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"In this book," writes Heidi Mills, "you'll learn how to plan for inquiry in a way that promotes literacy throughout the day and across the content areas." With Learning for Real, you'll find a rich array of resources for truly integrating a balanced literacy approach into every corner of the curriculum. "We all know how exhilarating it is to learn something new," writes Heidi, "to develop expertise around a passion." She and her colleagues invite students into that experience, while developing five habits necessary for the content learning inside and outside of the classroom: carefully observing the world by using the tools and strategies of a discipline posing questions and investigating problems from numerous perspectives drawing information and evidence from primary and secondary sources, both nonfiction and narrative using the language of inquiry while reflecting on and sharing new learning effectively with others employing reflection and self-evaluation to grow and change. To help you adapt instruction to your curricular and standards-based goals, Heidi includes planning guidelines, classroom-tested units of study, and from-the-field video clips of exemplar inquiry-driven teaching. "Provide students with experiences that help them grow into strategic readers, writers, mathematicians, scientists, and social scientists," writes Heidi Mills. "Devote as much time to teaching children how to learn as what to learn." Link literacy and content with Learning for Real and discover that when students know how to learn, they exceed our expectations, and show what's possible in genuine inquiry-based classrooms.

Three handbooks; 30 key ideas presented in small, smart packages; all the information necessary to start making inclusion work effectively. Whether you're a general educator, a special educator, an administrator, a therapist, or a family team member, You're Welcome presents the thinking you'll need to open your classrooms to all students. You're Welcome is divided into three handbooks that address the most important educational frameworks at the heart of inclusive schooling: Differentiating Instruction Collaboration and Teaming Positive and Peaceful Behavior Supports Each book contains ten big ideas that provide the most pertinent information for understanding and supporting diverse learners. Schwarz and Kluth distill the research and best practices behind inclusion into concise, actionable nuggets for professional learning that include: classroom structures instructional strategies organizational principles and activities lesson ideas examples from real schools recommended print and Web resources. Get answers to frequently asked questions about crucial topics such as coteaching, team building, collaborating with students, integrating the IEP into the general education curriculum, creating personalized learning agendas, and writing sensitive and responsive behavior plans. Read You're Welcome and discover a powerful tool for implementing educational practices that provide meaningful help for students with a range of diverse abilities, needs, gifts, and struggles as they achieve effective educational gains.

"Multigenre writing is an immersion in a big topic of personal importance. I want students to taste such passionate immersion. I want them to experience how that immersion, combined with the possibility of multiple genres, can waken a boldness of expression in them. Students' subjective experience with multigenre will affect their attitude toward writing. It will affect your attitude toward teaching." -Tom Romano What does it mean to write fearlessly? Tom Romano illustrates the power of multigenre papers to push students beyond the "safety zone" of narrative and exposition into a place where fact meets imagination, and research meets creativity. A place to try the untried. Fearless Writing empowers students to leap into this personal, multifaceted take on research writing by giving you specific strategies and practical ideas to help students: Generate topic ideas Design research plans Develop core elements of a multigenre project Create innovative genres and "golden threads" of unifying elements. While multigenre papers address many Common Core writing standards, Tom's passionate response to both the strengths and weaknesses of the Common Core serves as a lightning bolt of awareness, and a rallying cry for a writing curriculum of genre diversity. Expand your notion of writing and teaching writing, fearlessly. Read sample chapters here.

Everyone loves summer--except reading teachers. Kids take a vacation from books and those with limited access to books lose ground to their peers. You may have thought there's nothing you can do about it, but there is. No More Summer-Reading Loss shows how to ensure that readers continue to grow year round. School-based practitioners Carrie Cahill and Kathy Horvath join with renowned researchers Anne McGill-Franzen and Dick Allington to help you make summer readers out of every student. You'll stop summer-reading loss as they help you: identify practices that inadvertently contribute to it understand the research on its implications and its prevention take research-based action with 8 instructional strategies. Building independence. Keeping kids on grade-level. Closing the achievement gap. These are just a few of the valuable outcomes that No More Summer-Reading Loss can support. Most importantly, it will help you pass on a love of reading that knows no season and gives readers confidence when they return in the fall. About the Not This, But That Series No More Summer-Reading Loss is part of the Not This, But That series, edited by Nell K. Duke and Ellin Oliver Keene. It helps teachers examine common, ineffective classroom practices and replace them with practices supported by research and professional wisdom. In each book a practicing educator and an education researcher identify an ineffective practice; summarize what the research suggests about why; and detail research-based, proven practices to replace it and improve student learning. Read a sample chapter from No More Summer-Reading Loss.

