Blind Bartimaeus Essays

Blind Bartimaeus Essays Blind Bartimaeus Essay Blind Bartimaeus Essay Cambridge, Ontario. Gorman, Michael J. 1955- Elements of biblical exegesis: a basic guide for students and ministers / Michael J. r man. Rev. and expanded ed. p. cm.

How to Make Your Blog Pay for Your Sweat Equity

How to Make Your Blog Pay for Your Sweat Equity When I began blogging in 2009, I never thought it would become an important income stream that would greatly enhance my writing business. Like most â€Å"serious† writers, I saw blogging simply as a means to an end. It was an avenue to build a platform and interest potential publishers and agents for future projects. And everybody was doing it†¦ Fast forward, it’s 2013. And my blog for writers has paid off big in exchange for over 400 posts, endless hours of creativity, and pounding the virtual pavement to get noticed. And yours can too. Break through your blog fog and earn money for your investment. But, before you begin implementing these money-making strategies, your blog must meet certain criteria for optimal success. 1. It must be professional in content and design, with a specific niche and a clearly identifiable target audience. 2. It must provide social proof. Success breeds success. This can be demonstrated through testimonials from satisfied clients, the number of followers you have, or icons reflecting awards your blog has won or industry recognition. For example, in a very prominent place on my site, I display my â€Å"Best of the Web† designation, and my Writing-World.com’s recognition for â€Å"Awesome Blogs†. 3. It must show consistent updates and maintenance. This conveys a sense of commitment, and builds credibility and trust. 4. It must provide good take-away value.    Now let’s look at your money-making strategies: Ad Placement: There is a common misconception that in order to make money through ads, a blogger must have â€Å"super-starâ€Å" status, a massive following, or be willing to settle for a few bucks a month in ad clicks. Not true. Over the last few years, I have earned thousands of dollars, and have had well-known companies and authors such as Good Earth Tea, Healing Hands Massage Clinic, Five Star Publications, and novelist Randy Richardson place ads for their books and services at my spot. If you’d like to experience something similar, you can either pitch individuals or organizations directly, or place a tab on your site that says â€Å"advertise here†. Be sure to have your current stats available, and be able to explain how placing an ad with you can help advertisers to reach their goals and their target market. In other words, what’s in it for them? Blogging Jobs: Using my blog as an oline resume has helped me to hook new clients for my ghost writing, marketing, and other creative services. Through it and testimonials, I have been hired to set up other writers’ blogs, provide creative consultations, and even contribute to e-book projects. Contests and Competitions: Most people don’t see contests as a way of making money through their blogs. But it is. Money can be made both directly and indirectly. For example, a pivotal point in my blogging career came years ago when I placed as a Top 10 Finalist at Write to Done’s annual competition. Though I didn’t get a monetary gift, it gave me mad creative props with blogging peers, and my first paying advertiser. A friend of mine actually won $500 with her blog, through a theme-based contest. It could happen to you! Blogging is a lot of hard work. Follow these timely tips to get a greater return on your sweat equity, with less trial and error.

Current Problems with the US Public Education Essay - 103

Current Problems with the US Public Education - Essay Example Low-income is the source of poverty for a number of Americans today. According to (Strauss 1), the numbers of students of children, from preschool to 12th grade, that benefit from the federal free and subsided feeding have increased exponentially over the years.   Children from low-income backgrounds now dominate most of the public schools. Despite the magnitude of the problem, the federal education policy has not considered poverty to be a major challenge to the education system in the United States. It is obvious that students find it difficult to cope with school hence ends up missing classes or are psychologically affected by the poverty levels in their homes. To emphasize the magnitude of the problem of poverty, a study by National Student Clearinghouse Research Center showed that schools with high-income students sent more students to college as opposed to those that have been sent by schools dominated by low-income students (Strauss 1).The No Child Left Behind Act is one of the major policies that give the parents a leeway to choose schools for their children. The law allows parents to consider taking their children to schools of their choice while at the same time providing a free tutoring platform for schools that do not perform well. Safety is also captured as a major consideration in the choice of the school that the parent prefers. The law provides that both local and state school districts should provide information to the parent in order to make an informed choice of the school to take their child.

