Today’s teachers have a strong desire to find creative ways to engage students in a student-centered curriculum that prioritizes their authentic questions. But with trends, standards, and district mandates so abundant, true passion for discovery and deep appreciation for knowledge can sometimes seem elusive.
Fortunately, a ‘text set’ approach offers the possibility of igniting curiosity in young learners, opening pathways to explore a given topic through reading multiple texts, and achieving lasting understanding along the way.
In Text Sets in Action: Pathways through Content Area Literacy, Mary Ann Cappiello and Erika Thulin Dawes reveal how text sets can prompt serious thinking far more effectively than a textbook or any single text. As the authors explain, exploring many texts leads teachers and learners to ‘think more deeply, empathize more fully, and take action more deliberately.’ Teachers who adopt this approach find that the texts’ various lenses enable students not only to meet curriculum standards but also to experience lasting engagement and a spirit of inquiry across the disciplines.
This book will:
When texts are intentionally sequenced and juxtaposed with one another, readers discover different ways to see and explain the world around them. Immersion into text sets fosters critical thinking and appreciation for different points of view, which is crucial in nurturing a respect for diversity and preserving democracy.
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In Writing Rhetorically, Jennifer Fletcher provides teachers with strategies and frameworks for writing instruction that cultivate student expertise and autonomy. By teaching writing rhetorically, we support students in becoming independent problem solvers. They learn how to discover their own questions, design their own inquiry process, develop their own positions and purposes, make their own choices about content and form, and contribute to conversations that matter to them.
Inside this book, Jennifer examines the rhetorical writing skills and practices that help students effectively communicate across contexts while providing successful ways to foster
Rhetorical decision making helps students develop the skills, knowledge, and mindsets needed for transfer of learning: the ability to adapt and apply learning in new settings. The more choices students make as writers, the better prepared they are to analyze and respond to diverse rhetorical situations.
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When students say that reading is boring, difficult, overwhelming, or they cannot find a good book, it is almost impossible to sell them on the idea that reading is fun and worthwhile. Sometimes Reading is Hard shows teachers how to develop the skills students need to be successful and how to cultivate passionate, lifelong readers. Classroom vignettes, promising practices, and step-by-step activities illustrate how teachers can weave teaching the skills of reading, decoding, vocabulary, comprehension, and fluency with real reasons to read. When students want to read and they enjoy it, their reading skills improve. With the right motivation, any student can become an enthusiastic reader.
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Based on what we now know about reading, this practical book offers strategies in a consistent format that is easy for teachers to incorporate in their daily instruction. This grab-bag of classroom-tested activities allows teachers to choose what they need to meet the diverse needs of students in grades 1 through 8. These strategies guide students through the reading process and build important comprehension skills through reading, talk, art, drama, and more. These innovative ways to use the best children’s books will inspire students to become enthusiastic and avid readers, and take the first giant step into becoming lifelong readers.
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This timely book shows teachers how to make learning joyful as they translate successful classroom strategies to virtual learning. More than 60 step-by-step strategies encourage interaction, foster inclusion, and spark imagination. Each activity is presented in a consistent format, ready-to-use in-class and for online learning. Whether teaching virtually or adding digital activities to in-class instruction, this book explores effective ways for students to present, communicate, and collaborate. Innovative activities range from discussing hot topics and sharing personal stories to visual boards and digital storytelling. An up-to-date glossary of digital tools helps to make sense of the shifting landscape in today’s classrooms.
Coming in October 2021 — Pre-order today!
**SPECIAL OFFER: Pre-order the paper & eBook package, from now until Oct. 15, and get the eBook FREE!**
From phonological processing to brain research to orthographic mapping to self-teaching hypothesis, Shifting the Balance cuts through the rhetoric (and the sciencey science) to offer readers a practical guide to decision-making about beginning reading instruction. The authors honor the balanced literacy perspective while highlighting common practices to reconsider and revise—all through a lens of what’s best for the students sitting in front of us.
