A Teacher’s Guide to Mentor Texts offers a winning combination – a structured lesson approach, a range of suggested mentor texts, and an overall message adaptable to specific students. Teachers at multiple levels of experience will find it invaluable, writes Sara Pennington.
After making a strong case for small group instruction during the writing process, Jennifer Serravallo shares how to implement and develop six types. Teacher Jennifer Wirtz loves the access to videos of groups in action and the printables for students. Highly recommended.
In Leading Literate Lives Stephanie Affinito strikes the perfect balance between encouraging reflective pedagogy and sharing fresh teaching ideas for reading and writing so teachers can pass the love they have for literacy on to students, writes ELA teacher Rebecca Crockett.
Suzanne Kelly and Elizabeth Dobler help us understand that technology, when used with intention, can help teachers augment instruction without letting it dictate what we do.They offer many tools and ideas to guide decision making as we integrate tech into our lesson plans.
In her book Stephanie Affinito brings together the importance of reflection and the need to examine our classroom practices. She provides a framework for celebrating our reading and writing lives and offers ways we can help our students develop these habits for themselves.
The Civically Engaged Classroom can be read on multiple levels: with tips and ideas that can be incorporated into class tomorrow, but also big picture thinking about rebooting the whole system of civic education, writes ELA and social studies teacher Megan Kelly.
Gilmore and Deos’s Integrating Technology targets teachers in its early chapters and IT leaders later on in its broad messaging. The authors present a useful theoretical model, says reviewer Jeny Randall, short on “how to” examples but long on vision for the future.
The Caring Teacher asks educators to reexamine how and why they teach the way they do, to record reflections, questions and thoughts toward the goal of reducing bias and increasing student success. Linda Biondi believes every moment spent in reflection will be worth it.
Matt Glover shows teachers how they can marry genre units with craft and process studies to give students choice and agency throughout the school year. ELA teacher Rebecca Crockett thanks Glover for revealing ways to teach state standards and give writers more autonomy.
Whatever grade you teach, you will find lots to use in Berit Gordon’s The Joyful Teacher, says reviewer Linda Biondi. Her expertly chosen resources, complete lessons, ideas for class environment, independent practice, assessment and more will help you and your students thrive.
