Lori G. Wilfong knows how to write for teachers: concise, conversational and filled with practical ideas. In Writing Strategies That Work: Do This–Not That!, she presents current best practices for teachers of all grades and content areas, says Anne Anderson.
Book Reviews / Technology and Writing
by MiddleWeb · Published 08/06/2015 · Last modified 08/07/2015
Why blog? Starr Sackstein provides lots of reasons in her book, Blogging for Educators: Writing for Professional Learning. Sackstein also shows how to set up a blog. Reviewer Mary Langer Thompson recommends the book for teachers who can’t keep themselves from writing.
A three-perspective approach to reading response (as a reader, a writer and a human being) has been a helpful resource for Sarah Donovan and for her students as they respond to writing by their peers. Donovan includes several model activities and examples.
Plans for Republican and Democratic primary debates are well underway. Media literacy expert Frank W. Baker is ready with guidelines for engaging students in classroom research and discussion. Baker’s first focus: the very crowded GOP debates scheduled for this fall.
Relationships are built when children know that caring adults are on their side. If teachers team up with parents and families, they can help create success for even the most difficult students. Amber Chandler shares the strategies that work in her MS classroom.
In The Unstoppable Writing Teacher, M. Colleen Cruz addresses issues that stop teachers from teaching writer’s workshop the way that they want. She tackles time, resources, families, curriculum and administration effectively, says reviewer Laura Von Staden.
Teacher Evaluation / Working Draft
by Kevin Hodgson · Published 06/14/2015 · Last modified 11/26/2019
Soon Kevin Hodgson’s school will begin including student feedback in teacher evaluation. But Kevin is curious now. He shares a survey he created for his 6th graders to gather their views of learning in his ELA classroom. See how well he met expectations.
Easy to implement suggestions and detailed reading response lessons make educator Marilyn Pryle’s recent book a helpful addition to the Common Core ELA bookshelf. Reviewer Sandy Wisneski recommends its common-sense resources for modeling, assessing, and practice.
Using Google Slides for poetry writing proved to be a win-win for Kevin Hodgson and his 6th graders, who tried out various poetic forms, used technology to publish original writing, applied elements of web design, and learned to attribute the work of others.
Seventh grade teacher Kami Spampinato uses four kid-savvy strategies to get her students to “buy in” to reading complex texts. In this post, former MS educator Anne Vilen of Expeditionary Learning summarizes each technique and shares supporting EL videos.