In this comprehensive guide to developing, implementing, and improving dual-language programs, internationally recognized experts Else Hamayan, Fred Genesee and Nancy Cloud address every aspect of a successful dual-language program, including: specific strategies for building community support for the program guidance for choosing a program model and planning curriculum across grade levels best-practice teaching strategies that promote content learning and language development guidelines for assessment and linking assessment to standards commentary from teachers, administrators, and instructional supervisors currently working within vibrant and successful dual-language programs helpful discussions of current research in the realm of dual-language instruction. Whether you are with a school or district considering or putting together a dual-language program or you are looking to improve an existing program, let Dual Language Instruction from A to Z be your roadmap to excellence. To preview a sample of Dual Language Instruction from A to Z click here.

"This is no recipe book: I have tried not to be formulaic. Rather, I want to suggest the richness of options, the myriad possibilities open to the writer at any given moment. Young writers need to know what can be done with language." --Ralph Fletcher For more than 20 years, Ralph Fletcher's What a Writer Needs has been a beloved bestseller, trusted in classrooms, district inservices, and teacher-preparation programs across the U.S. Now Ralph's second edition makes What a Writer Needs an even more powerful tool for turning students into writers--and for teachers to improve their own writing. In What A Writer Needs, Ralph presents a crash course on the elements of writing, with chapters on how to create vivid details, compelling voice, a sense of place, believable characters, tension, engaging leads and endings, just to name a few. Readers will develop a deeper, more profound knowledge of writing and will find the book eminently practical as well. In fact, Ralph has added two entirely new chapters on revision and nonfiction writing that are immediately useful for meeting Common Core writing standards. It also includes a completely updated list of suggested mentor texts, handpicked by Ralph, and sorted by the craft element each demonstrates. What A Writer Needs, Second Edition, is a desert-island book for any writing teacher. Personal and anecdotal, it includes a wealth of lively writing samples drawn both from student writers and professionals. Experience Ralph's keen instructional insight, his careful attention to students and their work, and his experienced-honed wisdom about the essentials of great writing. Discover the pleasure of reading and teaching from What a Writer Needs. You'll soon find out why Ralph Fletcher's timeless classic is more timely than ever.

"It's easy to feel hopeless in the face of statistics indicating that students with disabilities have fewer educational successes and greater quality-of-life issues than their classmates without disabilities. Yet every week I meet students, teachers, and families who transcend these statistics and are making exciting educational progress, from disability to possibility. This book takes this concept a step further, from possibility to success!" --Patrick Schwarz In From Disability to Possibility, Patrick Schwarz made a passionate and compelling argument for the inclusive classroom. From Possibility to Success takes Patrick's case to the next level by providing teachers with powerful new tools to make inclusive education work, along with guidelines for incorporating them into classroom practice. With the goal of building lifelong skills, Patrick offers templates and authentic forms that help you plan lessons and units while at the same time embracing students' interests and passions, working toward students' dreams, promoting leadership, self-advocacy, self-determination, and membership in both school and the community. With an explicit overview of each tool, a rationale for using them, and compelling stories of how they have helped real students in real classrooms, Patrick empowers educators to combine the science and art of teaching all learners. Try them out and discover hope, direction, and inspiration to turn possibility into success.

