from as seen from Heybeliada

 Like Buyuk Ada, these two also have old Greek Orthodox churches or monasteries on them. On Heybeliada, there are supposed to be many old unexamined manuscripts of Christian writings and Scriptures in the library. Anyways, on the recommendation of a friend, I visited Burgazada on a day early in the summer when I needed a chance for quiet. I wandered through the wooded areas, finding my way to the top using paths instead of the main road. You can see my approximation of the path I followed in the picture below.

Burgazada

on Burgazada

Through the open window, looking into the chapel on top of Burgazada

Heybeliada

  Now as a family, we have visited Heybeliada and thoroughly enjoyed exploring it, its lovely national forest, and the quiet streets. 

with the little buddy, watching the boats and the water

Istanbul, in the distance - panoramic from Heybeliada

  In the Orthodox cemetery on Burgazada, there were a variety of interesting headstones: names that seemed to be a mix of German and Turkish (Ingrid Stiedl Ülker), headstones with German, Greek and possibly English on them; and some weren't even really accessible.

Christina K Koymake ??? 2 March 1890
Aomnika D Maypake ??? 6 October1881

from 1946 

Add caption

Ingrid Ulker (1949-1990)

Rene Glaser (1927-1947)

Franz Muhlbauer 1928-1992

  With my interest in family history, hidden cemeteries and their possible histories always interest me.

Elbow's "Illiteracy" - on education, excellence, resistance and compliance

  As I prepare to write my MA thesis in the field of EFL writing and as I am teaching a new class on Expository Writing, I am doing substantial reading on the topic. One of the most insightful writers about writing that I've read is Peter Elbow; below are selections from his article "Illiteracy at Oxford and Harvard: Reflections on the Inability to Write. (A version of the article is here.)

If you can’t write, you can’t be a student. But the inability to write doesn’t get in the way of teaching at all.

...falling in love with teachers is such an efficient way to learn because it solves all motivation problems.

Learning wasn’t enough for them; I had to be made to unlearn and then be built up from scratch.

These commentators emphasize not only how learning leads inevitably to resistance, but also that we can’t learn well without resistance. It seems clear that an important goal for teachers is to help students find fruitful or healthy ways to resist.

That is, in the very act of writing itself—at least if we want to be understood—we have to give in to the code or the conventions. The conventions. To write is to be conventional.

True excellence is rare because it consists of something paradoxical and hard to explain: the ability to be extremely assertive or even resistant while at the same time managing to comply very well with the requirements of conventions, teachers, assignments, and readers.

Elbow, Peter. Everyone Can Write: Essays toward a Hopeful Theory of Writing and Teaching Writing (pp. 8, 16, 17-18, 20-21). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition. (Emphasis mine)

research on Motivation and Education (both Teaching and Learning)

 Besides teaching English, I also at times proofread academic articles as one step in the publication process; this naturally gives me the chance to learn academic things that I would not normally get to learn. Sometimes it is in my field; sometimes it is not. Anyways, through this process, I have come across the quotations below about education, each of which I felt were well worth sharing. 

First and foremost, a commitment to lifelong learning requires an ethical responsibility to remain competent in their work as educators. 

- Tanju Deveci, Job Adverts

*****

The needs learners target does [sic] not have to be their own; they should also be mindful of the needs of others in their surroundings. Should they realize that they can contribute to the wellness of others, they will likely develop a sense of civic responsibility (21). 

This indicates that a learner’s receptivity to others’ contributions to his/her learning is as important as his/her enthusiasm for supporting their learning. (23)

Another interpersonal communication domain identified as important for lifelong learning is ‘engagement with instructors’, indicating that the type of interaction students establish with their instructor during their studies has a determining influence on the effectiveness of learning experiences in later years. (23)

 - Tanju Deveci, "Life-long Learning Skills" in The Skill Approach in Education: From Theory to Practice by Yusuf Söylemez & Firdevs Güneş

quotations from my reading and learning in education and EFL

As a classroom community, our capacity to generate excitement is deeply effected by our interest in one another, in hearing one another's voices, in recognizing one another's presence. 

- belle hooks, Teaching to Transgress 

The worst thing for student security is teacher insecurity.

- Marti Anderson 

We can formulate a rule of thumb: the more context, the less grammar.

Scott Thornbury, How to Teach Grammar, 4

 As mentioned, UBL posits that grammar is not an "out there" system but an emergent property of human communication and, furthermore, that actual language experience shapes language over the full life span.

(

Multilingual Turn, page 40; 

Bybee, 2010) 

...monolingual bias become unsustainable for the field of SLA...

Lourdes Ortega, "Ways Forward for a Bi/Multilingual Turn in SLA", The Multilingual Turn

(The question of bias is expanded on insightfully in Kachru's and Sridhar's articles in the Winter 1994 TESOL Quarterly.)

Regarding reading audience problems: 

Each writer has its own audience (intended readers) that might be part of a discourse community in which there is a degree of shared understandings and knowledge. Your class (the actual readers) may not be part of that discourse community and so they will make very different meaning and will need scaffolding if they want to read it as part of a particular community of readers. This is something to consider as you teach—what is your role as a teacher in this dilemma? 

- Leslie Turpin (4 Skills class) 

The magic of teaching happens when we can get the students off the page, out of the book and into the classroom community sharing the language together. 

