Our goal is to eventually record most books written or edited by Western Michigan University faculty, staff and students. If you are a WMU faculty or staff member and have a book you would like to include in this list, please contact wmu-scholarworks@wmich.edu
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Building Diverse Communities: Applications of Communication Research
Trevy A. McDonald, Mark P. Orbe, and Trevellya Ford Ahmed
An examination of how various methodological approaches can promote a sense of community within and outside the academy. It focuses on the strategies used, then demonstrates how researchers can put the theory into practice. It also highlights how community can be guided via public channels.
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Adeline and Julia
Robert Meyers and Janet Coryell
The keeping of journals and diaries became an almost everyday pastime for many Americans in the nineteenth century. Adeline and Julia Graham, two young women from Berrien Springs, Michigan, were both drawn to this activity, writing about the daily events in their lives, as well as their 'grand adventures.' These are fascinating, deeply personal accounts that provide an insight into the thoughts and motivation of two sisters who lived more than a century ago. Adeline began keeping a diary when she was sixteen, from mid-1880 through mid-1884; through it we see a young woman coming of age in this small community in western Michigan. Paired with Adeline's account is her sister Julia's diary, which begins in 1885 when she sets out with three other young women to homestead in Greeley County, Kansas, just east of the Colorado border. It is a vivid and colorful narrative of a young woman's journey into America's western landscape.
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Dying and dead seas : climatic versus anthropic causes
Philip P. Micklin, Jacques C.J. Nihoul, and Peter O. Zavialov
There are incentive indications that the growth of human population, the increasing use and abuse of natural resources combined with climate changes (probably due to anthropic pollution, to some extent) exert a considerable stress on closed (or semi-enclosed) seas and lakes. In many regions of the world, marine and lacustrine hydrosystems are (or have been) the object of severe or fatal alterations, from changes in regional hydrological regimes and/or modifications of the quantity or the quality of water resources associated with (natural or man-made) land reclamation, deterioration of geochemical balances (increased salinity, oxygen's depletion .. . ), mutations of ecosystems (eutrophication, dramatic decrease in biological diversity ... ) to geological disturbances and to the socio-economic perturbations which have been - or may be in the near future - the consequences of them. Seas and lakes are dying all over the world and some may be regarded as already dead and there is an urgent need to try to understand how this is happening and identify the causes of the observed mutations, weighing the relative effects of climatic evolution and anthropic interferences. This book is the outcome of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop, held in Liege in May 2003. The Workshop was organized at th the University of Liege as a follow on meeting to the 35 International Liege Colloquium on Ocean Dynamics, dedicated in 2003 to Dying and Dead Seas. The book contains the synthesis of the lectures given by 16 main speakers during the ARW.
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From Cuenca to Queens: An Anthropological Story of Transnational Migration
Ann Miles
Transnational migration is a controversial and much-discussed issue in both the popular media and the social sciences, but at its heart migration is about individual people making the difficult choice to leave their families and communities in hopes of achieving greater economic prosperity. Vicente Quitasaca is one of these people. In 1995 he left his home in the Ecuadorian city of Cuenca to live and work in New York City. This anthropological story of Vicente's migration and its effects on his life and the lives of his parents and siblings adds a crucial human dimension to statistics about immigration and the macro impact of transnational migration on the global economy.
Anthropologist Ann Miles has known the Quitasacas since 1989. Her long acquaintance with the family allows her to delve deeply into the factors that eventually impelled the oldest son to make the difficult and dangerous journey to the United States as an undocumented migrant. Focusing on each family member in turn, Miles explores their varying perceptions of social inequality and racism in Ecuador and their reactions to Vicente's migration. As family members speak about Vicente's new, hard-to-imagine life in America, they reveal how transnational migration becomes a symbol of failure, hope, resignation, and promise for poor people in struggling economies. Miles frames this fascinating family biography with an analysis of the historical and structural conditions that encourage transnational migration, so that the Quitasacas' story becomes a vivid firsthand illustration of this growing global phenomenon.