"STEM Lesson Essentials moves beyond the rhetoric and provides knowledge, tools, models, and examples that make STEM a reality of teaching and learning in classrooms." --Rodger Bybee, Executive Director (Retired), Biological Sciences Curriculum Study Want to know how to implement authentic STEM teaching and learning into your classroom? STEM Lesson Essentials provides all the tools and strategies you'll need to design integrated, interdisciplinary STEM lessons and units that are relevant and exciting to your students. With clear definitions of both STEM and STEM literacy, the authors argue that STEM in itself is not a curriculum, but rather a way of organizing and delivering instruction by weaving the four disciplines together in intentional ways. Rather than adding two new subjects to the curriculum, the engineering and technology practices can instead be blended into existing math and science lessons in ways that engage students and help them master 21st century skills. STEM Lesson Essentials shows teachers how to begin the STEM integration journey with: five guiding principles for effective STEM instruction classroom examples of what these principles look like in action sample activities that put all four STEM fields into practice lesson planning templates for STEM units. Explicit connections are made among the STEM practices, including the Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practice and the Framework for K-12 Science Education, helping you easily recognize ways in which STEM lessons can engage students in multiple standards at the same time. With ideas that are practical and achievable in any classroom, STEM Lesson Essentials will give you the confidence and knowledge to weave engineering and technology concepts into your math and science curriculum. STEM teaching doesn't have to be hard. You just have to get started. Try it out with STEM Lesson Essentials, and watch student understanding, achievement, and motivation soar.

The Standards for Mathematical Practice promise to elevate students' learning of math from knowledge to application and bring rigor to math classrooms. Here, the authors unpack each of the eight Practices and provide a wealth of practical ideas and activities to help teachers quickly integrate them into their existing math program.

"These lessons work. And not just for kids who read well. They also work for kids who struggle in reading, who don't respond to abstract concepts." --Tanny McGregor Inside, every kid wants to love reading--sometimes they need our help to see it. That's where Tanny McGregor's memorable, sensory-driven lessons come in. "The chapters in this book," she writes, "are a collection of ideas about how to launch genres, how to introduce your students to the personalities of each, and how to build a curiosity and appreciation for what each genre has to offer. Use the seed ideas suggested in this volume with a genre of your choice and see how it grows!" Genre Connections makes learning achievable, accessible, and incremental for all readers--including struggling readers. Tanny's lessons use everyday objects, works of art, music, and her much-loved anchor charts to help readers get acquainted with seven commonly taught genres and to discover what makes them unique. Her launching sequences gradually release responsibility for learning about text types, and they can be adapted for any genre. They help readers weave creative, sensory threads into a tapestry of understanding by taking them from a fun introductory object lesson to an immersive experience. Looking for the perfect partner for Tanny's Comprehension Connections? Or for a new way to bring the inner reader out in any student? Let the ideas in Genre Connections inspire you to help your students get to know genres quickly, confidently, and effectively.

"Your charts don't need to be perfect, just thoughtful. You don't even have to be able to draw. Just put the child before the chart." Marjorie Martinelli and Kristine Mraz Listen to an interview with Marjorie and Kristi, the Chartchums, on Education Talk Radio. Commercially available charts leave you hanging? Want the secret to jump-off-the-wall charts that stick with kids? Trust Smarter Charts. Did you ever want to know: What do great charts look like? How many is too many? Where are the best places for them in my classroom? How long do I keep them? How do I know if they are working? Then you'll want to meet Marjorie Martinelli and Kristine Mraz, the Chartchums. They struggled with the same questions, and Smarter Charts shares not only the answers, but the best practices they've discovered as well. Amp up the power of your charts with tips on design and language, instructional use, and self-assessment. Even better, discover surprising strategies that deepen engagement, strengthen retention, and heighten independence--all by involving students in chart making. Packed with full-color sample charts from real classrooms, Smarter Charts shares simple, brain-based strategies proven to make your classroom an even more active, effective space for literacy instruction and classroom management.

Beers and Probst introduce six "signposts" that alert readers to significant moments in a work of literature and encourage students to read closely. Learning first to spot these signposts and then to question them, enables readers to explore the text, any text, finding evidence to support their interpretations.

