College Texts Research Articles

A small organ with a vital function

Prostate cancer is a growing health-care problem in North America and Europe. The increasing frequency of this disease is caused in part by progress made in the treatment of cardiovascular disease, which has led to a rise in the number of elderly people. The prostate is a small organ with a very vital function, although it is only active for a short cumulative period during a man’s lifetime. The prostate gland produces the components that sperm need to survive between ejaculation and conception. There are several interesting facts about prostate cancer. Even though the prostate makes up less than 0·1% of a person’s body weight, around 30% of all male cancer arises in this small organ. There are also substantial differences in frequency of this cancer between different populations worldwide; AfricanAmericans living in the USA have a 100-fold increased risk of developing prostate cancer compared with African-Americans living in Shanghai, China, for example. Furthermore, prostate cancer is extremely uncommon in men younger than age 50 years (incidence <0·1%), and more than 85% of all cancers are diagnosed after age 65 years. Researchers do not know what happens during the sixth and seventh decade of life that triggers this sharp increase in incidence. Even though prostate cancer is generally diagnosed in elderly men, the mortality of this disease is substantial. In Sweden, more people die from prostate cancer than from any other malignant disease. Although prostate cancer is common, its cause is mostly unknown, with one exception. All epidemiological studies show that men who have a close relative who has had prostate cancer have a 2–4-fold increased risk of developing the disease (figure). The greater the number of family members with prostate cancer, and the younger the age of onset of the disease in the family, the more likely a man is of having prostate cancer himself. Studies in twins are done to estimate the genetic component of a disease by comparing its incidence in monozygotic and dizygotic twins. In a meta-analysis of twin registries in the Nordic countries, the chance of inheriting a predisposition for prostate cancer was 0·40. This result does not suggest that 40% of all prostate cancers are inherited, but rather that 40% of the overall risk factors are genetic, and 60% are nongenetic. To the surprise of the investigators, prostate cancer had the highest heretability of all cancers studied, even higher than breast cancer and colorectal cancer. The evidence therefore indicates that genetic factors are of great importance in the development of prostate cancer. Hereditary diseases are not as rare as suggested by my lecturers in medical school, nor are they generally diagnosed in the first decades of life, as noted in my college text books. Finding the genes that cause hereditary prostate cancer has not been as straightforward as scientists had hoped it would be, based on their experiences with the identification of genes for breast cancer and colon cancer. Several research groups worldwide have done extensive work to identify these genetic factors. In 1996, scientists from USA and Sweden localised the first prostate cancer susceptibility gene (HPC1) to chromosome 1. Since then, several additional prostate cancer genes (HPCX, PCAB, PCAP, HPC20, and ELAC2) have been located on different chromosomal loci. Despite extensive efforts, no gene for prostate cancer susceptibility has been fully identified and cloned. One explanation for this failure is that hereditary prostate cancer is a remarkably heterogeneous disease. Furthermore, the high rates of sporadic cases of the disease in families, its late age of onset, and the different modes of inheritance (dominant, recessive, and Xlinked), makes the identification of prostate cancer genes a very difficult task. Hopefully, the sequencing of the human genome will speed up identification of new prostate cancer susceptibility genes. As prostate cancer is one of the major diseases among men in the western world today, the need for a better understanding of the biology of the disease, to develop new therapies, is obvious. Identification of genes that are directly or indirectly involved in the development of prostate cancer will, no doubt, help to fight it. One preventive strategy involves the identification of high-risk populations, who can then be offered surveillance programmes. Once developed, preventive drugs could have an important role in these populations. Optimistically, such drugs could be available within the next 5–10 years. Family with hereditary prostate cancer Black square=prostate cancer; black and white squares and circles=cancer other than of the prostate; shape with the number 4 inside=four unaffected siblings; numbers outside shapes=age of onset of cancer.

