Alexis Wiggins has taken a 1930s Socratic discussion strategy and enriched it to provide more detail about process, assessment and self-reflection. Teacher Joanne Bell finds Wiggins’ Spider Web technique a useful tool to develop learners ready for 21st century employment.
Mary Tedrow makes a strong case for daily student writing that generates ideas and wonderings not only in English but all content areas. Sarah Cooper finds Tedrow’s detailed guide to using Daybooks and her recommendations on grading and indexing particularly helpful.
Middle grade students crave role models and great stories. Author visits provide both in a very tangible way. Learn how media specialist & NBCT Christina Dorr arranges a steady stream of tween and young adult novelists through her school and read 10 tips for doing it yourself!
Practical teachers concerned with helping kids move forward as readers know that giving them access to engaging texts at their approximate level is an important strategy, says school librarian Rita Platt. Read her arguments for avoiding an either-or approach to leveling.
With sensitivity and practicality, Sarah Cooper takes on the heightened challenge of teaching civics and governance to today’s adolescents. Fellow middle grades teacher Heather Wolpert-Gawron finds practical strategies and lessons that can be used across the curriculum.
Whether you teach in a gifted education classroom or have gifted students in your general classroom, you will find Teaching Gifted Children a thorough treatment of established practice and current trends in working with high-ability learners, says educator Linda Biondi.
Close Reading the Media / History vs Hollywood
by Frank Baker · Published 01/16/2018 · Last modified 11/28/2019
Examining differences between the movie and the actual history – and the processes screenwriters use to adapt a true story – is worthy of media literacy classroom time, says Frank Baker, author of Close Reading the Media. Truth is, the film will never match the book!
Doug Robertson offers meaningful, practical advice on how to insure that having or being a student teacher benefits both sides. In addition to plentiful laughs, teacher-librarian and former mentor Rita Platt finds useful tips on many aspects of having a student teacher.
Berit Gordon offers a step-by-step plan for playing catch up with students who are not regular readers and therefore do not have the reading skills or the knowledge base to feel anything but overwhelmed and bored by classic literature, says classics teacher Kelley Pujol.
Teachers will want to keep Pernille Ripp’s Passionate Readers as a “forever resource,” says former reading teacher Mary Langer Thompson. This practical book, full of bold ideas and ready-made resources, centers on helping students become life-long lovers of reading.