"If students used structures that more closely tracked the movement of their mind, weaving their own slaloms between the twins of knowledge and experience, readers would be more inclined to lean in and vicariously experience that movement of the mind. Wouldn't they?" Gretchen Bernabei and Dorothy Hall In their signature easy-to-implement style, Gretchen Bernabei and Dorothy Hall offer new options for teaching expository writing that more realistically match the way readers actually think and writers actually write. While many state assessments as well as the Common Core ask students to write about their opinions, the goal in The Story of My Thinking is to help teachers take their kids through the various stages of the writing process (from generating ideas to publication) in a way that breaks down the barrier between "academic" writing and "creative" writing and helps kids produce vibrant nonfiction with voice and conviction. The Story of My Thinking provides 13 writing activities for familiar teaching situations, with step-by-step lessons that help you bridge the gap between narrative and informative writing. Using the same classroom-tested strategies that made Crunchtime a bestseller, the authors give the flexibility of dipping in and out of the lessons as you need them. For example, "If you want them to explore topics for deep development and systemic growth," use Gretchen's "Inner Streams/Gritty Life" activity along with the tools that help students plan their thinking. Choose the lesson that matches your teaching situation today, and then another one tomorrow. When authentic, personal experiences replace canned, pre-written topics, and students are provided with structures that reflect how readers read, their writing transforms from formulaic to passionate. And when students have plenty of chances to write about topics that are meaningful to them, in a variety of ways, for a variety of situations, then they will be ready for any writing assignment.

Minds-on Mathematics explains the core elements of math workshop and provides detailed strategies for implementing the workshop structure, including Lesson Openers that engage students,Minilessons that model thinking and problem solving.

A new companion for every English teacher "Why have I written an entirely new English Teacher's Companion? Because to offer you anything less would suggest I had not grown, changed, or evolved these past fifteen years. I am not the same teacher I was when I wrote the first edition." Jim Burke The fourth edition of English Teacher's Companion is 100 percent new. Jim Burke has rewritten it to model methods for reaching a new generation of students--when all the ground rules for teaching are changing. A teacher's teacher and a recognized leader in English/language arts education, Jim understands the need for instructional methods that connect the why of teaching to the how. "This edition makes the research behind my practice more explicit," he writes. "It is also anchored in the Common Core State Standards, because I am still teaching every day--so these standards are my standards too." Weaving in ideas for working with ELLs, struggling readers, and technology, English Teacher's Companion, Fourth Edition: looks comprehensively at the research and reality of our profession, our students, and our content provides practical and thoughtful methods for meeting standards in reading, writing, speaking and listening, and language study makes assessment a priority, not only to find out what students know but to help practitioners improve. "I have taught English for nearly 25 years, and I love it," writes Jim Burke. Never has this love been more apparent than in the numerous lessons and teaching moves he includes as well as in the many examples of his own classroom language. Trust the fourth edition of English Teacher's Companion, and bring the passion, power, and practicality of one of America's best teachers to your classroom.

"For many students, traditional instruction is so distant from their needs that each day they make little or no learning progress and fall farther and farther behind curriculum demands. In contrast, Cognition-Based Assessment offers a framework to support teaching that enables ALL students to understand, make personal sense of, and become proficient with mathematics." --Michael Battista Designed to work with any curriculum, Cognition-Based Assessment and Teaching will enable you to better understand and respond to your students' learning needs and help you choose instructional activities that are best for them. Michael Battista offers a powerful, learning-progressions model for maximizing each student's progress-- helping students who are behind catch up, preventing future failures from occurring, and helping students who are ready move quickly ahead. Cognition-Based Assessment and Teaching will help you will all three tiers in RTI. Battista's approach emphasizes three key components that support students' mathematical sense making and proficiency: Determining students' levels of sophistication in reasoning Assessing and monitoring the development of students' understanding of core ideas Differentiating instruction to meet individual students' learning needs Using a research-based framework that describes the development of students' thinking and learning in terms of levels of sophistication, a "cognitive terrain" that includes ascents and plateaus, Battista shows how teachers can build on their students' reasoning with instruction that keeps them moving ever upwards. Also Available: Addition and Subtraction Multiplication and Division Place Value

