A Long Walk to Water, by Linda Sue Park

This slim (121 pages) volume will leave a much larger impression on you.  Written in 2010 by Linda Sue Park, the Newbery Medal winner for her 2001 A Single Shard, it is a novelized version of a true story, set in the 1985 civil war in South Sudan.

It is told as two stories presented in alternating sections with different colored type, both set in the same place, but from the points of view of two different eleven years olds: Nya, a girl in 2008 and Salva, a boy in 1985.

The girl’s life is harsh, as she much trudge for two hours twice a day to get water for her family, but the boy’s is harrowing, a visceral, gritty saga of pain and survival in the chaos of war.  

Salva, is in fact, a real person, and the hardships he endured were faced by what came to be known as “the lost boys of Sudan,” who were separated from their families and were forced to flee across the African continent as refugees, facing wild animals, vicious armed rebels, and starvation.

The two stories come together in the end in a surprising and emotionally moving way.  

 A Long Walk to Water has a Lexile rating of 720 and can be enjoyed by both adults and kids around grade 4 and above.  I highly recommend it as it is highly uplifting and gives a strong statement about not giving up.  It is also instructional about Africa and conveys an important lesson about empathy for others. 

You can order the book from either of our Affiliate Bookstores, Better World Books or Barnes & Noble using the links on the blog or on the BLS Education Library page: https://blseducation.com/bls-education-library.

If you have any questions, you can email me at blseducationlibrary@gmail.com. 

I hope you enjoy A Long Walk to Water!

How to Write an Awesome Paragraph Step-by-Step: An Outstanding Writing Guide

 There are many writing books out there.  How to Write an Awesome Paragraph Step-by-Step is one of the most useful.  It is the companion volume to How to Write a 5-Paragraph Essay Step-by-Step 

It is a slim 90 page book that is extremely well organized.   It breaks a paragraph down into “Topic Sentences,” “Relevant Details,” and then summarizes as “Writing Complete Paragraphs.”

What makes the book so extremely useful is the way it details each part of a paragraph and not only gives examples, it gives exercises in how to improve every aspect of a paragraph, down to individual words.

These exercises are remarkably clear and include graphic organizers and a variety of examples.  For example, under the topic of “Upgrading Your Topic Sentence,” it gives “Five quick ways to add interest.”  It gives examples and has exercises.  There are many other specific points, including transition words, how to replace weak words, adding rhetorical questions, and transition words.  There are several pages about writing effective closing sentences.

All in all, How to Write an Awesome Paragraph Step-by-Step is an outstanding writing book. It could benefit native speaker writers, but is simple and clear enough for even a beginning English learner.

You can order this book from The BLS Education Library' Bookstore via our Affiliation with Better World Books with free shipping worldwide.  Please click on this link https://blseducation.com/bls-education-library and you will find the ordering link.  You can also email us with any questions you may have at blseducationlibrary@gmail.com.

How to Write a 5-Paragraph Essay Step-by-Step : A very helpful book for students, teachers, and parents

 

Most English non-fiction writing is a form of expository writing.   Though there have been some criticisms of this point of view, the five paragraph essay is the basis for nearly all English expository writing.   It is also the form of most writing tests.  

When I was a high school student, I had a Composition teacher who really emphasized outlining your point into the 5 paragraph essay form.  She made it an automatic process for me and it has served me my entire life.  

How to Write a 5-Paragraph Essay Step-by-Step is the best book I have found for instilling that “automatic process” of organizing your essay idea into the 5 paragraph essay form.  It is a simple, straightforward, 100 page guide that uses templates to teach how to organize and outline your essay.    Templates work well for both 1st and 2nd language English students.  I use this book to teach expository writing or prepare students for writing tests.  I teach EFL and find that it works very well for my online students.  

A criticism of the book is that it does not include example essays or answers, but this also contributes to its small size and price.   

You can order this book from The BLS Education Library' Bookstore via our Affiliation with Better World Books with free shipping worldwide.  Please click on this link https://blseducation.com/bls-education-library  and you will find the ordering link.  You can also email us with any questions you may have at blseducationlibrary@gmail.com.

ENGLISH LANGUAGE STUDIES & INSTRUCTION

ENGLISH LANGUAGE STUDIES & INSTRUCTION

ENGLISH LANGUAGE STUDIES & INSTRUCTION