Making Every History Lesson Count

Making Every History Lesson Count Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle version is available to download in english. Read online anytime anywhere directly from your device. Click on the download button below to get a free pdf file of Making Every History Lesson Count book. This book definitely worth reading, it is an incredibly well-written.

Making Every History Lesson Count

Author : Chris Runeckles
Publisher : Crown House Publishing Ltd
Page : 154 pages
File Size : 52,9 Mb
Release : 2018-10-23
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781785833793

Get Book

Making Every History Lesson Count by Chris Runeckles Pdf

Chris Runeckles' Making Every History Lesson Count: Six principles to support great history teaching offers lasting solutions to age-old problems and empowers history teachers with the confidence to bring their subject to life. Making EveryHistory Lesson Count goes in search of answers to the crucial question that all history teachers must ask: What can I do to help my students retain and interrogate the rich detail of the content that I deliver? Writing in the practical, engaging style of the award-winning Making Every Lesson Count, Chris Runeckles articulates the fundamentals of great history teaching and shares simple, realistic strategies designed to deliver memorable lessons. The book is underpinned by six pedagogical principles challenge, explanation, modelling, practice, feedback and questioning and equips history teachers with the tools and techniques to help students better engage with the subject matter and develop more sophisticated historical analysis and arguments. In an age of educational quick fixes and ever-moving goalposts, this carefully crafted addition to the Making Every Lesson Count series expertly bridges the gap between the realms of academic research and the humble classroom. It therefore marries evidence-based practice with collective experience and, in doing so, inspires a challenging approach to secondary school history teaching. Making EveryHistory Lesson Count has been written for new and experienced practitioners alike, offering gimmick-free advice that will energise them to more effectively carve out those unique moments of resonance with young people. Each chapter also concludes with a series of questions that will prompt reflective thought and enable educators to relate the content to their own classroom practice. Suitable for history teachers of students aged 11 to 16 years.

Making Every Lesson Count

Author : Shaun Allison,Andy Tharby
Publisher : Crown House Publishing
Page : 219 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2015-06-11
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781845909772

Get Book

Making Every Lesson Count by Shaun Allison,Andy Tharby Pdf

Packed with practical teaching strategies, Making Every Lesson Count bridges the gap between research findings and classroom practice. Shaun Allison and Andy Tharby examine the evidence behind what makes great teaching and explore how to implement this in the classroom to make a difference to learning. They distil teaching and learning down into six core principles challenge, explanation, modelling, practice, feedback and questioning and show how these can inspire an ethos of excellence and growth, not only in individual classrooms but across a whole school too. Combining robust evidence from a range of fields with the practical wisdom of experienced, effective classroom teachers, the book is a complete toolkit of strategies that teachers can use every lesson to make that lesson count. There are no gimmicky ideas here just high impact, focused teaching that results in great learning, every lesson, every day. To demonstrate how attainable this is, the book contains a number of case studies from a number of professionals who are successfully embedding a culture of excellence and growth in their schools. Making Every Lesson Count offers an evidence-informed alternative to restrictive Ofsted-driven definitions of great teaching, empowering teachers to deliver great lessons and celebrate high-quality practice. Suitable for all teachers including trainee teachers, NQTs, and experienced teachers who want quick and easy ways to enhance their practice and make every lesson count. Educational Book Award winner 2016 Judges' comments: A highly practical and interesting resource with loads of information and uses to support and inspire teachers of all levels of experience. An essential staffroom book.

Making Every Maths Lesson Count

Author : Emma McCrea
Publisher : Crown House Publishing Ltd
Page : 171 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2019-05-01
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781785834219