"As challenging as it must have been to write and finesse the adoption of the Common Core State Standards, that accomplishment is nothing compared to the work of teaching in ways that bring all students to these ambitious expectations. The goal is clear. The pathway is not." --Lucy Calkins, Mary Ehrenworth, and Christopher Lehman The Common Core is written, but the plan for implementing the Common Core is not. Lucy Calkins and her colleagues at the Reading and Writing Project have helped thousands of educators design their own pathways to the Common Core. Now, with Pathways to the Common Core, they are ready to help you find your way. Designed for teachers, school leaders, and professional learning communities looking to navigate the gap between their current literacy practices and the ideals of the Common Core, Pathways to the Common Core will help you: * understand what the standards say, suggest, and what they don't say; * recognize the guiding principles that underpin the reading and writing standards; * identify how the Common Core's infrastructure supports a spiraling K-12 literacy curriculum; and * scrutinize the context in which the CCSS were written and are being unrolled. In addition to offering an analytical study of the standards, this guide will also help you and your colleagues implement the standards in ways that lift the level of teaching and learning throughout your school. Specifically, it will help you: * become a more critical consumer of the "standards-based" mandates that are flooding your desk; * craft instruction that supports students in reading more complex texts, developing higher level comprehension skills, and writing at the ambitious levels of the CCSS; * develop performance assessments and other tools to propel Common Core reforms; and * create systems of continuous improvement that are transparent, collegial, and accountable. Above all, this book will help you interpret the Common Core as a rallying cry that ignites deep, wide and lasting reforms and, most importantly, accelerates student achievement. For more information, visit UnitsofStudy.com.

The quality of instruction is the most important factor in helping students meet the Common Core Standards. That's why Owocki's "Common Core Lesson Book" empowers teachers with a comprehensive framework for implementation that enhances existing curriculum and extends it to meet Common Core goals.

Reading education pioneer Ellin Oliver Keene demystifies comprehension instruction by describing what it can look like when readers comprehend deeply and what it can look like when teachers aim for this deep comprehension. This ground-breaking book is illustrated with video footage of Ellin modeling the reading instruction she describes. Here, you can watch Ellin use language and teaching moves that help students go beyond superficial reading comprehension to lasting understanding. Talk About Understanding offers: "Outcomes of Understanding" Markers--descriptions of the behaviors present when children understand a text deeply including ways to assess with and teach toward these outcomes. "Talk About Understanding" Principles--suggestions to modify teaching language and teaching interactions to deepen children's ability to comprehend. "From the Inside" Video Segments--classroom footage of Ellin teaching lessons that illustrate use of the "Outcomes of Understanding" markers and "Talk About Understanding" principles from the book. Do your students understand their reading as deeply as they need to? Talk About Understanding has the guiding principles, the teaching suggestions, the carefully described outcomes, and the video support to help you teach your students how to comprehend, thoroughly and eagerly, the varied and complicated texts in the world around us.

Supporting dreams of fabulous escape and transformation, fantasy literature can be especially compelling for adolescents. Mary Ehrenworth offers a unit of study that harnesses the power of this expansive and poignant genre to lure even reluctant readers into reading epic novels with passion and stamina. Adhering to reading workshop principles and the classic session architecture honed by Lucy Calkins in the Units of Study series, this unit of study begins by launching the kids into fantasy book clubs that foster literary conversations. After exploring ways to read with deep comprehension and to synthesize across pages, students learn to develop thematic understandings. During the course of this unit, students likewise explore where their novels fit within the larger literary tradition. Throughout the unit, students read several books--tackling at least one series, and sometimes moving across series. (This unit of study is drawn from Constructing Curriculum in the Units of Study for Teaching Reading series.) A Quick Guide to Teaching Reading Through Fantasy Novels is part of the Workshop Help Desk series. About the Workshop Help Desk series The Workshop Help Desk series is designed for teachers who believe in workshop teaching and who have already rolled up their sleeves enough to have encountered the predictable challenges. If you've struggled to get around quickly enough to help all your students, if you've wondered how to tweak your teaching to make it more effective and lasting, if you've needed to adapt your teaching for English learners, if you've struggled to teach grammar or nonfiction writing or test prep...if you've faced these and other specific, pressing challenges, then this series is for you. Provided in a compact 5" x 7" format, the Workshop Help Desk series offers pocket-sized professional development. For a comprehensive overview of the Units of Study in Opinion/Argument, Information, and Narrative series, including sample minilessons, sample videos, videos, frequently asked questions and more, visit UnitsofStudy.com.