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Dialect and Dichotomy: Literary Representations of African American Speech
Lisa Cohen Minnick
Applies linguistics methods for a richer understanding of literary texts and spoken language. Dialect and Dichotomy outlines the history of dialect writing in English and its influence on linguistic variation. It also surveys American dialect writing and its relationship to literary, linguistic, political, and cultural trends, with emphasis on African American voices in literature. Furthermore, this book introduces and critiques canonical works in literary dialect analysis and covers recent, innovative applications of linguistic analysis of literature. Next, it proposes theoretical principles and specific methods that can be implemented in order to analyze literary dialect for either linguistic or literary purposes, or both. Finally, the proposed methods are applied in four original analyses of African American speech as represented in major works of fiction of the American South--Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , Charles W. Chesnutt's The Conjure Woman , William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury , and Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God . Dialect and Dichotomy is designed to be accessible to audiences with a variety of linguistic and literary backgrounds. It is an ideal research resource and course text for students and scholars interested in areas including American, African American, and southern literature and culture; linguistic applications to literature; language in the African American community; ethnicity and representation; literary dialect analysis and/or computational linguistics; dialect writing as genre; and American English.
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What's Public About Charter Schools?: Lessons Learned About Choice and Accountability
Gary Miron and Christopher D. Nelson
This book is a valuable tool for analyzing the success of the private/public hybrid in serving the core purpose of public education.
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Shugendo: Essays on the Structure of Japanese Folk Religion
Hitoshi Miyake
Essays on the structure of of Japanese folk religion.
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Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning
Ellen F. Monk, Bret J. Wagner, and Ellen F. Monk
Learn how to master and maximize enterprise resource planning (ERP) software -- which continues to grow in importance in business today -- with Monk/Wagner's CONCEPTS IN ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING, 4E. Readers discover how to use ERP tools to increase growth and productivity while reviewing how to effectively combine an organization's numerous functions into one comprehensive, integrated system. CONCEPTS IN ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING, 4E reflects the latest trends and updates in ERP software as well as introduces the basic functional areas of business and their relationships. Readers see how see how integrated information systems help organizations improve business process and provide managers with accurate, consistent, and current data for making informed strategic decisions.
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Evidence-based educational methods
Daniel J. Moran and Richard W. Malott
Evidence-Based Educational Methods answers the challenge of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 by promoting evidence-based educational methods designed to improve student learning. Behavioral scientists have been refining these instructional methods for decades before the current call for evidence-based education. Precision Teaching, Direct Instruction, Computerized Teaching, Personalized System of Instruction, and other unique applications of behavior analysis are all informed by the scientific principles of learning, have been tested in the laboratory, and are often shown to have significant success in field applications. This book details each of these approaches to education based on the principles of behavior analysis. Individuals and agencies responsible for instruction that leaves no child behind will find this compendium an important resource for meeting that challenge, and young educators will greatly benefit from this text, as they will see a blueprint of the evidence-based education systems being planned for the future. * The education literature is replete with fly-by-night ideas and unresearched opinions about how to teach children. This book has none of that. The reader is given researched educational methods. In fact, some methods draw on 3 or 4 decades of experimental data. The whole book is cohesive, not just a patchwork of different educators' opinions. All of the chapters are built on basic scientific principles of behavior, and all of the methods can be used with one another * This is a book by scientist-practitioners, but not for scientists only. A parent can read many of these chapters, see the merit in the methods, and convey the need and the process for each of the methods * No book stands alone, but is connected to a greater literature base. The reader is shown where other information can be found about these methods. * The only thing better than scientific data is scientific data supported by consumer testimonial
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A History of Business in Medieval Europe
James Murray and Edwin S. Hunt
This book demolishes the widely held view that the phrase 'medieval business' is an oxymoron. The authors review the entire range of business in medieval western Europe, probing its Roman and Christian heritage to discover the economic and political forces that shaped the organization of agriculture, manufacturing, construction, mining, transportation and marketing. Businessmen's responses to the devastating plagues, famines, and warfare that beset Europe in the late Middle Ages are equally well covered. Medieval businessmen's remarkable success in coping with this hostile new environment was 'a harvest of adversity' that prepared the way for the economic expansion of the sixteenth century. Two main themes run through this book. First, the force and direction of business development in this period stemmed primarily from the demands of the elite. Second, the lasting legacy of medieval businessmen was less their skillful adaptations of imported inventions than their brilliant innovations in business organization.
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Small-diameter Trees Used for Chemithermomechanical Pulps
Gary C. Myers, R. James Barbour, and Said M. AbuBakr
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An Introduction to Korean Culture
Andrew C. Nahm and John H. Koo
This book is intended to meet the needs of the general reader. Major aspects of traditional, as well as modern Korean culture are discussed reputable scholars specializing in particular fields, and each chapter is prepared specifically to introduce a particular aspect of culture. A brief survey of Korean history and other cultural information are provided to enable the reader to fully appreciate the roots of Korean culture and the ways in which it has grown and transformed throughout the ages. For those who wish to continue their quest for greater knowledge, a selected bibliography is provided at the end of each chapter. Illustrations.
