Books by "James A. Pitkin"
5 books found
Reflections of Life in Our Town is a satirical look at life and values in small town America. The book is occasionally absurd, occasionally offensive, sometimes sensitive, but mostly just funny. Our Town does not exist in a time, nor does it really inhabit a specific place, though most of it's inhabitants believe that they are somewhere in Ohio, and all agree that they are definitely on the planet Earth. The citizens of Our Town live life pretty much as any Americans do, dealing with such issues as the spread of communism, the rise of the superstore, and rampaging ogres at the end of the street (?), as we all would. The cast of characters in Our Town is wildly varied, from the senile village elder, Grandpa Genkaku, to the physically indescribable Laughlin twins. There is a child prodigy with a fish bowl on her head, a many tentacled alien from the dark side of Saturn, and of course, the aforementioned ogres. Though varied, together they form a relatively tight community trying to cope with the trials of everyday life. And everyday life in Our Town is pretty much like life in any town. You have your good days and your bad; your successes and your failures. One day, a wandering band of angels is scandalizing the local women, the next day, the circus comes to town. Life is kind of like a roller coaster that way. The citizens of Our Town also offer forays into outer space in order to rediscover previously discovered planets, and a quest for god while in pursuit of a red balloon. While life in Our Town may not be quite as exciting as life in places like Toledo, we generally manage to fill our days quite well. So, these are my reflections of life in Our Town. While some may seem a bit bizarre at first glance, upon closer inspection, they really are not that much different from the things most people experience in life. After all, its about values, and an appreciation for the things which we hold most dear. So, join me as I take a stroll down memory lane. Relax, and have a laugh, just be careful not to step in any ogre $#!?...
Improving the Expository Writing Skills of Adolescents
by Robert J. Kanellas, James Carifio, Lorraine Dagostino
1998 · Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Although sentence-combining researchers acknowledge the importance of syntax-to-discourse transfer, their treatments have achieved it in varying degrees through unclear procedures. Improving the Expository Writing Skills of Adolescents suggests effective strategies for contextualizing learning in the English language arts, focusing on a novel method of syntax instruction called 'discourse-function sentence combining.' The language arts objectives are integrated with ninth grade biology materials.
"The debate over the school's merits and shortcomings has been strong, and at times vehement, even into the twenty-first century. In 2002, the old argument was reopened and the school found itself publicly scrutinized once again. Had it lived up to Pulitzer's original vision of a practical, uncompromising, and multifaceted education for journalists? Was its education still relevant to the needs of contemporary journalists?
In Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes's landmark work on political philosophy, James Martel argues that although Hobbes pays lip service to the superior interpretive authority of the sovereign, he consistently subverts this authority throughout the book by returning it to the reader. Martel demonstrates that Hobbes's radical method of reading not only undermines his own authority in the text, but, by extension, the authority of the sovereign as well. To make his point, Martel looks closely at Hobbes's understanding of religious and rhetorical representation. In Leviathan, idolatry is not just a matter of worshipping images but also a consequence of bad reading. Hobbes speaks of the "error of separated essences," in which a sign takes precedence over the idea or object it represents, and warns that when the sign is given such agency, it becomes a disembodied fantasy leading to a "kingdom of darkness." To combat such idolatry, Hobbes offers a method of reading in which one resists the rhetorical manipulation of figures and tropes and recognizes the codes and structures of language for what they are-the only way to convey a fundamental inability to ever know "the thing itself." Making the leap to politics, Martel suggests that following Hobbes's argument, the sovereign can also be seen as idolatrous--a separated essence--a figure who supplants the people it purportedly represents, and that learning to be better readers enables us to challenge, if not defeat, the authority of the sovereign.