The Literary Presidency

American Constitution is quite succinct as to qualifications and responsibilities of president of United Under Article II, Section 1, the executive power shall be vested in a President of United of America, who must be a natural born citizen, at least thirty-five years of age, and been fourteen years a resident. Article II, Section 2 specifies president's responsibilities and duties. He is commander in chief of Army and Navy of United States and will have power to make treaties, appoint ambassadors, other public and consuls, judges of Supreme Court, and all other officers of United States. Section 3 adds to these responsibilities State of Union address and empowers president to convene Congress on extraordinary occasions and to receive ambassadors and other public ministers and take care that laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all officers of United States. But Americans consider more than constitutional job description when electing a president. There is an of [that] is embedded in public mind.(1) Thomas E. Cronin would describe this impression as an unwritten presidential job description, one we carry around in our heads, which is weighed in when making a presidential choice: It calls for president to be a visionary problem-solver, a unifying force for nation, a healer and sage. Thus, every four years we search anew for a superstar blessed with judgement of Washington, brilliance of Jefferson, genius of Lincoln, political savvy of FDR, and youthful grace of JFK.(2) This vision of presidency as all-powerful superstar was, according to Cronin, particularly potent in 1940-1966 period.(3) next decade (1966-1977) Vietnam, Watergate, and Nixon--tarnished star's luster but did not dim it. quadrennial search continues. Cronin, in State of Presidency, discusses sources of this impression of as being derived from 1950s and 1960s textbooks and from prime-time television. Their sources, no doubt, are rooted in FDR, who rescued nation from the depths of Great Depression and was a stalwart solider of freedom, and in Truman, who brought World War II to a proud conclusion.(4) This article will argue for a third element to be added to these two to make a triadic presidential mythos. Popular political fiction of 1960s and early 1970s provides a third source for presidential mythos, a source that is remarkably consistent with textbook and prime-time images of presidency. But before examining third, literary element of mythos, what is textbook and prime-time presidency? College texts of 1950s and 1960s describe a that was growing dramatically larger, gaining significantly more resources, and responsibilities.(5) presidency, according to these texts, had already acquired mythic stature and power. Clinton Rossiter, in American Presidency, even describes as a mythic source: The final greatness of Presidency lies in truth that it is not just an office of power but a breeding ground of indestructible myth.(6) This incredible power, real and mythic, of is practically imperial, as a look at a sample presidential job description from an introductory text proves: If President is a king, it is equally clear he is no mere constitutional monarch. For in an era in which many monarchies all over world have disappeared, and power of kings has declined, power of President has enormously increased ... attributable mainly to fact that President is literal embodiment of American mass democracy.(7) Cronin also asserts that television is another source of American presidential mythos, making president hero of silver screen. …

Textbooks and Teaching: A Lesson from Students

Doctoral degrees are awarded in curriculum and instruction. Annual compendia offer strategies for improving classroom teaching performance. Methods for interacting with students, raising their interest and increasing their achievement are taught in workshops, conferences and education classes across the nation. The only element in the teaching mix that receives little attention is the backbone of almost every college course: the textbook.1 This study is an assessment of college textbooks by the second most authoritative source: the students who use them. The investigation appraises the value of college texts as perceived by a general population of students at two U.S. universities. These general findings about texts are compared with findings about mass communication textbooks from a sample of such students at a wide variety of programs across the country. The study offers a depth probe of the specific aspects of a textbook that college students say make it either a valuable learning tool or an impediment to learning. As perhaps the only study of its kind, and with a sample of 1,170 students, the findings offer some surprisingly satisfying outcomes for mass communication teachers and recommendations of what all teachers should consider before adopting a textbook. Background With so much riding on textbooks - teachers building their content around the text and expecting students to learn from the text - it is peculiar that so few empirical studies exist about college textbooks. This review presents what is known about college textbooks and offers considerations about the content and presentation of college texts that underpin the study's hypotheses. Research studies on mass communication texts are reviewed. College textbooks. Instructors at the college level have considerable latitude in selecting a text compared with their pre-college peers,2 and the research is clear about textbooks' instructional value. They serve as effective tools in improving the quality of education and have great influence on teaching and learning.3 For college teachers, texts develop guidance to the subject and can help measure how students' motivation is influenced by the nature of academic tasks in classrooms.4 Textbooks provide uniform content for individual college students to study according to their own ability, motivate greater involvement and help instructors, especially the beginners, to design their courses.5 Students find textbooks easier to read than primary source material, which leads to higher self-efficacy perceptions for understanding the course and more motivated behavior for students. Students are most affected when texts provide clear and comprehensible information that is neither too similar nor too contradictory to their current knowledge.6 A text's readability is an important consideration even at the college level. The same readability formulas used to assess mass media are employed for textbooks with nearly the same result: debate about the formulas' ability to determine a text's grade level and whether sentence structure equates to clarity of meaning.7 Yet the text's reading level is considered extremely important to student success in a class.8 In all, the literature views college textbooks as being equally essential to students' understanding and achievement as those at pre-college levels, with the additional advantage being that teachers have more responsibility in selecting texts. Textbook content criteria. Because most college faculty do choose their own texts, what should they look for and what might students suggest about a helpful text? The content is divided into three areas: (a) the textual writing, (b) the cues that help interpret the writing, and (c) all other aspects of a textbook. Of the three content dimensions, textual writing has received the most research attention because it deals with reading skills, readability and cognitive aspects of the learning process. …