Value and Meaning Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Value and Meaning - Essay Example Nozick also states that as human beings, we are always looking for a way to find unity and value and to make ourselves and our lives valuable. He says that we also want our lives and ourselves to have this organic unity (165). He says that the diversity comes to us from us wanting to do a myriad of things with our lives and to take in many different ideas and activities. This means that some of us will have meaning from things that are intrinsic to our selves (e.g. deep meaning within us) while others will see value and meaning in those things that are outside ourselves. Value can have many meanings. Nozick suggests that value is something intrinsic in an individual or in a thing. Value is within someones own boundaries while meaning is something that is connected beyond the specific boundaries that people have within their lives (166). He suggests that meaning is limited by the way that people think of it. People are concerned that meaning has limits and therefore it does. This translates to people thinking that their lives are limited. In order to actually find true meaning for someones life they must understand that there are no limits and that they can do whatever they want in order for their life to have the meaning that they seek (166). However, meaning can also be integrated into value if we connect with things that we also feel are important to us. He says that we also see limitations because we know that we will ultimately die and this will be the ending of us. Even the universe will eventually change its form by dying in some sort of massi ve heat, which ultimately brings its destruction. In my opinion, it is difficult to get past the limitations that we set in our lives because of this believe that things must be limited. A lot of self-help books and other materials state that we are not limited and we have only to understand this so that we can live a life of abundance and prosperity; the challenge is that most people do not believe

Turner Thesis Summary Essay Example for Free

Turner Thesis Summary Essay Throughout history society has to go through many changes that not only affect many of the people but also the areas around the transformation. The main point of Fredrick Jackson Turner’s thesis is what the real essence of America is, and how we’re all influenced by the many changes we have to go through. He believes that American history should not be focused on the extension of European enterprise. The society will have to realize that America will have to be emancipated because of the fact that we had a country with an unlimited amount of boundaries and have to come to realization that we have many closed-spaced limits. The views in the seminal essay share his thoughts on the idea of how the frontier shaped American history. Turner thinks that frontier the is the main reason why America is the way it is today. With America expanding to the west and taking over, it was their job to adapt to the new environment. He focuses on the past and how people were fascinated with the frontier and the way the American West made people think about politics, economics, and culture and religion. Having to moving America to the west comes with many challenges, not only getting used to new things in the area, but also economic issues. You have to come into the new area, and start your new land there. The exploitation of the soil by a raising of unrotated crops of corn and wheat in sparsely settled farming. In the west, they had steady growth of complex nervous systems for the originally inert continent, this is the reason why are one nation today, rather than a collection of isolated states. Areas such as Wisconsin, where they developed a manufactured agricultural interest, and North Dakota, where they have exclusive grain raising, have all influenced these west areas economically. There were many historians who made the attempt to interpret political facts by the light of social areas and changes. They discovered that the growth of nationalism and the evolution of American political institutions were dependent on the advance of the frontier. The legislation of the west, which not only played the largest part of the activity conditioned on the frontier, also developed the powers of the national government. The subject of tariff and internal improvement is the main question that had to do with the slavery struggle in the west. The first frontier had to meet â€Å"Indian questions,† and those questions dealt with the composition of the public domain, the intercourse with other older settlements, of the political extension organization. There were land policies such as having to know the mining experience in regions like Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa, and the Indian policy had been a series of experiments on successive frontiers. Coming to the west, it was expected that getting used to the culture and the religion was a must. The French colonization was dominated by its trading frontier, and the English colonization was dominated by its farming frontier. The conditions of the frontier life came with smart traits of importance. Travelers works along each frontier from colonial days describe certain common traits. Turner states that the most effective efforts of the East to regulate the frontier and came through it educational and religious activity, by interstate migration and organized societies. After reading Turner’s Thesis, it is easy to understand the more important concept of moving the Frontier to the West. He states how we are influenced by the changes the America has to go through. He believes that the history of America should not be focused on the expanding of the west. Turner thinks that frontier the is the main reason why America is the way it is today. He focuses on the past and how people were fascinated with the frontier and the way the American West made people think about politics, economics, and culture and religion.