Is serving a privilege? (Luke 1:73-75)

  Over the last week or two, I have been pondering these verses which come from Zechariah's prophecy following the naming of his son John the Baptizer - Luke 1:73-75. I read them in the HCSB translation of the Bible. The translation itself aligns extremely closely with all the other translations I checked, but this one is particularly beautiful.

  

  The context includes God's promises to Abraham and David, as well as John's role in bringing about those promises for the Lord's people. There is so much depth here; each phrase is worth pondering individually.

Dancing on the three tips of the Teaching Iceberg

Hawkin's model of the I, Thou, It Triangle which is meant to provide a balanced classroom. Sometimes a circle surrounds the triangle to signify the context or environment in which the class unfolds.

Get ready to dance on the 3 tips of this Triangle / Iceberg Source

In some recent feedback, my professor Elka Todeva used the expression, "the dance between the three tips of the triangle." We know the three tips of the triangle as Hawkin's "I," "Thou," and "It." The beauty of Elka's metaphor, though, is in the subtle reference to icebergs and the suggestion that each of the three tips of the teaching triangle have uncalculated depths beneath them.

So much we don't see Source

The metaphor also highlights the fact that we may be focusing on one tip at any given instant, but we are constantly in motion among the three, in a dance. This implies the emotions of teaching: we may associate dancing most easily with joy, but the other emotions of the classroom may also find expression here.

The 3 Tips of the Triangle, ready for dancing Source

"I need to learn that the pain I sometimes experience in teaching is as much a sign that my selfhood is alive and well as the joy I feel when the dance is in full swing." 

- Parker Palmer,  The Courage to Teach, 75. 

Predictability and Innovation - Where is the sweet spot of teaching?

 Van Lier's model of "Predictability and Innovation in the Classroom" probably resonates and represents every teacher's experience at various times. Something to ponder...

from the article, "Action-based Teaching, Autonomy and Identity (pg 53)"

a summary of material on Teaching English Modals

Function	Presentation ideas	Practice ideas
Requests	- Prep a scene with 1 person constantly borrowing stuff from another (2 students /friends?) “Could I borrow a pen?”, “Could I have a piece of paper?”, etc.	- Give pairs picture cards that suggest requests (tea cup, closed window, heavy box.) Pairs make and respond to requests. - Sts in a café. A is an annoying customer with constant requests. B is the waitress/waiter.
Offers	- Using classroom materials, demonstrate possible offers you can make: “Can I bring you a dictionary?” or “Can I open the door for you?” Each idea can be sketched on the board.	- Sts in a café. A is a customer who just wants coffee and quiet. B is an annoying waitress/waiter who keeps making new offers. - Card game with problems and solutions; A says problem; B must offer a polite solution.
Permission	- Convey that you are a thirsty student. How can you ask to get water? OR, get permission to answer an urgent call, etc.	- In pairs, at a border crossing. A is the customs officer; B is a traveler. A stops B to ask many polite questions.
Ability	- Prep a survey about abilities, 10 questions - Mime different abilities. Elicit or give the question and answer forms.  - Students write a report about a classmate’s ability	- Medical check-up: prepare a set of questions for students to ask each other as part of their visit to the doctor. Then they can add more questions. (This can be adapted for future and past uses.) - Describe an animal’s ability (give pics?)
Obligation / Compulsion / Advice	Draw or project common road signs. Elicit their meaning, helping to correct their forms.	- Have sts create a new sign for their study or living area. - Ask sts to write ideas of ways they can solve their life problems (debt, being unfit, oversleeping).
Possibility / Certainty	- Show a picture of a street with imminent events; ask “What might happen in the next 2 minutes?” - Use a video still to have sts predict what will happen next; then play the video.	- bring a box with unusual, interesting, and/or noisy items in it; ask what it might be used for; whom it might be used by; when… - show a pic of a business meeting with an empty chair; why is the chairwoman late? - guess the jobs of a series of people in pictures - Show the 7 Ancient Wonders; what must have been true about these places and their builders?
Regret		•Think of a trip that you took in the past. What are some things that you wish you did/didn’t do? –Tried local food, visited historical sites, enjoyed the night life, learned the official language,   –I could have gone zip lining when I visited Las Vegas.  I shouldn’t have bought KFC when I was in Nigeria (link)

*Most of these ideas from Scrivener, along with Celce-Murcia.

Other Key Points to Teach:
· “[V]irtually all the modals can express both logical probability and social interaction.” (Celce-Murcia, 141)
o The historical past is a way of softening requests that will help learners practically. (145)
· Both Celce-Murcia and Scrivener implicitly suggest in their formats that an overview of all of the modals may be helpful to students eventually.
· The presentation of functions might include a line that indicates the strength of the various modals in both positive and negative forms.

Three Sources for Teaching Modals
Celce-Murcia, Marianne and Diane Larsen-Freeman. The Grammar Book. 2nd ed. Heinle and Heinle, 1999.
Scrivener, Jim. Teaching English Grammar. Macmillan, 2010
Seven, Rüstem and Özge Seven. Türkçe ve İngilizce Açıklamalı English Grammar. n.d.

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Modals of Probability, positive and negative forms

In their chapter on modals, Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman talk about teaching both the functions of the positive and negative forms. They also show how different modals often work within a single function. The content below is taken from their work, The Grammar Book, but it is displayed in a fresh way. This idea should be expandable to the other modal functions, and it could be expanded to show additional aspects of modality, like adverbials or vocab like "dare."