Treatment of the Holocaust in Western and World Civilization Textbooks: An Update

64 SHOFAR Winter 1997 Vol. 15, No.2 TREATMENT OF THE HOLOCAUST IN WESTERN AND WORLD CIVILIZATION TEXTBOOKS: AN UPDATE by Joel Epstein Joel Epstein is Professor of History at Olivet College in Michigan, where he has taught since 1968. He has published in English history (Francis Bacon: A Political Biography and several articles on Bacon) as well as several articles dealing with Holocaust education. His first work on the subject of the treatment of the Holocaust in college texts, "The Holocaust as Non-History: Coverage in College Western Civilization Textbooks" appeared as a chapter in Methodology in the Academic Teaching of the Holocaust. Dr. Epstein holds a doctorate in history from Rutgers University and has taught a course on the Holocaust regularly at Olivet since 1979. I write as a European historian who directs a World Civilization program as well as someone who has taught a course on the Holocaust regularly since 1979. I have been concerned for some time about the overall inadequate treatment of the subject in standard Western and World Civilization textbooks. I first addressed the problem in "The Holocaust as Non-History: Coverage in College Western Civilization Textbooks."' While many texts had upgraded their treatment of the Holocaust and some even dealt with it with intelligence and sensitivity, even the best accounts failed to recognize it as a major historical event. It was still considered something that took place during World War II and given significantly less attention than the military history of the war. Some texts 'Published as Chapter 14 in Zev Garber, ed., Methodology in the Acadernic Teaching of the Holocaust (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1988), pp. 263-275. Treatment of the Holocaust in Textbooks 65 discussed Nazi antisemitism in the 1930s more thoroughly than they treated the "Final Solution." It was also true that many historians did not realize that antisemitism was at the very core of Nazism itself. My "realistic prescription for change" was to suggest that general texts devote a chapter to the subject of genocidal violence in the twentieth century. Such a chapter would focus on the Holocaust as the ultimate example of violence clearly emphasizing its uniqueness, while also discussing other classic examples of systematic mass murder. While the Holocaust would not be diluted in importance; students would clearly see how genocidal violence has permeated our country. The legacy of the Holocaust would be conveyed all the more potently if updated to include the several examples ofgenocidal violence since 1945. Such examples give potency to the question ofwhether the world has learned sufficiently from Auschwitz.2 It is important to analyze treatment ofthe subject in the latest editions of texts studied in the first article as well as coverage in newer texts. Questions such as whether standard texts have strengthened their accounts of the Holocaust and whether new texts treat the issue more carefully will be addressed. One must also be interested in learning whether specific texts address the question of the Holocaust's uniqueness, as well as its centrality in Nazi policy. The question of whether text coverage has been affected by more recent examples ofgenocide also needs to be addressed. Finally, if in fact there are still significant problems with how general college texts deal with this subject, then serious thought must be given to once again looking at a realistic and constructive solution to these problems. The advances made in Holocaust education have positively impacted on general textbook treatment of the subject. While inadequacy in some accounts is still a problem, one can legitimately expect more sophisticated approaches to the topic.. Texts should no longer merely refer ~o Hitler's annihilation of six million Jews as one component of the overall tragedy ofWorld War II. The deliberate intent to murder Europe's Jews as a central (if not the central) element in German policy should be briefly discussed. In addition, the uniqueness of the Holocaust in' history needs to be explained. These important concepts should be articulated at the outset of the few pages allocated in a text for discussion of the Holocaust. In this way the student is made aware of the importance of the Holocaust in "The Bosnian example and other...