Maxine Hong Kingston Understanding Her Life through The Woman Warrior E

Maxine Hong Kingston Understanding Her Life through The Woman Warrior Maxine Hong Kingston’s â€Å"The Woman Warrior† is novel composed of myths and memoirs that have shaped her life. Her mother’s talk-stories about her no name aunt, her own interpretation of Fa Mu Lan, the stories of ghosts in doom rooms and American culture have been the basis of her learning. She learned morals, truths, and principals that would be the basis of her individuality. Since her mother's talk-story was one of the major forces of her childhood and since she herself is now talking-story in writing this book, stories, factual and fictional, are an inherent part of Kingston's autobiography. Finding one's voice in order to talk-story, a metaphor for knowing oneself in order to attain the fullness of one's power, becomes one of the book's major themes. The story her mother told her, â€Å"No Name Woman,† is meant to deal with issues concerning a young woman’s life. I think that it is her mother telling her not to be a disgrace to the family’s name. Brave Orchid, Kingston’s mother, grew up in a small village in rural China where every action of the residents was common knowledge to the villagers. The villagers’ mentality then was to weed out the less productive and bad inhabitants that would put a strain on the already poor village. She states how her father would not admit to having a sister because of the humiliation she caused them. The man who got her aunt pregnant wanted to kill her because he did not want to be embarrassed, when actually it was his fault just as much hers. Kingston’s mother tells her this story because she wants her daughter to be the perfect female for their family. "Don't let your father know I told you. He denies her. Now that you have started to menstruate, what happened to her could happen to you. Don't humiliate us. You wouldn't like to be forgotten as if you had never been born. The villagers are watchful." This is frightening for Kingston because she feels that women are being watched to make sure they are behaving the right way for society. Kingston then shows us later in her own telling of Fa Mu Lan, that she is actually strong and doesn’t need to conform to society’s stereotypes. I also believe that the story about her â€Å"Father’s drowned-in-the-well sister† is a warning to be cautious of people trying to take advantage of her. Brave ... ...hing unfamiliar to them, something confusing. Instead of calling the Americans weird or strange, they would call them ghosts. Kingston also says that her aunt â€Å"haunted† her from childhood on. I think she says this because she didn’t understand her aunt’s ways. I don’t think that she was actually haunted; I think that she was just really confused. In Kingston’s book, the myths, talk-stories, and memoirs she puts together help her to understand her own life on her own terms. Whether she is trying to understand the Chinese culture that her mother teaches her or to understand the American culture she is growing up in, the stories are her way of accepting the life that she is born with. Kingston uses the negative influence on her life from her mother to help her understand what her mother expects and an insight into the Chinese traditions. She also uses myths life Fa Mu Lan to help make her will stronger. The stories of the ghosts in America help her to put a meaning on the confusion she is having. All through out the story, the stories and myths teach her about life, either good or bad, and teaches her to overcome her weaknesses to strive to be a modern day Warrior Woman.