"To truly engage in mathematics is to become curious and intrigued about regularities and patterns, then describe and explain them. A focus on the behavior of the operations allows students starting in the familiar territory of number and computation to progress to true engagement in the discipline of mathematics." --Susan Jo Russell, Deborah Schifter, and Virginia Bastable Algebra readiness: it's a topic of concern that seems to pervade every school district. How can we better prepare elementary students for algebra? More importantly, how can we help all children, not just those who excel in math, become ready for later instruction? The answer lies not in additional content, but in developing a way of thinking about the mathematics that underlies both arithmetic and algebra. Connecting Arithmetic to Algebra invites readers to learn about a crucial component of algebraic thinking: investigating the behavior of the operations. Nationally-known math educators Susan Jo Russell, Deborah Schifter, and Virginia Bastable and a group of collaborating teachers describe how elementary teachers can shape their instruction so that students learn to: *notice and describe consistencies across problems *articulate generalizations about the behavior of the operations *develop mathematical arguments based on representations to explain why such generalizations are or are not true. Through such work, students become familiar with properties and general rules that underlie computational strategies--including those that form the basis of strategies used in algebra--strengthening their understanding of grade-level content and at the same time preparing them for future studies. Each chapter is illustrated by lively episodes drawn from the classrooms of collaborating teachers in a wide range of settings. These provide examples of posing problems, engaging students in productive discussion, using representations to develop mathematical arguments, and supporting both students with a wide range of learning profiles. Staff Developers: Available online, the Course Facilitator's Guide provides math leaders with tools and resources for implementing a Connecting Arithmetic to Algebra workshop or preservice course. For information on the PD course offered through Mount Holyoke College, download the flyer.

"Tom Newkirk's call to appreciate the value of slow reading is both timely and important, especially in an era where skimming and click-and-go reading have become the norm for our students. Newkirk reminds us that our deepest reading pleasures are often found when we slow down and pay close attention, and this book clearly demonstrates how slow reading deepens the thinking of both teachers and students. A must-read for anyone concerned about the state of reading--you will enjoy reading The Art of Slow Reading slowly." Kelly Gallagher, author of Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It "This beautiful and hugely important book overflows with advice and wisdom about reading--enjoying it, teaching it. Newkirk reminds us why words matter, that words on page or screen are not there just to be 'processed, ' but to savor and enjoy, to help us think and see more clearly, to touch our hearts and help us touch the world." Mike Rose, author of Why School?: Reclaiming Education for All of Us (Read Mike Rose's blog) "If someone were to ask me who to read, what to read, and how to read it, I would say, without hesitating, they should read Tom Newkirk, read The Art of Slow Reading, and read it slowly, again and again. He is to reading and teaching, literacy and learning what Michael Pollan is to food and eating. Tom Newkirk gives us permission to take our time when we read, to remember why we read, and to take from that reading not just the nutrients and knowledge but the pleasure we sought to cultivate in our students--and ourselves--in the past." Jim Burke, author of The English Teacher's Companion and What's the Big Idea? "This book challenges popular notions of reading--the idea that quick, extractive reading is the goal for students. I argue that traditional acts of 'slow reading'--memorization, performance, annotation, and elaboration--are essential for deep, pleasurable, thoughtful reading." Thomas Newkirk This important book rests on a simple but powerful belief--that good readers practice the art of paying attention. Building on memoir, research, and many examples of classroom practice, Thomas Newkirk, recuperates six time-honored practices of reading--performance, memorization, centering, problem-finding, reading like a writer, and elaboration--to help readers engage in thoughtful, attentive reading. The Art of Slow Reading provides preservice and inservice teachers with concrete practices that for millennia have promoted real depth in reading. It will show how these practices enhance the reading of a variety of texts, from Fantastic Mr. Fox to The Great Gatsby to letters from the IRS. Just as slow reading is essential for real comprehension, it is also clearly crucial to the deep pleasure we take in reading--for the way we savor texts--and for the power of reading to change us. Tom's Washington Post article: Reading is not a race: The virtues of the 'slow reading' movement