Progress and Poverty: An Economic and Social History of Britain, 1700-1850.

This is a major college text. It will become prescribed reading for anyone studying British history in the 18th and 19th centuries. The book examines the massive structural change, the creation of national markets, and the economic growth which characterized the movement from agriculture to industry. In 1700 Britain was a rural country. By 1850, the year before the Great Exhibition, it was 'the workshop of the world'. The debate on the relationship between poverty and progress is at the core of this clear and wide-ranging analysis of the world's first industrialized nation.

Progress and poverty: an economic and social history of Britain, 1700-1850

This is a major college text. It will become prescribed reading for anyone studying British history in the 18th and 19th centuries. The book examines the massive structural change, the creation of national markets, and the economic growth which characterized the movement from agriculture to industry. In 1700 Britain was a rural country. By 1850, the year before the Great Exhibition, it was 'the workshop of the world'. The debate on the relationship between poverty and progress is at the core of this clear and wide-ranging analysis of the world's first industrialized nation.

Consensus and Contradiction in Textbook Treatments of the Sixties

Working as a free-lance development editor on (nonhistory) textbooks over past five years, I've learned something of how college texts are written, edited, and marketed. (A development editor plays no role in commissioning or shaping general direction of a text but acts as an internal coordinator of reviewing and rewriting process.) Most obviously, they are produced in a completely different fashion than scholarly monographs. Authorship does remain an important factor, however, both because reputation of major scholars helps sell textbooks and because college-division editors have no illusions that these books can be written by computers. But all textbooks are consciously assembled, vetted, and packaged to a considerable extent by people other than titular authors -no surprise to hundreds of professors in every discipline who are routinely invited to review manuscripts for a modest fee. It is this reviewing process, largely an unscientific form of market testing, that indicates central impulse of textbook publishing: valid comparison for any text is immediate competition. There is nothing submerged about these concerns. The most important question in standard questionnaires sent to reviewers is final one, Will you consider adoption of over your present text? To secure a sufficient number of Yes responses to this question, editors who commission textbooks seek to balance originality and familiarity. Does a given manuscript cover same material as its rivals, as well as they do or even better? Does it establish itself as innovative through a new approach that market may or may not warrantin other words, is it a mainstream or a niche book, or can it be both? Most important, does it suit a typical teacher at one standard level of college teaching (elite liberal arts college or major public university, small state campus or religious school, or community college)? I refer to conditions under which textbooks are written because they help explain most obvious fact about them: they tend to be remarkably similar in what is and what is not included; how an incident, person, or occasion is described; and in sequence used to establish relationships among events. In case of what we call the sixties, a category with a personal resonance for most authors, as well as for current political discourse, this conventionality takes on a distinctive

Teaching Argument and the Rhetoric of Orwell's "Politics and the English Language"