Directions in Language Essay

On this essay we are going to expressly talk on promoting Academic Success for ESL Students and also understanding second language acquisition for school, I will take my time to explain Linguistic processes and discusses the linguistic processes of first and second language acquisition. First language acquisition is a complex, lifelong process. And I will also explain in detail the influential factors of social and cultural processes on all aspects of linguistic, cognitive, and academic development. Students that are in English speaking Countries, who English language is very new to need to acquire profiency in the language, and this same student need to learn some things in addition such as, to learn a range of academic content, some of which they are very new to. Now let us look through these major model factors. The model defines factors that enable predictions to be made regarding English learners’ degree of second language acquisition in an academic context. Taking a critical look from the authors angle describe in detail the dimensions and components of the model and gives more clearly several currently popular types of education programs for English language learners in the United States. Such as their degree of adherence to the model. Finally, we compare the predictions of the model, using predicted rankings of relative program success, to the actual measured effectiveness of each program in producing varying degrees of English learners’ achievement gap closure with mother tongue-English speakers. Promoting Academic Success for ESL Students We are going to look critically at, why is necessary to promote academic success for ESL students and Understanding second language acquisition for school. In the recent research by (Thomas & Collier, 1995) shows that when examining interactions among student background you can deduce the difference in treatment and variables and their influence on student outcomes. The two-way bilingual education at the elementary school level which was found has giving a promising program model for the long-term academic success for language minority students. Language acquisition over the years has recently become a thing of necessity for every ESL students, acquiring language as a major tool for effective learning and successful years of study. In a scenario ESL student in country such as USA. It becomes a must for such a student to learn second language, if not it will be a little bit difficulty for such a student to learn fast and even relate with other friends around. ESL students must be encouraged to relate with English speakers and language minority students learning academically through each others’ languages. (Virginia, George Mason University, 1995). Perceptions among staff, students, and parents that it is a gifted and talented program, leading to high expectations for student performance with this kind of influence given to both languages a level of language stability would be achieved to a large extent creating self-confidence among language minority students. The duty of parents to promote both language minority and language majority for closer home-school cooperation can not be over emphasized to help in promoting the influence academic success for ESL Student, their must be cordial relationship between ESL students and Teachers/lectures or between ESL students and other colleagues and more so between wards/guardian and ESL students and the school authorities. We must watchfully guide against racism around us and protect the interest of ESL Students. The continuous support for staff development, emphasizing whole language approaches, natural language acquisition through all content areas, cooperative learning, interactive and discovery learning, and cognitive complexity of the curriculum for all proficiency levels. . (Virginia, George mason university, 1995). The linguistic processes of first and second language acquisition: The lifelong process: For us to really understand the progresses in language acquisition during the school years, it is expedient to recognize the complex, lifelong processes we actually go through to acquire our first language and second language acquisition in parallel processes. The complex oral language development system from birth to age five is universal, without any physical disabilities or isolation from humans. But the most talented five-year-old child entering pre-nursery is not yet half-way through the process of first language development. Research heard it that Children from ages 6 to 12 will continue to acquire steady or continuous distinctions, formal discourse patterns, vocabulary, syntax, semantics, and complex aspects of pragmatics in the oral system of their first language (Berko Gleason, 1993). More so, children that are properly brought up in this level adding reading and writing to the language of listening and speaking across the globe are usually very intelligent, skilled and increase in grades level and a clear increase in language academics subject. Adolescent that eventually gained admission into high school must have learned and acquired lots of vocabulary in every discipline of study and will continue to acquire more writing skills, this process continues like that till you get to adult age. Adult age is very sensitive age as language acquisition is concerned, as an adult you may not be able to learn too more language than your first language you had acquired. So first language acquisition is an unending process throughout our lifetime (Berko Gleason, 1993; Collier, 1992a). Let us take a look Second language acquisition is also a complex phenomenon. We use some of the same processes we have used to acquire our first language, going through progressive stages and relying on native speakers to provide modified speech that we can at least partially comprehend. The influential factors of social and cultural processes There are four major component of model namely, sociocultural, linguistic, academic, and cognitive processes. These four components are