The Wise Enchanter
A Journey through the Alphabet

Shelley Davidow

Illustrated by Krystyna Emilia Kurzyca

Softbound

$15.00

I can't begin to describe how much I love this story and the fact that Shelley Davidow has so much insight and such an understanding of children that she created it. The Wise Enchanter actually makes me wish that I could go back to the time before I learned to read and enter the magic world of words through this rich and wonderful door. I especially love that the story is so very like the worlds I created for myself in those pre-written-word days, yet carries with it the assurance that there are depths of goodness in the world and that searching for them is a worthy, yea, necessary thing to do. What could be a better way to introduce our written language to a child? This book is a beautiful creation and a gift to treasure.

Here's a small sample, from the Prologue:

[The Wise Enchanter is on his magical island, and is troubled. He has called his daughter, Gadrun, to him.]

Gadrun ran to her father. A frown creased her brow. "Dear father," she said, "I see that you are worried."

"I am getting old," he replied. "Without Wisdom, there can be no new Enchanters after I am gone. No children have come to my island for many years. It is happening just as I feared. Wisdom is fading in the world. Words are disappearing. The brightness in the sky is vanishing and the dark Cloud of Ignorance has grown suddenly dense. A new darkness is looming. Someone is being created in the deep. He is growing stronger every minute. If he is not stopped, he will grow immense. If he grows strong enough, he will rise up and devour every word and sound. The earth will become a cold, silent place, too terrible to imagine."

"Who are you talking about?" Gadrun whispered.

"I do not like to utter his name," her father whispered. "But I will say it for you. His name is the Master of Ignorance and Shadows. His name is Urckl!"

Gadrun grew pale and silent at the mention of Urckl. Once, some time ago, Urckl had found enough strength to send one of his messengers to the end of the world. Something terrible had happened then in the Enchanted Islands and Gadrun's heart had been broken.

And thus, the adventure begins.

I should add that The Wise Enchanter is filled with soft black-and-white drawings that you can easily transform into main lesson drawings for the child(ren) you are teaching to recreate as each letter is rescued from darkness.

This is a wonderful, vibrant, masterful book -- may your journey through it be rich and rewarding!

An English Grammar
The Language before Babel

Rudolf Schmid

Softbound

$16.00

This is an incredibly fascinating, lively, original, and in many ways, the most memorable English grammar I've ever seen. It is also perhaps the best example of the sheer usefulness of employing Rudolf Steiner's method of understanding things by approaching them as threefold, fourfold, sevenfold, etc. entities. When Schmid applies this to conventional English grammar, the structure of the language springs to life and, because it is placed into relationship with other aspects of human experience, it becomes much easier to grasp and remember and use correctly. Anyone teaching grammar to any class, whether in a school or at home, will find that using this approach opens vistas of understanding - for teacher as well as students. Very highly recommended!

An English Manual
for the Elementary School

New Edition

Dorothy Harrer

Softbound

$14.00

A classic guide to teaching English language arts in the elmentary grades. Contains a master teacher's suggestions for presenting English grammar, punctuation, and composition for grades 2-8. Includes sample lessons.

Teaching English

Roy Wilkinson

$10.50

England's most proflific master teacher offers a concise overview of the task and method of imparting a sound understanding of English (or any mother language) to students in grades 1 through 8.

Topics Covered:

• Teaching English
• The Origin of Language
• The Various Aspects of Language
• Child Development
• Practical Work - General
• Speaking
• Writing
• Grammar
• Compositions
• Literature
• Discussions of Class Work, grade by grade

The Australian Word
A Resource Manual for Teachers of English and Anyone Who Loves Language, Its Body, Soul and Spirit

Alan Whitehead

$18.95

Don't let the title fool you! This is not a manual peppered with "g'day mate" and other aspects of language unique to Australia. Save that many of the stories take place in Australia, The Australian Word could as easily be titled The Universal English Language. It is an excellent guide to teaching the wonders of the English language in story and rhyme. Included are: speech, humour, the novel, names, mime, poetry, Aussie slang (ok, so there is a chapter that covers "g'day mate"), St. John, a story workshop, the short story, 19th Century Australian poetry, sound and hearing.