Get Book

Making Every Maths Lesson Count by Emma McCrea Pdf

In Making Every Maths Lesson Count: Six principles to support great maths teaching, experienced maths teacher and lecturer Emma McCrea takes away the guesswork as she sums up the key components of effective maths teaching. Maths classrooms are incredibly complex places. At any given time, the factors influencing the effectiveness of your teaching are boundless and this can lead to relying on intuition as to what might work best. This book aims to signpost a route through this complexity. Writing in the practical, engaging style of the award-winning Making Every Lesson Count, Emma McCrea helps teachers to move beyond trial and error by sharing evidence-informed tips and suggestions on how they can nudge the impact of their teaching in the right direction. Making Every Maths Lesson Count is underpinned by six pedagogical principles challenge, explanation, modelling, practice, feedback and questioning and presents 52 high-impact strategies designed to streamline teacher workload and ramp up the level of challenge in the maths classroom. The book draws out the key findings from the latest research on memory, learning and motivation and each chapter features numerous worked examples to demonstrate the theory in action, together with a concluding series of questions that will help maths practitioners relate the content to their own classroom practice. Furthermore, Emma's writing offers clarity around the language of maths teaching and learning, and also delves into the finer points of how to identify and address any misconceptions that students may hold. Written for new and experienced practitioners alike, this gimmick-free guide provides sensible solutions to perennial problems and inspires a rich, challenging and evidence-based approach to the teaching of maths. Suitable for maths teachers of students aged 11 to 18 years, and for primary school maths specialists.

Making Every English Lesson Count

Author : Andy Tharby
Publisher : Crown House Publishing Ltd
Page : 177 pages
File Size : 46,7 Mb
Release : 2017-06-12
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781785832512

Get Book

Making Every English Lesson Count by Andy Tharby Pdf

Making Every English Lesson Count: Six Principles to Support Great Reading and Writing goes in search of answers to the fundamental question that all English teachers must ask: 'What can I do to help my students to become confident and competent readers and writers?' Writing in the practical, engaging style of the award-winning Making Every Lesson Count, Andy Tharby returns with an offering of gimmick-free advice that combines the time-honoured wisdom of excellent English teachers with the most useful evidence from cognitive science. The book is underpinned by six pedagogical principles challenge, explanation, modelling, practice, feedback and questioning and provides simple, realistic classroom strategies to bring the teaching of conceptual knowledge, vocabulary and challenging literature to the foreground. It also points a sceptical finger at the fashions and myths that have pervaded English teaching over the past decade or so such as the idea that English is a skills-based subject and the belief that students can make huge progress in a single lesson. Instead, Andy advocates an approach of artful repetition and consolidation and shows you how to help your students develop their reading and writing proficiency over time. Making Every English Lesson Count is for new and experienced English teachers alike. It does not pretend to be a magic bullet. It does not claim to have all the answers. Rather the aim of the book is to provide effective strategies designed to help you to bring the six principles to life, with each chapter concluding in a series of questions to inspire reflective thought and help you relate the content to your classroom practice. In an age of educational quick fixes, GCSE reform and ever-moving goalposts, this precise and timely addition to the Making Every Lesson Count series provides practical solutions to perennial problems and inspires a rich, challenging and evidence-informed approach to English teaching. Suitable for English teachers of students aged 11 to 16 years

Making Every Geography Lesson Count

Author : Mark Enser
Publisher : Crown House Publishing Ltd
Page : 155 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2019-01-10
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781785834042

Get Book

Making Every Geography Lesson Count by Mark Enser Pdf

Mark Enser's 'Making Every Geography Lesson Count: Six principles to support great geography teaching' maps out the key elements of effective geography teaching and shows teachers how to develop their students' conceptual and contextual understanding of the subject over time.What sets geography apart from other subjects is the value placed on seeing the connections between the different parts of its broad curriculum, on building links between different topics, and on thinking like a geographer. Writing in the practical, engaging style of the award-winning 'Making Every Lesson Count', Mark Enser has set out to help his fellow practitioners maximise this value by combining the time-honoured wisdom of excellent geography teachers with the most useful evidence from cognitive science.'Making Every Geography Lesson Count' is underpinned by six pedagogical principls challenge, explanation, modelling, practice, feedback and questioning hat will enable teachers to ensure that students leave their lessons with an improved knowledge of the world, a better understanding of how it works and the geographical skills to support their learning.Each chapter looks at one of the six principles and begins with twin scenarios which illustrate some of the real challenges faced in geography classrooms. Mark then delves into a discussion on the underpinning theory and offers a range of practical, gimmick-free strategies designed to help teachers overcome these obstacles. Furthermore, each chapter also ends with a case study from a fellow geography teacher who has successfully employed the principle in their own classroom.Written for new and experienced practitioners alike, this all-encompassing book offers an inspiring alternative to restrictive Ofsted-driven definitions of great teaching and empowers geography teachers to deliver great lessons and celebrate high-quality practice.Suitable for geography teachers of students aged to 18 years.