interrelated together and for you to really understand their importance in developing second language acquisition processes that occurs in the school context. There is a figure below to show the interrelationship between the four components. Figure 1 Language Acquisition for School (Virginia P. Collier, 1994. ) Sociocultural processes At the center of the figure above, you will notice that other components are surrounding social and cultural processes through the process of acquiring a second language in school. It is Central to that student’s acquisition of language are all of the surrounding social and cultural processes occurring through everyday life within the student’s past, present, and future, in all contexts-home, school, community, and the broader society. The work of Sociocultural may include individual student variables such as self-esteem or anxiety or other affective factors processes in promoting second language acquisition. These factors can strongly influence the student’s response to the new language, affecting the process positively only when the student is in a socioculturally supportive environment. Linguistic processes: A second component of the model, consist of the technical aspects of language development â€Å"(an innate ability all humans possess for acquisition of oral language)†, as well as the acquisition of the written system of language metalinguistic, conscious and formal teaching of language in school. First and second languages across globe include the acquisition of the oral and written systems of the student’s, such as phonology, vocabulary, morphology and syntax, semantics, Pragmatics, paralinguistic, and discourse. (Virginia 1994. ) Academic development. A third component of the model, academic development, includes all school work in language arts, mathematics, the sciences, and social studies for each grade level, Grades K-12 and beyond. It this succeeding grade, academic work dramatically expands the vocabulary, sociolinguistic, and discourse dimensions of language to higher cognitive levels. Academic knowledge and conceptual development transfer from the first language to the second language; thus it is most efficient to develop academic work through students’ first language, while teaching the second language during other periods of the school day through meaningful academic content. In earlier decades in the United States, we emphasized teaching the second language as the first step, and postponed the teaching of academics. Research has shown us that postponing or interrupting academic development is likely to promote academic failure. In information driven society that demands more knowledge processing with each succeeding year, students cannot afford the lost time. (Virginia 1994. ) Cognitive development: The fourth component of this model, the cognitive dimension, has been mostly neglected by second language educators in the U. S. until the past decade. In language teaching, we simplified, structured, and sequenced language curricula during the 1970s, and when we added academic content into our language lessons in the 1980s, we watered down academics into cognitively simple. (Virginia 1994. ) Tasks we also too often neglected the crucial role of cognitive development in the first language. Now we know from our growing research base that we must address all of these components equally if we are to succeed in developing deep academic proficiency in a second language. Interdependence of the four components All of these four components-sociocultural, academic, cognitive, and linguistic-are interdependent. If one is developed to the neglect of another, this may be detrimental to a student’s overall growth and future success. The academic, cognitive, and linguistic components must be viewed as developmental, and for the child, adolescent, and young adult still going through the process of formal schooling, development of any one of these three components depends critically on simultaneous development of the other two, through both first and second languages. Sociocultural processes strongly influence, in both positive and negative ways, students’ access to cognitive, academic, and language development. It is widely advice and crucial that educators provide a socioculturally supportive school environment that enable natural language, academic, and cognitive development to flourish. (Virginia 1994) Conclusion These few points raised above I belief has shown the importance of Language Acquisition for ESL students, crucially I have been able to raise some reasonable points concerning, understanding the relevance of Language Acquisition for ESL student. Promoting academic success for ESL students Understanding second language acquisition for school Then I have been able discuss the linguistic processes of first and second language acquisition which also link to First language acquisition is a complex, lifelong process. More so, I have been able to explain the very importantly the influential factors of social and cultural processes on all aspects of linguistic, cognitive, and academic development and interrelationship between these component and why they must be put in place, if we really want to promote Language Acquisition for ESL students. Without bordering our minds for ever am sure that these points contributed have immensely added to effect of promoting Language Acquisition for ESL students, understanding the importance of first language and second language acquisition and also the processes involved in learning these first and second language. The component involved in enhancing the Language Acquisition had been enumerated above. Reference Berko Gleason, (1993); Collier, (1992) Collier P Virginia, (1995). Directions in Language & Education National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education. George Mason University. Vol. 1, No. 4, Collier. P. Virginia, (1997). Promoting academic success for ESL students Understanding second language acquisition for school (3rd ed. ). Woodside, NY: Bastos. Thomas & Collier, (1995).