Literacy as Snake Oil

Literacy as Snake Oil PDF Author: Joanne Larson
Publisher: New Literacies and Digital Epistemologies
ISBN:
Category : Literacy programs
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
This revised edition of Literacy as Snake Oil further investigates and critiques the commodification of literacy and education. Since the publication of the first edition, schools in the U.S. have been targeted even more as a market for private companies seeking to profit from the surveillance of NCLB (No Child Left Behind). Three chapters have been added: one that deals with the reproduction of racialized spaces during a textbook adoption, an analysis of America's Choice by a classroom teacher, and an analysis of the U.K.'s literacy strategy. This book will inspire teachers to remember their political commitments to resist oppression and unethical practice and find ways to subvert teacher- (and student-) proof packages.

Literacy as Snake Oil

Literacy as Snake Oil PDF Author: Joanne Larson
Publisher: New Literacies and Digital Epistemologies
ISBN:
Category : Literacy programs
Languages : en
Pages : 220

Get Book

Book Description
This revised edition of Literacy as Snake Oil further investigates and critiques the commodification of literacy and education. Since the publication of the first edition, schools in the U.S. have been targeted even more as a market for private companies seeking to profit from the surveillance of NCLB (No Child Left Behind). Three chapters have been added: one that deals with the reproduction of racialized spaces during a textbook adoption, an analysis of America's Choice by a classroom teacher, and an analysis of the U.K.'s literacy strategy. This book will inspire teachers to remember their political commitments to resist oppression and unethical practice and find ways to subvert teacher- (and student-) proof packages.

Snake Oil

Snake Oil PDF Author: Reverend Becca Stevens
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1455519073
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
"In the world of snake oils, you have to see the world a little differently. Where others see poverty, you see riches; where others see weeds, you see flowers; where others see sickness, you see openness." Becca Stevens calls herself a "snake oil seller": She takes natural oils, mixes them with a good story, sells them in an open market and believes they help to heal the world. Becca is the founder of Thistle Farms, one of the most successful examples in the US of a social enterprise whose mission is the work force. She is also the founder of its residential program, Magdalene. The women of Magdalene/Thistle Farms have survived prostitution, trafficking and addiction, and the natural body care products they manufacture-balms, soaps, and lotions-aid in their own healing as well as that of the people who buy them. The book weaves together the beginnings of the enterprise with individual stories from Becca's own journey as well as 20 women in the community. In Snake Oil, Becca tells how the women she began helping fifteen years ago have been the biggest source of her own healing from sexual abuse and her father's death as a child. Wise and reflective, Snake Oil offers an empowering narrative as well as a selection of recipes for healing remedies that readers can make themselves.

Snake Oil Science

Snake Oil Science PDF Author: R. Barker Bausell PhD
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780199758593
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
Millions of people worldwide swear by such therapies as acupuncture, herbal cures, and homeopathic remedies. Indeed, complementary and alternative medicine is embraced by a broad spectrum of society, from ordinary people, to scientists and physicians, to celebrities such as Prince Charles and Oprah Winfrey. In the tradition of Michael Shermers Why People Believe Weird Things and Robert Parks's Voodoo Science, Barker Bausell provides an engaging look at the scientific evidence for complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and at the logical, psychological, and physiological pitfalls that lead otherwise intelligent people--including researchers, physicians, and therapists--to endorse these cures. The books ultimate goal is to reveal not whether these therapies work--as Bausell explains, most do work, although weakly and temporarily--but whether they work for the reasons their proponents believe. Indeed, as Bausell reveals, it is the placebo effect that accounts for most of the positive results. He explores this remarkable phenomenon--the biological and chemical evidence for the placebo effect, how it works in the body, and why research on any therapy that does not factor in the placebo effect will inevitably produce false results. By contrast, as Bausell shows in an impressive survey of research from high-quality scientific journals and systematic reviews, studies employing credible placebo controls do not indicate positive effects for CAM therapies over and above those attributable to random chance. Here is not only an entertaining critique of the strangely zealous world of CAM belief and practice, but it also a first-rate introduction to how to correctly interpret scientific research of any sort. Readers will come away with a solid understanding of good vs. bad research practice and a healthy skepticism of claims about the latest miracle cure, be it St. John's Wort for depression or acupuncture for chronic pain.