One Way to Teach the Writing of Poetry

Christy Barnes

Softbound

$5.00

A priceless article from one of the most inspiring teachers of English and literature. Her suggestions will inspire any teacher to bring the art and craft of creating one's own poetry to life for your students. This is one of those little treasures that will live in your heart long after you've worn out its pages.

The Art and Science of Teaching Composition

Dorit Winter

Softbound

$10.00

This small but insightful book explores rich and stimulating methods for the teaching of English composition skills in Waldorf elementary schools. It offers writing exercises and examples. Compact, it is filled with wisdom all teachers will want to apply.

The Spirit of the English Language
A Practical Guide for Poets, Teachers and Students

John H. Wulsin, Jr.

Softbound

$35.00

Here is a fascinating journey through the English language and its literature, born of John Wulsin's lifelong interest “how sound works in English and American poetry.” Wulsin traces the many changes, both subtle and radical, in how English has sounded over the past thirteen centuries, while also showing how those changes are related to the evolution of human consciousness in Western, English-speaking peoples.

The Spirit of the English Language is never dry but filled with the textures of the lives and works of the great English-language poets. Wulsin describes the evolving activity of poetry in the biography of each poet, beginning with the Old Anglo–Saxon in Beowulf and the later works of Chaucer, and following the spirit of the English language through to the nineteenth century’s “primal/modern” language of Gerard Manley Hopkins and Dickinson’s diamond-distilled language. Along the way, we discover how the very sounds of English have changed the ways in which not only poets think and express themselves, but, more important, how sound works and changes our human consciousness. The author also discusses specifically how, in teaching poetics, stages of the developing English language quicken corresponding stages of thinking in maturing adolescents.

Twelve years in the making, The Spirit of the English Language is the fruit of John Wulsin’s thirty years of teaching language and literature to adolescents. The book is further informed and fructified by the author’s fifteen years of teaching poetics to adults, as well as decades of writing poetry and participating in numerous poetry workshops.

This practical guide will become a classic for all poets, teachers of poetry and language, and students. It is a beautiful resource for anyone interested in English, its development, its effects on consciousness, and how sound works in poetry.

Contents:

• Introduction
• Part I
  • A Language Is Born
  • Old Anglo-Saxon
  • Evolving Language in Evolving Adolescents: Ninth and Tenth Grades
  • The Norman Conquest
  • Chaucer’s Middle English
  • The Language Wakes up, Renewed
  • Elizabethan English: Shakespeare
  • Expansion and Contraction: King James Bible
• Part II
  • Lyric Activity in Metaphysical Poetry: John Donne
  • The English Epic: Milton
  • The Eighteenth Century and Blake
  • Wordsworth
  • Coleridge
  • Byron
  • Shelley
  • Keats
  • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
  • Robert Browning
  • Tennyson
  • Gerard Manley Hopkins
  • Eleventh Grade(Ages 16–17)
• Part III
  • Alteration of the Early American Mind
  • Poetry in American Prose: The Novel
  • Whitman
  • Emily Dickinson
  • Twelfth Grade(Ages 17–18)
  • Contemporary American Speech
  • Speech and Drama in High School
  • Conclusion

The Language of English Literature
How English Sounds

John Wulsin

Folder Bound

$14.00

In Part 1, Wulsin explores the language of poetry in English as it developed from 800 AD thru the 1800's AD. His key question is "What do changes in the language reflect or suggest about changing consciousness in English-speaking peoples?"

In Part 2, he reflects on the relationship between the evolving stages of the English language and the developmental stages of adolescents. How might the evolution of English poetry both reflect, and especially affect, the development of a teenager? How can the Spirit of the English language best help adolescents in their develoment in the context of a Waldorf education?

The Laws of the Living Language

John Wulson, Jr.

Spiral Bound

$7.00

Waldorf high school English teacher John Wulsin examines some common contemporary errors of speech, the significance of the correct forms, and what parents and teachers can do to help students regain their footing in the spoken word.