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Interpretations of Native North American Life: Material Contributions to Ethnohistory
Michael S. Nassaney and Eric S. Johnson
"A thoughtful, disciplined, and useful work. . . . The issue of how to interpret North American Native cultures, in all their complexity and diversity, is one that historians, archaeologists, and other behavioral scientists have wrestled with for a long time. This volume is an interesting indicator of where that struggle currently stands."--James W. Bradley, director, Robert S. Peabody Museum, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts"A useful, interesting, and up-to-date introduction to how scholars are using material culture to better understand Native American life. Nassaney and Johnson have done a fine job of bringing together a useful edited reader on material culture and the lives of Native Americans."--American Antiquity"Nassaney and Johnson's volume reminds scholars of the considerable benefits of combining the fruits of archaeological, ethno-historic, and material culture data sources into fuller richer understanding of Native societies of the Contact period."--Journal of Middle Atlantic Archaeology "A thoughtful, disciplined, and useful work. . . . The issue of how to interpret North American native cultures, in all their complexity and diversity, is one that historians, archaeologists, and other behavioral scientists have wrestled with for a long time. This volume is an interesting indicator of where that struggle currently stands."--James W. Bradley, Robert S. Peabody MuseumBringing together the perspectives of archaeologists, ethnohistorians, and art historians, these tightly integrated case studies highlight the significance of material objects to the study and interpretation of Native North American culture, history, and identity. The authors contend that archaeological remains and ethnographic specimens can, and indeed should, be analyzed in tandem with other souces of historical data (e.g., written texts, oral accounts) to expand our understanding of Native culture change and continuity from the pre-Columbian era through the present.The essays in this collection begin with concrete, tangible expressions of Native American culture which, in most cases, were made and used to meet basic human needs or to participate in social and religious life. Material objects invite interdis-ciplinary study because they are a rich source of information about how human societies and social identities were created, reproduced, and transformed. While this volume serves to complement and enhance our historical and cultural understanding of native peoples throughout North America, the theoretical approaches and research methodologies showcased here have implications for studies anywhere people left material traces of their activities, identities, and lives.
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Achieving High Educational Standards for All
National Research Council; Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education; Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences Board on Behavioral; Catherine E. Snow; Christopher Edley Jr.; and Timothy Ready
This volume summarizes a range of scientific perspectives on the important goal of achieving high educational standards for all students. Based on a conference held at the request of the U.S. Department of Education, it addresses three questions: What progress has been made in advancing the education of minority and disadvantaged students since the historic Brown v. Board of Education decision nearly 50 years ago? What does research say about the reasons of successes and failures? What are some of the strategies and practices that hold the promise of producing continued improvements? The volume draws on the conclusions of a number of important recent NRC reports, including How People Learn, Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children, Eager to Learn, and From Neurons to Neighborhoods, among others. It includes an overview of the conference presentations and discussions, the perspectives of the two co-moderators, and a set of background papers on more detailed issues.
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Achieving High Educational Standards for All: Conference Summary
National Research Council, Timothy Ready, Christopher Edley Jr., and Catherine E. Snow
This volume summarizes a range of scientific perspectives on the important goal of achieving high educational standards for all students. Based on a conference held at the request of the U.S. Department of Education, it addresses three questions: What progress has been made in advancing the education of minority and disadvantaged students since the historic Brown v. Board of Education decision nearly 50 years ago? What does research say about the reasons of successes and failures? What are some of the strategies and practices that hold the promise of producing continued improvements? The volume draws on the conclusions of a number of important recent NRC reports, including How People Learn, Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children, Eager to Learn, and From Neurons to Neighborhoods, among others. It includes an overview of the conference presentations and discussions, the perspectives of the two co-moderators, and a set of background papers on more detailed issues.
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Childhood Language Disorders in Context: Infancy through Adolescence
Nickola W. Nelson
This is a MAJOR revision of the previous edition. The language has become more accessible to readers, and material has been updated and included throughout. Speech-language pathologists of all levels of experience will turn to this comprehensive overview of language disorders across the childhood years. This book provides readers with information, instructional goals, and strategies within a systems framework to guide treatment of language disorders from infancy through adolescence in the context of culture, family, home, school, and work. Topics include: language and communication; assessment and intervention; causes, categories, and characteristics; balancing ages and developmental stages; and more. New material on assessment and intervention in early, middle, and later stages as well as a full chapter on severe communication impairment are also included. An solid reference for new and practicing speech pathologists.