Across six shifts, each chapter
By pinpointing gaps and overlaps—as well as common misunderstandings and missed opportunities between the competing lines of thought—Jan and Kari offer busy educators direction and clarification for integrating science and balance into their daily instruction, while keeping meaningful experiences with text a priority.
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Powerful Poetry celebrates the beauty, power, and pleasure of poetry in the classroom. This highly-readable book outlines the many benefits of integrating poetry into your literacy program, including building reading, writing, and speaking skills, nurturing creativity, and celebrating language. Powerful Poetry provides practical, enjoyable lessons for integrating poetry into your year-long literacy program and engaging ways to introduce poetic structure, language, tools, and devices. Book lists introduce a wide range of wonderful poems and poets. Ideal for new and experienced teachers who are looking to bring the power of poetry into their classroom.
Coming in November 2021 — Pre-order today!
“Is this right? Is this how it’s supposed to look?” Adolescent writers often ask these kinds of questions because traditional grammar instruction focuses too much on what’s right or what’s wrong. The fear of making a mistake hides the true power of conventions – the creation of meaning, purpose, and effect, the ultimate reading-writing connection.
Inside Patterns of Power, Grades 6–8, teachers will find a quick yet comprehensive explanation of the invitational process—the easy-to-follow, brain-based process created to invite adolescent writers to learn about and apply conventions of the English language through the celebration of author’s purpose and craft. This process is the foundation on which 55 authentic, flexible, and effective lesson sets were built. Through practical guidance and ready-to-use lessons, you’ll be fully equipped to teach grammar in an engaging and authentic way in just 10 minutes a day.
With hundreds of teach-tomorrow visuals and implementation supports that include quick-reference guides as well as soundtrack lists to infuse the joy of music into grammar instruction, Patterns of Power, Grades 6–8 gives you everything you need to inspire your adolescent writers to move beyond limitation and into the endless possibilities of what they can do as writers.
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What’s the difference between teaching our students and our autistic students? Not much. This practical book argues that all students are unique. It focuses on integrating teaching autistic students into the teaching practice of the whole class. Based on extensive classroom experience, this highly readable book is full of anecdotes about engaged students growing in their learning. Lesson plans and checklists throughout the book help teachers get to know autistic students and help them with school work, emotional regulation, communication, socializing, and staying safe. This timely book champions getting rid of labels so teachers can know every student as an individual.
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This thoughtful book explores how emergent readers learn best and position text levels appropriately in the service of students. They also turn their attention to a comprehensive exploration of the particular needs of emergent readers and how the work they do at the earliest emergent levels of reading and writing lays a critical foundation necessary for them to continue growing successfully into the next steps and beyond. As they examine the needs of learners working at each emergent text level individually, the authors
With plenty of useful classroom examples, as well as additional online resources with literacy center ideas that correlate directly with the work students are doing at particular levels, this book is a resource your emergent reading teacher heart will reach for again and again.
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For decades, we’ve classified fiction as a way to study, understand, and, ultimately, teach literacy better. However, up to now, nonfiction hasn’t received this same level of intention. In 5 Kinds of Nonfiction, Melissa Stewart and Marlene Correia present a new way to sort nonfiction into five major categories and show how doing so can help teachers and librarians build stronger readers and writers. Along the way, they
With more than 150 exemplary nonfiction book recommendations and Stewart and Correia’s extensive knowledge of literacy instruction, 5 Kinds of Nonfiction will elevate your understanding of nonfiction in ways that speak specifically to the info-kids in your classrooms, and will inspire all readers and writers.
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This remarkable book shows teachers how to stop working harder and start working smarter. It describes a shift from “teach-test-move-on” to “teach-connect-apply” to optimize student learning. This valuable resource provides teachers with an understanding of simple, manageable, and sustainable strategies to change their approach immediately. These strategies build on helping students retain math concepts so they can apply them in novel situations down the road. The focus is on supporting teachers in framing instruction so that students strengthen their understanding, and can remember and apply learning. Making Math Stick is a game-changer that champions durable learning for all students.
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