Making Every RE Lesson Count

Author : Dawn Cox,Louise Hutton
Publisher : Crown House Publishing Ltd
Page : 155 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2021-02-01
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781785835315

Get Book

Making Every RE Lesson Count by Dawn Cox,Louise Hutton Pdf

Writing in the practical, engaging style of the award-winning Making Every Lesson Count, Louise and Dawn provide teachers of religious education with the means to help their pupils unpick the big questions of religious belief and practice, and of morality and philosophy - the things that make us human. Making Every RE Lesson Count is underpinned by six pedagogical principles - challenge, explanation, modelling, practice, feedback and questioning - and shares simple, realistic strategies that RE teachers can use to develop the teaching and learning in their classrooms. Each chapter explores a different principle in theory as well as in practice, and concludes with a series of questions that will inspire reflective thought and help teachers relate the content to their own work in the classroom. Furthermore, the book brings together two key strands in RE teaching - namely, what RE teachers teach and how they teach it - and the authors consider these strands through the disciplinary lenses of theology, philosophy and the social sciences. And, in doing so, Louise and Dawn place these disciplines at the heart of teaching and learning in the RE classroom. Written for new and experienced practitioners alike, Making Every RE Lesson Count will enable teachers to improve their students' conceptual and contextual understanding of the topics and themes explored across the breadth of the RE curriculum. Suitable for RE teachers of pupils aged 11 to 18.

Making Every MFL Lesson Count

Author : James A Maxwell
Publisher : Crown House Publishing Ltd
Page : 161 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2019-11-21
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781785834806

Get Book

Making Every MFL Lesson Count by James A Maxwell Pdf

James A. Maxwell's M aking Every MFL Lesson Count: Six principles to support modern foreign language teaching shows modern foreign languages (MFL) teachers how they can take their students on a learning journey that both educates and inspires. Writing in the practical, engaging style of the award-winning Making Every Lesson Count, experienced MFL teacher James A. Maxwell empowers educators with the strategies and know-how to boost their students' attainment, engagement and enthusiasm in the MFL classroom. Making Every MFL Lesson Count is underpinned by six pedagogical principles challenge, explanation, modelling, practice, feedback and questioning and helps MFL teachers ensure that students leave their lessons with richer vocabulary, a better grasp of grammar and the skills and confidence to put the language learnt into practice. Bursting with templates, examples and flexible frameworks, this gimmick-free guide provides educators with a range of practical techniques designed to enhance their students' linguistic awareness and help them transfer the target language into long-term memory. James skilfully marries evidence-based practice with collective experience and, in doing so, inspires a challenging approach to secondary school MFL teaching. Furthermore, he concludes each chapter with a series of questions that will inspire reflective thought and encourage teachers to relate the content to their own classroom practice. Suitable for MFL teachers of students aged 11 to 18 years.

Cleverlands

Author : Lucy Crehan
Publisher : Unbound Publishing
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 2016-12-01
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781783522750

Get Book

Cleverlands by Lucy Crehan Pdf

As a teacher in an inner-city school, Lucy Crehan was exasperated with ever-changing government policy claiming to be based on lessons from ‘top-performing’ education systems. She resolved to find out what was really going on in the classrooms of countries whose teenagers ranked top in the world in reading, maths and science. Cleverlands documents Crehan’s journey around the world, weaving together her experiences with research on policy, history, psychology and culture to offer extensive new insights into what we can learn from these countries.

History Lesson

Author : Mary R. Lefkowitz
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 208 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 2008-10-01
Category : Education
ISBN : 9780300145199

Get Book

History Lesson by Mary R. Lefkowitz Pdf

In the early 1990s, Classics professor Mary Lefkowitz discovered that one of her faculty colleagues at Wellesley College was teaching his students that Greek culture had been stolen from Africa and that Jews were responsible for the slave trade. This book tells the disturbing story of what happened when she spoke out. Lefkowitz quickly learned that to investigate the origin and meaning of myths composed by people who have for centuries been dead and buried is one thing, but it is quite another to critique myths that living people take very seriously. She also found that many in academia were reluctant to challenge the fashionable idea that truth is merely a form of opinion. For her insistent defense of obvious truths about the Greeks and the Jews, Lefkowitz was embroiled in turmoil for a decade. She faced institutional indifference, angry colleagues, reverse racism, anti-Semitism, and even a lawsuit intended to silence her. In History Lesson Lefkowitz describes what it was like to experience directly the power of both postmodernism and compensatory politics. She offers personal insights into important issues of academic values and political correctness, and she suggests practical solutions for the divisive and painful problems that arise when a political agenda takes precedence over objective scholarship. Her forthright tale uncovers surprising features in the landscape of higher education and an unexpected need for courage from those who venture there.