"Reading and Writing Genre with Purpose in K-8 Classrooms adds a new dimension to genre studies that will engage students and re-invigorate teaching. The book sharpens our focus on student motivation, an essential yet often overlooked aspect of teaching. The authors offer an array of purposeful and creative ways to teach narrative, procedural, informational, dramatic, and persuasive texts, and bring us one step closer to the kinds of learner-centered instruction so necessary to succeed in a modern world." --Sharon Taberski, author of Comprehension from the Ground Up "Make room on your professional bookshelf for a much needed book! You'll learn how to explicitly teach genre features and coach students as you establish meaningful writing purposes that inspire students to read. Not only do the authors provide solid guidelines for teaching genre in writing and reading, but they also invite you into classrooms to see how teachers and students create environments that engage all learners. And for each genre, you'll find lists of books to teach reading and writing!" --Laura Robb, author of Teaching Middle School Writers "You can explicitly teach students what they need to know to comprehend and produce genres well while engaging students in captivating communicative experiences--in fact, you can do it better!" --Nell K. Duke, Samantha Caughlan, Mary M. Juzwik, and Nicole M. Martin Too many U.S. classrooms lack a colorful compelling context for reading and writing, resulting in flat, uninspired, formulaic writing by students. Reading and Writing Genre with Purpose in K-8 Classrooms is designed to help pre- and inservice teachers, literacy coaches, and reading specialists question status quo ways of working with language and texts, replace weaker practices with better ones, and change the way genre is taught. Drawing from theory and research that suggests students learn better and more deeply when learning is contextualized and genuinely motivated, the book presents five guiding principles for teaching genre. Emphasizing purposeful communication, it will guide you through teaching students to read, write, speak, and listen to different real-world genres that inspire and engage them. Nell K. Duke, Samantha Caughlan, Mary M. Juzwik, and Nicole M. Martin identify commonly used assignments and practices for teaching genre that are fundamentally flawed and explain why offer inspiring alternative practices, grounded in research and illustrated in real projects in real classrooms show how the five guiding principles come to life in reading and writing projects across the whole K-8 grade span provide planning sheets and other tools and tips that will allow you to manage genre-with-purpose instruction in your classroom. This book is about teaching genre differently--with purpose. Reading and Writing Genre with Purpose in K-8 Classrooms will help you reinvigorate your teaching.

Count on the assessment that only counts what really counts With these nine sensible, essential assessments, teachers can gather all the data they need. We share these assessments and show teachers how to use them across a school year for maximum instructional effect Michael Opitz, Michael Ford, and James Erekson "Data-driven instruction" is a new education watchword. But today teachers don't have time to collect data about readers that isn't absolutely essential. Accessible Assessment simplifies reading instruction by only counting what really counts. Accessible Assessment isn't like many of today's complex, time-consuming assessment programs. It combines nine informal techniques into a manageable, calendarized framework that makes sense and drives highly targeted, differentiated instruction. Opitz, Ford, and Erekson help teachers: measure only what matters most assess with the confidence that comes from a strong research base increase consistency and organization across school years, grades, and buildings implement predictable assessment structures flexibly plan short-, medium-, and long-range instructional goals. Accessible Assessment can make a big difference for individual teachers, but it's even more powerful for teaching teams or entire buildings. It can bring a new level of coherence to any crucial assessment task, including: screening, progress monitoring, and diagnostics for RTI assessing for key reading standards (including Common Core) sharing information with colleagues, administrators, and parents. Make assessment count more than ever by counting only what really counts. Count on Accessible Assessment.