Awesome Wiggins Album and Music Offers

Winer of the Hugo and Nebula Awards

In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut—young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.

Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister.

Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives.
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The United States has been spending its way deeper and deeper into the red, and saddling future generations with the mess—but who's paying attention?
To answer that question, the companion book to the critically acclaimed documentary I.O.U.S.A. talks with some of the most revered voices in the nation, including Warren Buffett; former Treasury Secretaries Paul O’Neill and Robert Rubin; Pete Peterson, CEO of The Blackstone Group; Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas); and bestselling Empire of Debt author Bill Bonner.
Armed with these interviews, historical references, and damning statistics, the book takes a lively and entertaining romp through the four deficits the nation faces: the budget deficit, the personal savings deficit, the trade deficit—and what former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker, who resigned abruptly in 2008 over Congress’s lack of action, calls the “leadership deficit” in Washington.
Defiantly non-partisan, the empowering solutions outlined in these pages are a must-read for any American who wants to help change “business-as-usual” in Washington as a new administration heads towards the Oval Office. “We the People” can get our politicians to stop spending, promote responsible economic programs, and hand our children and grandchildren the secure future they deserve.
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The highly anticipated second edition of Understanding by Design poses the core, essential questions of understanding and design, and provides readers with practical solutions for the teacher-designer.  The book opens by analyzing the logic of backward design as an alternative to coverage and activity-oriented plans.  Though backward from habit, this approach brings more focus and coherence to instruction.  The book proposes a multifaceted approach, with the six “facets” of understanding.  The facets combine with backward design to provide a powerful, expanded array of practical tools and strategies for designing curriculum, instruction, and assessments that lead students at all grade levels to genuine understanding.  The second edition, a refined work, has been thoroughly and extensively revised, updated, and expanded, including improvement of the UbD Template, the key terms of UbD, dozens of worksheets, and some of the larger concepts. The authors have successfully put together a text that demonstrates what best practice in the design of learning looks like, enhancing for its audience their capability for creating more engaging and effective learning, whether the student is a third grader, a college freshman, or a faculty member..
Price: $35.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Meet Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, the unforgettable boy-hero of Ender's Game--winner of the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award for Best Novel--and enter his Universe through this collection of stories

"The Polish Boy" is John Paul Wiggin, the future father of Ender. In the years between the first two Bugger Wars, the Hegemony is desperate to recruit brilliant military commanders to repel the alien invasion. They may have found their man--or boy--in John Paul Wiggin....

In "Teacher's Pest"-a novella written especially for this collection--a brilliant but arrogant John Paul Wiggin, now a university student, matches wits with an equally brilliant graduate student.

"The Investment Counselor" is set after the end of the Bugger Wars. Banished from Earth and slandered as a mass murderer, twenty-year-old Andrew Wiggin wanders incognito from planet to planet as a fugitive--until a blackmailing tax inspector compromises his identity and threatens to expose Ender the Xeoncide.

Also reprinted here is the original award-winning novella, "Ender's Game," which first appeared in 1977.
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Understanding by Design Professional Development Workbook extends the ideas presented in Understanding by Design (UbD) by focusing on professional development and the practical matters of curriculum design. The Workbook is a guide for Understanding by Design workshops and undergraduate and graduate courses, as well as further independent exploration. It provides a valuable resource to educators in developing curricula and assessments with a focus on developing and deepening students’ understanding of important ideas.

The Workbook contains the following materials to support your professional development and application of the ideas within Understanding by Design:
Design Templates--planning organizers based on the three stages of backward design for use in developing a unit or course. One-, two-, and six-page versions of the UbD templates are provided.
Design Standards--criteria for reviewing curricular designs as a means of continuous improvement. The UbD standards guide self-assessment and peer reviews, whereby colleagues provide feedback and guidance on each other’s designs.
Exercises and Process Tools--thought-provoking workshop activities for developing and deepening participants’ understanding of the key ideas of UbD. A set of review and reflection tools is included.
Design Tools--a variety of graphic organizers and worksheets are included to assist designers in each stage of backward design.
Samples--multiple examples from diverse subject areas and levels illustrate the various elements of understanding-based designs.
Glossary--definitions of key terms.

Preservice and inservice teachers, college professors, school-based administrators, curriculum directors, subject-matter specialists, staff developers, and personnel involved in assessment and evaluation can benefit from these practical and proven ideas and resources..
Price: $19.40 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In Empire of Debt, maverick financial writers Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin provide you with the first in-depth look at how the American character has shifted to accommodate its new imperial role; how we have abandoned the private virtues of personal liberty, economic freedom, and fiscal restraint; and how the government has gained control of public life and the economy..
Price: $9.49 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Following her National Book Award finalist, Evidence of Things Unseen, Marianne Wiggins turns her extraordinary literary imagination to the American West, where the life of legendary photographer Edward S. Curtis is the basis for a resonant exploration of history and family, landscape and legacy.

The Shadow Catcher dramatically inhabits the space where past and present intersect, seamlessly interweaving narratives from two different eras: the first fraught passion between turn-of-the-twentieth-century icon Edward Curtis (1868-1952) and his muse-wife, Clara; and a twenty-first-century journey of redemption.

Narrated in the first person by a reimagined writer named Marianne Wiggins, the novel begins in Hollywood, where top producers are eager to sentimentalize the complicated life of Edward Curtis as a sunny biopic: "It's got the outdoors. It's got adventure. It's got the do-good element." Yet, contrary to Curtis's esteemed public reputation as servant to his nation, the artist was an absent husband and disappearing father. Jump to the next generation, when Marianne's own father, John Wiggins (1920-1970), would live and die in equal thrall to the impulse of wanderlust.

Were the two men running from or running to? Dodging the false beacons of memory and legend, Marianne amasses disparate clues -- photographs and hospital records, newspaper clippings and a rare white turquoise bracelet -- to recover those moments that went unrecorded, "to hear the words only the silent ones can speak." The Shadow Catcher, fueled by the great American passions for love and land and family, chases the silhouettes of our collective history into the bright light of the present..
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Drawing heroines and femme fatales has never been more fun. The second installment of the Comic Artist's Photo Reference gives comic artists the same high-quality reference photos they found in Comic Artist's Photo Reference: People and Poses, this time focusing on women and girls of varying ages, ethnicities and body types. Readers will find 1000+ photos of attractive models to draw from along with 4 step-by-step lessons from professional comic artists using photos from the book. In addition to photos, the companion CD-ROM includes short videos and other bonus material..
Price: $14.10 [Notify me when price goes down.]