Making Every Science Lesson Count

Author : Shaun Allison
Publisher : Crown House Publishing Ltd
Page : 137 pages
File Size : 42,8 Mb
Release : 2017-06-12
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781785832543

Get Book

Making Every Science Lesson Count by Shaun Allison Pdf

Making Every Science Lesson Count: Six Principles to Support Great Science Teaching goes in search of answers to the fundamental question that all science teachers must ask: 'What can I do to help my students become the scientists of the future?' Writing in the practical, engaging style of the award-winning Making Every Lesson Count, Shaun Allison returns with an offering of gimmick-free advice that combines the time-honoured wisdom of excellent science teachers with the most useful evidence from cognitive science. The book is underpinned by six pedagogical principles challenge, explanation, modelling, practice, feedback and questioning and provides simple, realistic classroom strategies that will help teachers make abstract ideas more concrete and practical demonstrations more meaningful. It also points a sceptical finger at the fashions and myths that have pervaded science teaching over the past decade or so such as the belief that students can make huge progress in a single lesson and the idea that learning is speedy, linear and logical. Instead, Shaun advocates an approach of artful repetition and consolidation and shows you how to help your students develop their conceptual understanding of science over time. Making Every Science Lesson Count is for new and experienced science teachers alike. It does not pretend to be a magic bullet. It does not claim to have all the answers. Rather the aim of the book is to provide effective strategies designed to help you to bring the six principles to life, with each chapter concluding in a series of questions to inspire reflective thought and help you relate the content to your classroom practice. In an age of educational quick fixes, GCSE reform and ever-moving goalposts, this precise and timely addition to the Making Every Lesson Count series provides practical solutions to perennial problems and inspires a rich, challenging and evidence-informed approach to science teaching. Suitable for science teachers of students aged 11 to 16 years.

Becoming an Outstanding History Teacher

Author : Sally Thorne
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 150 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2018-08-06
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781351261944

Get Book

Becoming an Outstanding History Teacher by Sally Thorne Pdf

Becoming an Outstanding History Teacher will take the practitioner through the process of improving their practice from start to finish. It offers a wide range of approaches and techniques for teaching and learning that will help to keep students stimulated and engaged when studying history. With history regularly topping public polls of important school subjects and among the most popular subjects to be studied at GCSE, this book considers the components which make an outstanding history teacher and how best to ensure students are motivated and maximise their potential. Focusing on all aspects of teaching history, it provides a step-by-step discussion of the development of lessons and covers a wealth of topics, including: long-, medium-, and short-term planning the classroom environment managing all student abilities dealing with interpretations and sources arranging history fieldwork formative and summative assessment setting meaningful and effective homework. Packed full of tried-and-tested strategies and activities that are easy to implement, this is essential reading for both newly qualified and experienced history teachers who want to ensure outstanding teaching and learning in their classrooms.

Making Every Primary Lesson Count

Author : Jo Payne
Publisher : Crown House Publishing Ltd
Page : 160 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2017-06-20
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781785832581