Silicon Snake Oil

Silicon Snake Oil PDF Author: Clifford Stoll
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0385419945
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
In Silicon Snake Oil, Clifford Stoll, the best-selling author of The Cuckoo's Egg and one of the pioneers of the Internet, turns his attention to the much-heralded information highway, revealing that it is not all it's cracked up to be. Yes, the Internet provides access to plenty of services, but useful information is virtually impossible to find and difficult to access. Is being on-line truly useful? "Few aspects of daily life require computers...They're irrelevant to cooking, driving, visiting, negotiating, eating, hiking, dancing, speaking, and gossiping. You don't need a computer to...recite a poem or say a prayer." Computers can't, Stoll claims, provide a richer or better life. A cautionary tale about today's media darling, Silicon Snake Oil has sparked intense debate across the country about the merits--and foibles--of what's been touted as the entranceway to our future.

Snake Oil, Hustlers and Hambones

Snake Oil, Hustlers and Hambones PDF Author: Ann Anderson
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476601127
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
Long before television and radio commercials beckoned to potential buyers, the medicine show provided free entertainment and promised cures for everything from corns to cancer. Combining elements of the circus, theater, vaudeville, and good old-fashioned entrepreneurship, the showmen of the American medicine show sold tonics, ointments, pills, extracts and a host of other "wonder-cures," guaranteed to "cure what ails you." While the cures were seldom miraculous, the medicine show was an important part of American culture and of performance history. Harry Houdini, Buster Keaton, and P.T. Barnum all took a turn upon the medicine show stage. This study of the medicine show phenomenon surveys nineteenth century popular entertainment and provides insight into the ways in which show business, advertising, and medicine manufacture developed in concert. The colorful world of the medicine show, with its Wild West shows, pie-eating contests, clowns, and menageries, is fully explored. Photographs of performers and of the fascinating handbills and posters used to promote the medicine show are included.

Making Literacy Real

Making Literacy Real PDF Author: Joanne Larson
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 9781412903318
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
'Joanne Larson and Jackie Marsh's Literacy Learning is easily the most theoretically sophisticated and practically useful discussion of sociocultural and critical approaches to literacy learning that has appeared to date' - James Paul Gee, Tashia Morgidge Professor of Reading, University of Wisconsin-Madison Making Literacy Real is the essential reference text for primary education students at undergraduate and graduate level who want to understand literacy theory and successfully apply it in the classroom. Doctoral students will find this a useful resource in understanding the relationship of theory to practice. The authors explore the breadth of this complex and important field, orientating literacy as a social practice, grounded in social, cultural, historical and political contexts of use. They also present a detailed and accessible discussion of the theory and its application in the primary classroom.

Snake Oil

Snake Oil PDF Author: Jim Rose
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780910155595
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The gyp, hoodwink, shuck, sandbag: An art form that has been passed down through generations of hustlers, con men, and freaks. Selling snake oil is the ultimate con, and readers will find within these pages everything from classic deceptions to the most recent of ruses. From fooling your friends to dangerous stage stunts, Jim Rose, snake oil salesman extraordinaire, provides new angles to old tricks. Those who dare to explore these pages will find themselves enticed by this special brand of snake oil. Step right up: it's all here. There's nothing it won't cure!

Snake Oil Salesman of the Week

Snake Oil Salesman of the Week PDF Author: Brian Halsey
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781544111216
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 106

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Book Description
Andy James is an artist, a fighter, and a big time a-hole from the small town of Tuckerton, New Jersey. While in pursuit of artistic greatness, James comes across a shapeshifting (Jersey) Devil during a chance encounter in the isolated Pine Barrens. Confident to a fault, Andy James believes he can get the best of the Devil, but unfortunately loses his soul in the process. Suffering from a carnivorous rage that is a product of the Devil's sourcery, James goes on a mission to find his evil nemesis. The grueling hunt leaves Andy beaten and taunted by the supernatural and human beings that surround him. With time running out, Andy's fortune begins to turn when he discovers a loophole in his soulless existence. Armed with sacred knowledge and endless bravado, Andy James returns to the wilderness for a showdown against the most ancient evil known to mankind.

Self-help Nation

Self-help Nation PDF Author: Tom Tiede
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780871137777
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Offers humorous insight into the popularity and profitability of the self-help publishing industry, and expresses the authors' opinion of of such best-sellers as Dr. Laura Schlessinger, Norman Vicent Peale, and Leo Buscaglia.

Snake Oil

Snake Oil PDF Author: Michael P. Senger
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781957083773
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
Through propaganda, corruption, and fraud, the Chinese Communist Party under Xi Jinping transformed the snake oil of COVID-19 lockdowns into "science." This is how he did it, and why.