its principles in the linguistic formulation of Newspeak in 1984, I am surprised to have searched Orwell scholarship unsuccessfully for a specifically rhetorical treatment of the essay. Briefly analytic (and critical) is AlbertJ. Brouse's 1974 note registering his disagreement with Orwell's criticism of Harold Laski's prose in the former's list of not especially bad examples of English as it is now habitually written. Brouse feels that Orwell should be stripped of the golden essay award for the most anthologized essay in college texts on the basis of a miscount of negatives in one of the pieces Orwell attacks (Brouse argues that there are really seven negatives in the sentence rather than, as Orwell would have it, five). The closest to a developed analysis is Cleo McNelly's 1977 On Not Teaching Orwell, in which the first two sentences of Politics are shown, in a long paragraph, to be rhetorically complex, and thus, from McNelly's perspective (following Mina Shaughnessy's Errors and Expectations of the same year), unsuitable for the basic or developmental writing student, as is the entire essay, in that Orwell will fail [the student] as a guide, if not as a model as well (557). Shaughnessy writes of Orwell's plain style, To urge a student to emulate such 'simplicity' without exploring it thoroughly is to push him far beyond his verbal resources and encourage the very formalese a writer such as Orwell was careful to avoid (196-97). McNelly's and Shaughnessy's points, in terms of my essay, bear, as noted, on the uses of Politics as a model or

David M. (Mike) Moore &amp; Francis M. Dwyer, Eds. (1994). Vlsual Llteracy: A Spectrum Of Visuai Learning. Engeewood Cliffs, Nj, Educational Technology Publications

AbstractThis book is found tobe useful asa reference and college text that provides a needed overview of the multiple disciplines and perspectives that constitute the world of visual literacy. It is well organized; the editors offer connective and informative inter-chapter commentary, and the text is supported by a thorough table of contents, bibliographies for each chapter, brief biographies of the contributors and an index.Its shortcomings include a neglect of the actual and possible role(s) of art in visual literacy and the eye of an artist in the book's illustrations and layout.

Global Organizing Themes for Biology Students

O VER the past 40 years, we have witnessed an information explosion in the life sciences that is probably unparalleled in any other discipline. This situation has created the very real possibility that beginning students of life science may miss the forest for the trees (National Science Board 1986). In our experience, the uninitiated student who has not yet constructed a personal framework within which to order the diversity of concepts that characterize beginning courses is often perplexed by their interrelationship. The rapid-fire introduction to in most high school and beginning college texts in general biology, which for most instructors is a necessary but peremptory inclusion in their courses, adds to students' confusion. For seven years, we have taught and to first-year college students in an integrated curriculum (Garafalo & LoPresti 1993, 1986). This approach alleviates many of the problems associated with chemistry cram by presenting students with explicit and continual links that demonstrate the underpinnings of life science in physical science. The integration of the two courses also led to major changes in the structure of each course. For example, the introduction of the concept of energy through consideration of macroscopic objects in familiar circumstances delayed discussions of molecules and bonding in chemistry, and of biological molecules and cell structure in biology. This in turn led to the development of a top-down approach in biology, one in which the initial focus is the ecological relationship among organisms. In this approach, a discontinuity arises when making the transition from the macroscopic to the microscopic living world. Ultimately, it was this set of circumstances that prompted us to restructure the course around three organizing themes that would better convey to our students a sense of internal continuity within the discipline of biology, and at the same time emphasize to them that viewing the study of as merely applied and physics was inaccurate and overly simplistic. Here we describe how these themes uniquely characterize and discuss how they can serve as organizing foci for general and other beginning courses (e.g. one-semester courses in human biology). In a report on the use of student self-assessment of biological concepts, Heinze-Fry (1992) listed 27 concepts. Perusal of popular texts indicates that 30 to 40 chapters grouped in sections such as biology of cells, biology of organisms, etc., are the norm in general books. This organization makes sense to someone with an existing knowledge structure, but may not be as valuable to the beginning student who is not yet clear about the relationships among the many levels of biological organization. Figure 1 suggests a scheme for beginning courses organized around three encompassing thematic properties of organisms: autopoiesis, system properties and self-organization. Included in the figure are a range of ideas in the physical and information sciences to which these properties are closely related.

