It seems like the perfect job: an upper middle class English family desperately needs a nanny. The father is an aspiring novelist, the children are well-heeled, and the mother's accent radiates with charm over the transatlantic phone. So young Melissa jumps at the chance to travel overseas and live an aristocratic life of tea and crumpets. But her romantic notions are shattered when she becomes an unwitting target of the family's genteel snobbery, icy wrath, and ridiculous misunderstandings. Melissa's letters home cast a sharp eye and quick wit on the family's bizarre cast of friends and relatives, but she eventually learns that a little bit of understanding and tolerance can go a long way - and can even teach her more about herself - in Do Try to Speak as We Do by Marjorie Leet Ford.
After losing her advertising job in San Francisco and canceling her wedding (though not her engagement) an unencumbered Melissa, who harbors grand illusions about life in England, heads off to a new job as au pair to the family of a Member of Parliament. But the minorly aristocratic Haig-Ereildouns’ household falls far short of Melissa’s imaginings. Mrs. Haig-Ereildoun refers to Melissa as "her American girl" with a mixture of pride and contempt, expects her to share the children’s bathwater and, most importantly, entreats Melissa to " try to speak as we do." Heaven forbid the children pick up an American accent! But then there is Nanny, the gloriously eccentric octogenarian who raised Mrs. H-E, who offers comfort, and much comic relief; nine-year-old Trevor, Melissa’s charge, whose wisdom and companionship redeem many a lonely day; and her budding friendship with a mysterious Englishman who is miles from her fiancé in every way. Melissa converses with Scotish fishermen, breakfasts with a French Minister of Culture, frequents island castles and sixteenth century manor houses, all the while straddling her ill-defined role (somewhere between houseguest and servant) with humor and grace. Melissa’s immersion in this unforgettable world teaches her more than she could possibly have imagined not only about the culture she has come to inhabit but, most importantly, about herself.
A truly unique book in its field, Dreams and Inward Journeys,4/e explores the relationships between self-understanding, reading and writing. Chapters include reflective essays, poems, memory, gender roles, the anti-self, social definitions of self, and the visionary process itself. The emphasis on dreams and the imagination has been proven to excite and motivate students.
This text presents a perspective on the role that literature plays in our lives, shaping our feelings, thoughts and cultures. It encourages a variety of personal and analytic responses to literature and literary non-fiction with its thematic focus and its wide range of genres, cultures, disciplines and assignments. Two introductory chapters on reading, journal writing and writing as processes of discovery are followed by chapters on the four genres of literature that fully explain and illustrate the process of writing about literature within the context of student casebooks. Six thematic chapters provide a collection of readings and engaging writing topics.
This best-selling collection of readings explores the theme of dreams, the imagination, and the reasoning mind. Supporting a creative approach to the teaching of writing, Dreams and Inward Journeys presents a rich mixture of personal and academic essays, stories, and poems. The readings touch on such topics as memory, myths and fairy tales, obsessions, sexuality, gender roles, technology, popular culture, nature, and spirituality. Readings encourage the investigation of new ways of seeing and understanding self and the relationship to important social issues and universal human concerns. Featuring a dual thematic and rhetorical organization, each chapter also provides practical writing advice on a specific rhetorical pattern, a range of writing assignments, and sample papers. Beautiful, stimulating art opens each chapter to support the theme and provide prompts for prewriting.
An enchanting, hilarious, idiosyncratic novel by the author of Diary of an American Au Pair, set in San Francisco’s Moscow Hill district -- it’s Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City, with dogs.
This text explores the crucial relationships between self- understanding, reading and writing. Chapters begin with discussions of the reading and writing processes and then delve into reflective essays, stories, and poems on memory, myths, fantasies, obsessions, gender roles, the anti-self, social definitions of self, cultural ideals and the visionary process.
The fascinating true story of the characters in Hulu's "Mrs. America" and a broader portrait of the two women's movements that spurred an enduring rift between liberals and conservatives. "The many admirers of 'Mrs. America' . . . will find great satisfaction in [Divided We Stand] . . . a clear, compelling and deeply insightful volume." —The Washington Post One of Smithsonian Magazine’s Ten Best History Books of the Year In the early 1970s, an ascendant women’s rights movement enjoyed strong support from both political parties and considerable success, but was soon challenged by a conservative women’s movement formed in opposition. Tensions between the two would explode in 1977 at the congressionally funded National Women’s Conference in Houston, Texas. As Bella Abzug, Gloria Steinem, and other feminists endorsed hot-button issues such as abortion rights, the ERA, and gay rights, Phyllis Schlafly and Lottie Beth Hobbs rallied with conservative women to protest federally funded feminism and launch a pro-family movement. Divided We Stand reveals how crucial women and women’s issues have been in the shaping of today’s political culture. After the National Women’s Conference, Democrats continued to back women’s rights in cooperation with a more diverse feminist movement while the GOP abandoned its previous support for women’s rights and defined itself as the party of family values, irrevocably affecting the course of American politics.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.