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Laurie Ann Thompson

Laurie Thompson

Nonfiction Monday: Recent Links Roundup #nfmon #nfforkids

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Facts First! Nonfiction Monday

nonfiction.mondayWhat a great idea! A group of tal­ent­ed authors who write fan­tas­tic non­fic­tion for kids have just launched a new project: INK Think Tank. “Each author has con­nect­ed his or her books to nation­al cur­ricu­lum stan­dards through a data­base that is acces­si­ble to every­one.” This is great for the authors involved, great for edu­ca­tors, and great for non­fic­tion for kids over­all. Way to go, I.N.K.ers!
I would love to know what book Andrew Karre was work­ing on here for Lern­er! Any­one got time to try to reverse engi­neer his clues?
I’ve been work­ing on fic­tion late­ly, and I’ve guess I’ve fall­en behind on the non­fic­tion mar­ket. I’ve been watch­ing the Cybils nom­i­na­tions roll in, and WOW! For both the pic­ture-book and mid­dle-grade/y­oung adult non­fic­tion cat­e­gories, the books look amaz­ing! I’ve got some seri­ous (fun!) read­ing to do. Con­grats to all of the nominees!
Anas­ta­sia must’ve writ­ten this one just for me… I love books, I love the mag­ic of a child learn­ing to read, and I love cats! I’ve read all but one of her 5 Great Books About Cats.

Halloween Word Challenge 2009!

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Kim­ber­ly Bak­er, super­friend and mem­ber of the dynam­ic trio, has chal­lenged me to a war of words. She knows I need a swift kick in the *** to get a first draft down (espe­cial­ly of a fic­tion novel–gasp!), but she may not know just how com­pet­i­tive I can be. Even if I lose, though, I win, since it’s just the incen­tive I need to make some good progress before our amaz­ing fall Week­end on the Water retreat in November.
As part of the deal, we’re offer­ing our­selves up for pub­lic humil­i­a­tion… um, I mean, account­abil­i­ty. If you want to cheer us on (or scoff at me for my pathet­ic attempts), you can fol­low our progress here.

The fight for language ownership: iFart versus “Pull My Finger”

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Unfor­tu­nate­ly, I don’t think this is an April Fool’s Day joke.

This case fil­ing is per­haps unique among its peers in con­tain­ing the phrase “deep stir­rings of flat­u­lence,” a phrase one hard­ly expects to encounter in a court filing.

Thanks to Visu­al The­saurus for the full arti­cle.

#SWF09: The role of education in social entrepreneurship

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This arti­cle over at the Social Enter­prise mag has some great quotes about cre­at­ing young change-makers:

Para­phras­ing Bill Dray­ton, founder of Ashoka: “Young peo­ple should be edu­cat­ed about social entre­pre­neur­ship from the age of 12 if there is to be a next gen­er­a­tion of change mak­ers… The key time to inspire the social entre­pre­neurs of tomor­row is between the ages of 12 and 20.”

12? In my opin­ion we can, and should, start a lot soon­er, but I total­ly agree that we must pur­pose­ful­ly edu­cate our youth–ALL youth–about how to cre­ate the changes they want to see in the world. That is why my cur­rent work-in-progress is a how-to book for teenagers who want to save the world, aimed direct­ly at read­ers 12 and up.

“In one mes­sage of how edu­ca­tion­al insti­tutes should tack­le busi­ness teach­ing, [Jim] Austin [pro­fes­sor at the Havard Busi­ness School] said: ‘Empow­er the stu­dents, then get out the way. They will do incred­i­ble things.’ ”

YES! This is true for any indi­vid­ual or group, as we’ve already seen with oth­er great move­ments of empow­er­ment like civ­il rights and fem­i­nism. The next major empow­er­ment move­ment is that of the world’s youth, and I know it’s already here and grow­ing fast. I’m hop­ing my book will help it along in a big way, because I, for one, want to see even more incred­i­ble things.

David Archuleta for DoSomething.org

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Yup, I’m an Idol fan, and I love love love David Archule­ta. Now he’s teamed up with one of my favorite organizations:

“I know as well as any­one that teenagers have the pow­er to do some­thing. So I’m gen­uine­ly excit­ed about this cause and orga­ni­za­tion. When I heard about the oppor­tu­ni­ty to get involved with DoSomething.org, I jumped at the chance. Thanks to this pro­gram, when a dis­as­ter strikes, teens will be part of the relief solution.”

What a cutie-pie!

Tapping Youth Innovation 2009

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tyi-gvc-top

From GenV Cam­paigns:

Ashoka GenV and Wat­erAid wel­come all your ideas for how to improve access to clean water and san­i­ta­tion. Just send us one para­graph about your idea and we can guide you on how to pro­ceed. The ten most inno­v­a­tive, effec­tive or sus­tain­able project ideas will receive seed grants of up to US$1,000. Sub­mit your one para­graph idea by World Water Day — March 22, 2009.

Youth as change-makers—the next revolution

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Bill Dray­ton, founder of Ashoka, is one of my per­son­al heroes. Thanks to Jack at Youth Ven­ture Seat­tle, I had the most amaz­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty to hear him speak in per­son a few weeks ago. I also got to meet him after­ward, and we talked for quite awhile about my cur­rent work-in-progress–a hand­book for young change-mak­ers! Despite being sick, and in total awe, I hope I was able to sound rea­son­ably intel­li­gent. I think it worked, because he was very sup­port­ive and had a bunch of great sug­ges­tions and advice. What a thrill. Thanks, Bill!

Here’s a video (not mine) where Bill presents some of the same issues he talked about here in Seattle.

I think he is absolute­ly right on all counts. Empa­thy, team­work, and lead­er­ship skills—for everybody—are going to be ever-increas­ing­ly essen­tial for our sur­vival. What can you do to help change the world?

Invent Your World Challenge

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From GenV.net:

Ashoka GenV and the Lemel­son Foun­da­tion will sup­port 50 young inven­tors in using their inven­tions to cre­ate pos­i­tive change – by pro­vid­ing men­tor­ship, seed fund­ing, net­work­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties, and even a $20,000 schol­ar­ship. Sub­mit your one-para­graph idea before March 15, 2009.

Get the details here.

Photo courtesy of the Hippo Water Roller project: www.hipporoller.org.
Pho­to cour­tesy of the Hip­po Water Roller project: www.hipporoller.org.

Bathroom remodel #1

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Does your bath­room sing to you? Mine does! Well, it does now any­way. But first, here are the ugly “before” pic­tures (def­i­nite­ly no singing here, just a bad case of the blahs!):

Before-left
Before-left

Before right
Before-right
 

 
Then, there are the super-cool “dur­ing” pic­tures (“Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work we go!”):

During-left
Dur­ing-left

During-right
Dur­ing-right
 

 
And final­ly, the amaz­ing “after” pic­tures (“TADA!”):

After-left
After-left

After-right
After-right
 

It’s hard to cap­ture all of its glo­ry on film, and I’m jump­ing the gun a lit­tle because it’s not total­ly done or dec­o­rat­ed, but I think you can see the major improve­ments: Col­or! Con­trast! Light! A med­i­cine cab­i­net with DOORS! And, best of all, you no longer have to stand IN the toi­let to close the door behind you!
Thanks, City Builders!

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