Aristotelian Logic (review)

130 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 32:1 JANUARY 1994 definition, "prudent fortitude" (phronimoskart~,6a). Its downfall is caused by the identification of "prudence" with technical skill. (A more detailed argument in favor of "prudence " as a translation would have been helpful.) Schmid claims that Laches conceives of "prudence in a merely technical sense~ and that he cannot "distinguish prudence from art" (123). However, it is Socrates who, in examining what phronimos means, offers examples borrowed from the technai.In other words, it is he who suggests techni as a possible model for the prudence that is courage. Since he eventually rejects his own suggestion, it is at least possible that Plato's intention here is to point to a conception of moral knowledge that is precisely not a techn/. For Schmid, the main lesson of the refutation is that it reflects "an inherent conflict in the traditional Greek ideal of honor and virtue" (123). Perhaps it does, but it is nonetheless possible that some version of the Bonitz thesis can yet be maintained; perhaps the refutation is meant to suggest a "nontechnical" conception of moral knowledge . If so, then the dialogue is simultaneously aporetic and productive. It ends without an explicitly successful definition of courage, but supplies the materials from which such a definition can be constructed. This view, which I think is plausible, varies significandy with Schmid's basic thesis. Nevertheless, Schmid's own argument is powerful and must be taken seriously. This is a fine book, rich in detail and nuance. It is filled with probing observations and clearheaded arguments. On Manly Courageshould be consulted by every serious student of the Laches. Its prose is lucid and it is written with conviction. Schmid takes Plato seriously. For him the dialogue is more than an antiquarian's delight or a convenient opportunity to exercise his academic skills. Instead, the Laches is a book that can teach its readers important lessons about courage. This reader was left with the impression that Schmid has long cared and wondered about the idea of courage, and that he has turned to Plato for guidance. His commentary is designed to help others do the same. DAVID ROOCHNIK WilliamsCollege William T. Parry and Edward A. Hacker. AristotelianLogic.Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991. Pp. x + 545. Cloth, $49-5o- Paper, $16.95. Readers of this journal may find this book interesting and useful for several reasons. First, it treats the topics of traditional or Aristotelian logic--terms, definitions, standard categorical propositions, the traditional square of opposition, immediate inference , categorical syllogisms, sorites, enthymemes, hypothetical and disjunctive syllogisms , fallacies--as they have been treated in the history of logic and philosophy. Most notably, the authors devote a whole chapter to presenting Aristotle's deductive system for reducing all valid forms of categorical syllogism to certain primitive syllogistic forms, taken as axiomatic. The authors thus present far more than just the concepts of traditional logic and instructions on how to apply them. They are concerned with the theory behind these notions and want to develop that theory accurately in accord with traditional approaches. In the course of doing this, they present copious historical BOOK REVIEWS 131 references, both in footnotes and appendices, which should constitute an additional source of interest to historians of philosophy. Indeed, the books ends with a minihistory of logic from Aristode through G6del, with mention of major contributors in the ancient, medieval, and modern periods. This book is intended as a college text. I have serious reservations about this. The book's style is extremely dry and academic. I often wondered whether students would have any interest in the concepts defined and illustrated (I fincl little motivation to pique that interest), or with how much enthusiasm they would master the rules and definitions presented, sometimes with daunting multiplicity. It would be unfortunate if a student perceived a major component of his or her logic course as simply a body of rules and definitions to be memorized and then promptly forgotten. My impression is that for beginning logic students the text is written at too high a level, demanding a commitment to the subject and a level of sophistication and familiarity...

Race in biology and anthropology: A study of college texts and professors

AbstractInformation about social issues is underemphasized in college science education. This article takes the race concept as an example of this neglect. We review the history of the race concept and report the current status of the concept in textbooks and among professors. Responses to surveys of faculty at Ph.D.‐granting departments indicate that 67% of biologists accept the concept of biological races in the species Homo sapiens, while only 50% of physical anthropologists do so. Content analysis of college textbooks indicates a significant degree of change over time (1936–1984) in physical anthropology but a lesser degree in biology. We suggest several reasons for the dissimilarity in the two disciplines. We propose continued use of the concept for some infrahuman species, while abandoning its application to Homo sapiens. For those biologists and anthropologists who continue to use the concept, scientific accuracy can be achieved by the presentation in lecture and text of the following ideas: first, consensus among scientists on the race concept's utility and accuracy does not exist; second, there is more variation within than between so‐called races; third, discordant gradations due to natural selection, drift, and interbreeding make consistent racial boundary lines impossible to identify; fourth, past use of the race concept has had harmful consequences; fifth, the most precise study of human hereditary variation maps one trait at a time; and sixth, racial labels are misleading, especially as most populations have a cultural designation.