Get Book

Making Every Primary Lesson Count by Jo Payne Pdf

InMaking Every Primary Lesson Count: Six Principles to Support Great Teaching and Learning, full-time primary teachers Jo Payne and Mel Scott share evidence-informed practice and gimmick-free advice for ensuring that every lesson makes a difference for young learners. Writing in the engaging style of Shaun Allison and Andy Tharby's award-winning Making Every Lesson Count, the book is underpinned by six pedagogical principles challenge, explanation, modelling, practice, feedback and questioning and provides simple, realistic strategies to develop a culture of growth and excellence with pupils. Jo and Mel advocate an approach designed to cultivate a growth mindset in the classroom and guide children towards independence: motivating both teachers and pupils to aim high and put in the effort required to be successful in all subject areas. The authors also offer tips from across the Early Years and Key Stages 1 to 2 phases on how to implement effective routines and procedures so that pupils are clear about what is expected from them in the classroom. Making Every Primary LessonCountis for new and experienced teachers alike. It does not pretend to be a magic bullet. It does not claim to have all the answers. Rather the aim of the book is to provide effective strategies to bring the six principles to life, with each chapter introduced by two fictional scenarios rooted in situations primary teachers typically encounter and concluding in a series of questions to inspire reflective thought and help you relate the content to your own practice. In an age of educational quick fixes and ever-moving goalposts, this precise and insightful addition to the Making Every Lesson Count series will have a high impact on learning in the classroom: enabling pupils to leave primary school as confident, successful learners equipped with the skills and knowledge required of them. Suitable for all Early Years and primary teachers.

How to Explain Absolutely Anything to Absolutely Anyone

Author : Andy Tharby
Publisher : Crown House Publishing Ltd
Page : 220 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2018-11-13
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781785833908

Get Book

How to Explain Absolutely Anything to Absolutely Anyone by Andy Tharby Pdf

In How to Explain Absolutely Anything to Absolutely Anyone: The art and science of teacher explanation, Andy Tharby talks teachers through a set of remarkably simple techniques that will help revolutionise the precision and clarity of their message.Explanation is an art form, albeit a slightly mysterious one. We know a great explanation when we see or hear one, yet nevertheless we struggle to pin down the intricacies of the craft Just how exactly is it done?In How to Explain Absolutely Anything to Absolutely Anyone, Andy Tharby eloquently explores the art and science of this undervalued skill and illustrates how improving the quality of explanation can improve the quality of learning. Delving into the wonder of metaphor, the brilliance of repetition and the timeless benefits of storytelling, Andy sets out an evidence-informed approach that will enable teachers to explain tricky concepts so well that their students will not only understand them perfectly, but remember them forever too.By bringing together evidence and ideas from a wide range of sourcs including cognitive science, educational research and the study of linguistics the book examines how the most effective writers and speakers manage to transform even the most messy, complicated idea into a thing of wondrous, crystalline clarity. Then, by provoking greater thought and contemplation around language choices in the classroom, Andy spells out how the practical tools and techniques discussed can be put into practice.Andy also puts the important role of learner autonomy in context, recognising that there is a time for teachers to talk and a time for pupils to lead their own learning and contends that, in most cases, teachers should first lay out the premise before opening the space for interrogation. Ultimately, How to Explain Absolutely Anything to Absolutely Anyone argues that good teaching is not about talking more or less, but about talking better.Brimming with sensible advice applicable to a range of settings and subjects, this book is suitable for teachers and educators of learners aged 7 to 16

How People Learn

Author : National Research Council,Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education,Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences,Committee on Developments in the Science of Learning with additional material from the Committee on Learning Research and Educational Practice
Publisher : National Academies Press
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 2000-08-11
Category : Education
ISBN : 9780309131971

Get Book

How People Learn by National Research Council,Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education,Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences,Committee on Developments in the Science of Learning with additional material from the Committee on Learning Research and Educational Practice Pdf

First released in the Spring of 1999, How People Learn has been expanded to show how the theories and insights from the original book can translate into actions and practice, now making a real connection between classroom activities and learning behavior. This edition includes far-reaching suggestions for research that could increase the impact that classroom teaching has on actual learning. Like the original edition, this book offers exciting new research about the mind and the brain that provides answers to a number of compelling questions. When do infants begin to learn? How do experts learn and how is this different from non-experts? What can teachers and schools do-with curricula, classroom settings, and teaching methods--to help children learn most effectively? New evidence from many branches of science has significantly added to our understanding of what it means to know, from the neural processes that occur during learning to the influence of culture on what people see and absorb. How People Learn examines these findings and their implications for what we teach, how we teach it, and how we assess what our children learn. The book uses exemplary teaching to illustrate how approaches based on what we now know result in in-depth learning. This new knowledge calls into question concepts and practices firmly entrenched in our current education system. Topics include: How learning actually changes the physical structure of the brain. How existing knowledge affects what people notice and how they learn. What the thought processes of experts tell us about how to teach. The amazing learning potential of infants. The relationship of classroom learning and everyday settings of community and workplace. Learning needs and opportunities for teachers. A realistic look at the role of technology in education.

