Books » Teens Reference

Lively, practical, and irreverent, Subjects Matter points the way to activities and materials that energize content and engage students across all subject areas.

Following the success of 100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know, the editors of the American Heritage® Dictionaries have developed this new book of 100 words tailored especially to high school freshmen. This second book in the 100 Words series focuses on the kinds of words that a successful middle school graduate can learn from rigorous coursework in a variety of subjects and that nearly every freshman will encounter over the course of the school year.
The words have been chosen with various criteria in mind. Some represent key concepts in important areas of the curriculum, while
others are more familiar in meaning but present challenges of spelling
or usage. All are words that students can expect to see regularly in their high school reading and beyond. And each word is fully defined as well as shown in typical contexts with example sentences and quotations, many of which are taken from award-winning authors such as Harper Lee, George Orwell, Katherine Paterson, and John Knowles.
Together, these 100 words represent the increasingly sophisticated and complex vocabulary that freshmen must master as they continue their education at the next level. To learn them is not only to gain useful knowledge - it is to step into a broader world.

The Best Series is a fresh and innovative way to introduce and study genre-specific literature in your classroom. Students can explore and gain appreciation for exceptional and diverse writings in nonfiction, poetry, plays, short stories, and selections from novels. This enriching series strengthens students' reading and writing skills and literary techniques.

Students develop better number sense as they practice rounding numbers, using estimates in computation, approximating measurements and costs, and using special techniques. Answers help students gauge what makes a reasonable estimate. There are forty-eight reproducible worksheets per book. Book A/Grades 7-8

Films such as "Gladiator", "Braveheart", and "Attila the Hun" and books on people such as the Vikings and Celts are drawing attention to the ancient people of Europe. With the end of the Cold War, there is also renewed interest in the people formerly behind the Iron Curtain, such as the Kosovars or Estonians. Other people, like the Basques and Walloons, continue to be in the media, although the historical context for the present conflict is often not well understood. "Encyclopedia of European Peoples" is an A-to-Z reference to the people of Europe, from ancient to modern times, summarizing their origin, language, history, culture, and relationship to other people. This encyclopedia includes entries on all people that for a time maintained a cultural identity. Thus, the reader will be able to find entries on the Gauls and Normans, but also an entry on the "French: nationality," that describes who they are today with cross-references to the various ancestral people. Main entries begin with a fact sheet and a timeline and conclude with a further reading section. Sidebars are placed throughout, outlining the biographies of individuals critical to the shaping of European history, and approximately 200 black-and-white photographs, illustrations, and maps add to the engaging text. Contents include a master alphabetical list of entries, with alternate names and language families or other classifications; entries organized by language family, ethnicity, nationalities, or regions; a table listing the languages of Europe, past and present; a summary of the geography of Europe; a summary of the prehistoric hominids once inhabiting that continent; a list of individuals mentioned in the text, organized alphabetically according to European people; and an alphabetical list of those individuals featured in biographical sidebars, citing the entries where the sidebars are located. A chronology of European prehistory and history, a glossary of cultural terms, and a general bibliography - with general titles on European history and culture, prehistory, and ancient writings - also supplement the text. An index offers the reader additional access to the information.

An invaluable collection of encyclopedias analyzing individual literary genres, the "Companion to Literature" series focuses on drama, short stories, novels, and poetry as they are studied in high school and college curricula. Concentrating on the main authors, works, and movements that comprise each genre, the books also include minor authors and works. Beginning with an introduction discussing the genre and its significance, each A-to-Z encyclopedia contains hundreds of clearly written entries on authors, literary works and terms, themes, historical places, and more. The books are defined by geography and by time period, such as 20th-century poetry or classical drama. Covering everything one needs to know about these important genres, this new series is a perfect companion to any literature course.

"Handbook to Life in Prehistoric Europe" focuses primarily on the period from 7000 B.C.E., when agricultural communities first began appearing in southeastern Europe, to the first century C.E., when western Europe was progressively incorporated into the Roman imperium. Its coverage includes the development and spread of agriculture in Europe; the associated evolution of social class divisions and occupational specialization; the growth of settlement complexity; the emergence of complex belief systems; the development of pastoralism and the interplay between pastoral and agrarian societies; the spread of the Indo-European languages; the growth of militarism; the impact of new technologies; and other major issues.

This book provides a rationale for the teaching of spelling based on the nature of the English language and the natural development of children's spelling ability.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, has long been regarded as the quintessential American writer. Twain's best-known works include The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and The Prince and the Pauper. Always a source of entertainment for readers of all interests, the works of Mark Twain are well-written masterpieces as well as important documents of social history. More than 1,250 entries in Critical Companion to Mark Twain provide analyses and detailed synopses of all Twain's books and stories, examinations of Twain's characters, discussions of key events and episodes in Twain's life, and much more.

Middle Grades Education: A Reference Handbook explores the distinctive middle school approach to helping adolescents develop as human beings and citizens as well as students, with coverage that ranges from the conceptual foundations of the middle school model, to research-based best practices, to sample lesson plans and activities.

Edited by Pat Williams-Boyd, with contributions from experienced, frontline educators, the book showcases a number of places where the ideal middle school has become reality, where individual talents are nurtured, families are involved, teachers serve as role models and advocates, and crucial health and developmental needs are met. Readers will experience classrooms where students dance their math, sing their science, and breathe the winds of history, and where the joy of learning is bounded only by the educator's imagination.