What Shall We Tell the Children? The Press Encounters Columbus

NATIONS OUTGROW HEROES, the way children must learn to live without Santa. Lenin is being toppled in Russia. The Federal government removed Custer's name from his national park. It is now Christopher Columbus's turn at the chopping block. Journalists, editorial writers, and talk show hosts suddenly see in Columbus a hot prospect, now he has become controversial.This article looks at some of the opening skirmishes of this surprising Quincentenary year conflict over a hero, as presented in the press, with a special focus on how this conflict has become the bugbear of right-wing commentators. James Axtel, in 1987, sounded one of the first scholarly warnings all was not well with how events surrounding 1492 are presented in American history textbooks. His reading of the most popular college texts revealed gross distortions of the reality of the discovery. He advised school boards and teachers to stop adopting textbooks that are hopelessly outdated, stylistically painful, and cratered with crucial omissions.' The academic community was not prepared to make an adequate response to his critique. Perhaps too many specialists in America and Europe saw in the upcoming anniversary of the first Atlantic crossing an opportunity to gain funding for big projects such as getting the NuovaRaccolta Colombiana2 translated, producing a fresh twelve-volume collection of the major

The Lightning Within: An Anthology of Contemporary American Indian Fiction ed. by Alan R. Velie

84 Western American Literature In the second story, “War Hoss Kelly and the Brahma Bull,”Old Rip and his football-star grandson, W. H., try to hold off the bank’s repossessing Old Rip’s ranch. Hauling a bull, a horse, and two dogs to sell in Beaumont, Old Rip hits a bus and the startled animals wind up in the shiny lobby of the Great Coastal Bank where they relieve themselves. The artful comic scenes recall those in Elmer Kelton’s The Good Old Boys or Winston Estes’s A Streetful ofPeople. In ‘Joe Willie’s Problem,” the title character’s presence causes machines to malfunc­ tion, providing funny criticism of technological “progress,”especially when Joe Willie takes on the polluting Tex-Eco-Safe Chemical Company. “The Karankawa Rodeo”is less successful, but “Waiting for ’57”is a well-crafted satire on football-fan boosterism and racial bigotry. “The Click” is an elementary school principal’sversion of “Take ThisJob and Shove It,”“Aboutjimmy Gene” poignantly focuses on a girl—her dad wanted a boy—for whom football leads to murder and suicide, and the closing “The Waxahachie Coke Bottle,”inferior to the rest, describes a teacher’s curious death. The best story is the opening “Maud and Mahatma.” Maud, a whore who “remained a closet school teacher,” runs a tavern in Janus Point. Mahatma, a violent Vietnam veteran imitating Gandhi, and a knife-wearing non-violent drifter from Amarillo converge in Maud’s tavern with orphaned black child Ahrah-si (RC). The characterization, the bizarre twist of plot, the allusions to myth, the vivid description—all reveal Neal Morgan to be a gifted raconteur even if a few spelling and punctuation errors detract. Remember those fascinating, surprising, poignant stories Grandpa told in the swing on the front porch at dusk about locals who were strange and foolish and admirable and human? I do. Neal Morgan is still telling. BOBJ. FRYE Texas Christian University The Lightning Within: An Anthology ofContemporary American Indian Fiction. Edited by Alan R. Velie. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991. 161 pages, $19.95.) Alan Velie’s purpose in editing this brief anthology is to provide “a selec­ tion of some of the best pieces of contemporary Indian fiction to serve as an introduction to the principal Indian novelists and short-story writers of the past twenty years.” To this end, he includes short stories by Leslie Marmon Silko, Gerald Vizenor, and Simon Ortiz; and excerpts from novels by N. Scott Momaday, James Welch, Louise Erdrich, and Michael Dorris. With the excep­ tion of Vizenor’s story, “Luminous Thighs,”all of the pieces are reprinted from novels or short story collections which are still in print. If there is an overriding unity among the selections, it might be the problems which Native Americans face in attempting to reconcile their present Reviews 85 realities with their past identities. Velie briefly introduces each author by noting his or her published works and giving an interpretive frame for the selection. For the most part, the selections represent well the uniqueness of each author’s style and key themes. In the case of Silko and Welch,Velie has chosen to include excerpts from their lesser-known works rather than the novels which center their fictional worlds. This attractive book might work as a supplemental college text if the price were not so high. But an additional problem in this regard is that it contains no guide to criticism. And, while there is no disputing the significance of these seven authors in Native American fiction, it is regrettable that Velie provides no references to other important contemporary Indian novelists such as Paula Gunn Allen, Anna Walters,Janet Campbell Hale, or Forrest Carter. RICHARD POTTER Roger Williams College A Summer Life. By Gary Soto. (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1990. 115 pages, $16.95.) Simply put, Gary Soto’s collection of short stories is about a familiar and universal theme: about growing up. But because Soto is writing about himself, it finds an immediacy that is fresh and compelling. As a Mexican-American born in the Central Valley’s Fresno in 1952, he remembers those sizzling summer months of freedom in...