I Know This Much Is True

Author : Wally Lamb
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 884 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 1998-06-03
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 0060391626

Get Book

I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb Pdf

With his stunning debut novel, She's Come Undone, Wally Lamb won the adulation of critics and readers with his mesmerizing tale of one woman's painful yet triumphant journey of self-discovery. Now, this brilliantly talented writer returns with I Know This Much Is True, a heartbreaking and poignant multigenerational saga of the reproductive bonds of destruction and the powerful force of forgiveness. A masterpiece that breathtakingly tells a story of alienation and connection, power and abuse, devastation and renewal--this novel is a contemporary retelling of an ancient Hindu myth. A proud king must confront his demons to achieve salvation. Change yourself, the myth instructs, and you will inhabit a renovated world. When you're the same brother of a schizophrenic identical twin, the tricky thing about saving yourself is the blood it leaves on your bands--the little inconvenience of the look-alike corpse at your feet. And if you're into both survival of the fittest and being your brother's keeper--if you've promised your dying mother--then say so long to sleep and hello to the middle of the night. Grab a book or a beer. Get used to Letterman's gap-toothed smile of the absurd, or the view of the bedroom ceiling, or the influence of random selection. Take it from a godless insomniac. Take it from the uncrazy twin--the guy who beat the biochemical rap. Dominick Birdsey's entire life has been compromised and constricted by anger and fear, by the paranoid schizophrenic twin brother he both deeply loves and resents, and by the past they shared with their adoptive father, Ray, a spit-and-polish ex-Navy man (the five-foot-six-inch sleeping giant who snoozed upstairs weekdays in the spare room and built submarines at night), and their long-suffering mother, Concettina, a timid woman with a harelip that made her shy and self-conscious: She holds a loose fist to her face to cover her defective mouth--her perpetual apology to the world for a birth defect over which she'd had no control. Born in the waning moments of 1949 and the opening minutes of 1950, the twins are physical mirror images who grow into separate yet connected entities: the seemingly strong and protective yet fearful Dominick, his mother's watchful "monkey"; and the seemingly weak and sweet yet noble Thomas, his mother's gentle "bunny." From childhood, Dominick fights for both separation and wholeness--and ultimately self-protection--in a house of fear dominated by Ray, a bully who abuses his power over these stepsons whose biological father is a mystery. I was still afraid of his anger but saw how he punished weakness--pounced on it. Out of self-preservation I hid my fear, Dominick confesses. As for Thomas, he just never knew how to play defense. He just didn't get it. But Dominick's talent for survival comes at an enormous cost, including the breakup of his marriage to the warm, beautiful Dessa, whom he still loves. And it will be put to the ultimate test when Thomas, a Bible-spouting zealot, commits an unthinkable act that threatens the tenuous balance of both his and Dominick's lives. To save himself, Dominick must confront not only the pain of his past but the dark secrets he has locked deep within himself, and the sins of his ancestors--a quest that will lead him beyond the confines of his blue-collar New England town to the volcanic foothills of Sicily 's Mount Etna, where his ambitious and vengefully proud grandfather and a namesake Domenico Tempesta, the sostegno del famiglia, was born. Each of the stories Ma told us about Papa reinforced the message that he was the boss, that he ruled the roost, that what he said went. Searching for answers, Dominick turns to the whispers of the dead, to the pages of his grandfather's handwritten memoir, The History of Domenico Onofrio Tempesta, a Great Man from Humble Beginnings. Rendered with touches of magic realism, Domenico's fablelike tale--in which monkeys enchant and religious statues weep--becomes the old man's confession--an unwitting legacy of contrition that reveals the truth's of Domenico's life, Dominick learns that power, wrongly used, defeats the oppressor as well as the oppressed, and now, picking through the humble shards of his deconstructed life, he will search for the courage and love to forgive, to expiate his and his ancestors' transgressions, and finally to rebuild himself beyond the haunted shadow of his twin. Set against the vivid panoply of twentieth-century America and filled with richly drawn, memorable characters, this deeply moving and thoroughly satisfying novel brings to light humanity's deepest needs and fears, our aloneness, our desire for love and acceptance, our struggle to survive at all costs. Joyous, mystical, and exquisitely written, I Know This Much Is True is an extraordinary reading experience that will leave no reader untouched.