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The writing lab approach to language instruction and intervention
Nickola Wolf Nelson, Christine M. Bahr, and Adelia M. Van Meter
This guidebook gives educators an exciting new approach to improving language and writing skills for all students. Developed through a decade of work with elementary and middle school children, the Writing Lab Approach uses computer-supported activities to encourage student progress in each stage of the writing process, from organizing to editing. The book focuses on three key components -- writing process instruction, computer supports, and inclusive practices -- and gives readers a primer on how children develop proficiency with language, a complete guide to setting up a writing lab, a discussion of software features and programs, instructions on using scaffolding to respond to individual needs, and an assessment tool the authors developed to analyze student writing samples. This book is an essential tool for helping all children, including English language learners and students with learning disabilities, become skillful writers and communicators.
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Osprey Island
Thisbe Nissen
From the author ofThe Good People of New York ("Fabulous . . . Wonderfully satisfying . . . This is a voice I'd follow anywhere" --Elinor Lipman), a book about summer, that most incandescent and evanescent season -- about lazy days, fleeting love, and tempers that flare in the heat. Very few people ever leave the tight-knit community of year-rounders on Osprey Island, and fewer yet come back. Suzy Chizek does, though, with her young daughter in tow; a single mother, she comes home in the summer of 1988 to help her father run his hotel, the Lodge. Roddy Jacobs returns to work at the Lodge, too, after a mysterious period of drifting in the wake of the Vietnam War. Separated since high school, Suzy and Roddy cannot help but come together, unsure whether they are in love or simply using each other, and the Island, as an escape from the pressures and disappointments of mainland life. Just before the start of the season, the Lodge's troubled housekeeper dies in a suspicious fire, shattering the Island's equilibrium. Lorna had protected her young son, affectionately nicknamed Squee, from the rages of her alcoholic husband, Lance. When Squee, in his grief and panic, runs away from both his father's ramshackle home and his grandparents, he seeks out Roddy and Suzy, whom he implicitly trusts, bringing the tentative lovers into conflict with volatile Lance. Roddy's mother, the controversial and independent Eden, seems to know more Island secrets than anyone. She loves Squee with motherly intensity, but her righteous defense of him may prove more dangerous than helpful. Can the community save Squee from his father, the very person who is meant to take care of him? Can a town that is fueled by secrets expose itself to responsibility? Is it brave or foolish to leave the familiarity of Osprey Island? In the uniquely ephemeral atmosphere of a summer resort, Thisbe Nissen unfolds an ever-deepening story of ancient loyalties and betrayals, while showcasing the qualities that readers have come to expect from her: exuberant wit, fierce intelligence, and unforgettable warmth and compassion. An ambitious, richly satisfying novel of indelible power and beauty.
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Out of the Girls' Room and Into the Night
Thisbe Nissen
In Thisbe Nissen's award-winning debut story collection, characters teeter on the verge of love, of life, of oncoming cataclysms after which Things Will Never Be the Same. Against the varied backdrops of Grateful Dead shows, anniversary parties, sickrooms, and bright Manhattan vestibules, Nissen traces the joy, terror, and electric surprise that flash between people as they suddenly connect. A fifteen-year-old girl whose mother is slowly dying finds solace in the bed of her best friend's older brother. A wife remembers the early romance in her marriage as she watches her husband's hand, shaky with Parkinson's, lift a bite of food to his mouth. Longtime friends are jolted by their unforeseen attraction to each other; new lovers feel their way by instinct in vans, on futons, an during risky, late-night conversation. Knowing, often hilarious, and always pitch-perfect, Nissen's tales hang inside those moments when the heart is acting and the head is watching, hopeful that the heart is doing the right thing.
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The Good People of New York
Thisbe Nissen
When Roz Rosenzweig meets Edwin Anderson fumbling for keys on the stoop of a Manhattan walk-up, the last thing on her mind is falling for a polite Nebraskan–yet fall for him she does. So begins Thisbe Nissen’s breathtaking debut novel, a decidedly urban fairy tale that follows Roz and Edwin as they move from improbable courtship to marriage to the birth of daughter Miranda–the locus of all Roz’s attention, anxiety, and often smothering affection. As Miranda comes of age and begins to chafe against the intensity of her mother’s neurotic love, Roz must do her best to let those she cherishes move into the world without her. On crowded subways, in strange bedrooms, at Bar Mitzvahs, in brownstone basements and high school gymnasiums, Nissen’s unforgettable characters make their hilarious and wrenching way–and prove, indeed, that good things thrive in New York City.