Human Sexuality Today

This well-written college text is in a paperback 8 × 11-inch format, liberally illustrated and comprehensively referenced and researched. Each chapter ends with a quiz and answers to assist the reader's self-learning and review. The 50-item sexual knowledge quiz in chapter 1 is a challenging starting place for each physician to check how much is recalled from the sexual medicine lectures that drew full attendance in the 1970s but got squeezed out by high technology and molecular research in all but a few medical schools and specialties.

North Carolina through Four Centuries.

This successor to the classic Lefler-Newsome North Carolina: The History of a Southern State , published in 1954, presents a fresh survey history that includes the contemporary scene. Drawing upon recent scholarship, the advice of specialists, and his own knowledge, Powell has created a splendid narrative that makes North Carolina history accessible to both students and general readers. For years to come, this will be the standard college text and an essential reference for home and office.

The Effects of Cognitive Mapping on Students' Learning from College Texts

The Effects of Cognitive Mapping on Students' Learning from College Texts

La digestion au collège : transformation physique ou chimique?

Digestion, as part of the collège syllabus : a physical or a chemical transformation ? Marie Sauvageot-Skibine Many definitions of digestion have been given since the 5th century B.C. The appearance of the word in French in the 13th century preceded the concept as we know it todays and its etymology helps us to understand a number of obs¬ tacles still in existence. The word Digestion is given to a concept that was not constructed until the early 19th century, with the discovery of enzymes. College text books do not go beyond naming digestion as a chemical transformation : why is that ? What is the obstacle met with ?

An Education Note: The Development of the Content of Housing Education: An Examination of Selected College Texts, 1956–1983

This study determines if a consensus is developing concerning the content of housing education at the college level and identifies changes in this content. Ten college-level housing texts published over a period of four decades are examined and their contents classified into six categories and 38 subtopics. The researchers found that there is variation among the texts in the topics included and in the length of coverage given. While the topics are covered in all the books, only limited evidence is found for developing a consensus about subtopics. Furthermore, it appears that the content of housing textbooks is somewhat responsive to economic and social changes during this period.

Imagery and the Comprehension of College History Texts: Free Response Measure

Previous publications of this experiment have based their significance on objective tests of comprehension. Now, with more relevant criteria for rating the essay answers, it is clear that imagery produces significant gains in comprehension of college history text passages – as measured by free-response tests. This experiment used original and revised passages from a standard American History college text. It tested the interest and the comprehension of these passages by 192 subjects who were entering freshmen at a well-known liberal arts college. The experiment compared the two treatments of four different war passages, presented in every combination and sequence in a completely balanced design. Analysis of variance established that significantly higher scores resulted from the revised treatments. This conclusion points a way, through the use of imagery, to improve college history texts and possibly others. This finding reinforces the conclusion that appropriate imagery enhances the readability of college history textbooks.