Explores the contradictions between what is expected of teachers and the education and support they have received, and provides teachers with advice on how to teach writing and generate their students' interest in writing.
This popular text articulates a powerful theory of critical literacy—in all its complexity. Critical literacy practices encourage students to use language to question the everyday world, interrogate the relationship between language and power, analyze popular culture and media, understand how power relationships are socially constructed, and consider actions that can be taken to promote social justice. By providing both a model for critical literacy instruction and many examples of how critical practices can be enacted in daily school life in elementary and middle school classrooms, Creating Critical Classrooms meets a huge need for a practical, theoretically based text on this topic. Pedagogical features in each chapter • Teacher-researcher Vignette • Theories that Inform Practice • Critical Literacy Chart • Thought Piece • Invitations for Disruption • Lingering Questions New in the Second Edition • End-of-chapter "Voices from the Field" • More upper elementary-grade examples • New text sets drawn from "Classroom Resources" • Streamlined, restructured, revised, and updated throughout • Expanded Companion Website now includes annotated Classroom Resources; Text Sets; Resources by Chapter; Invitations for Students; Literacy Strategies; Additional Resources
Develop students' literacy and active reading skills with this balanced, whole-child approach to reading for 21st-century learners. This updated book co-published with the International Literacy Association (ILA) equips educators with numerous rigorous and engaging techniques that promote critical thinking and problem solving while reading. The strategies provided concentrate on effective instruction within the five components of reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Features include: more than 125 enhanced classroom-tested techniques in the areas of word study, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension; 18 new techniques to motivate and engage all learners; embedded scaffolding and teacher talk within each technique; a focus on core literacy strands required by College and Career Readiness Standards; and digital resources including an assortment of reproducible student and teacher resource sheets.
How can today’s teachers, whose classrooms are more culturally and linguistically diverse than ever before, ensure that their students achieve at high levels? How can they design units and lessons that support English learners in language development and content learning—simultaneously? Authors Amy Heineke and Jay McTighe provide the answers by adding a lens on language to the widely used Understanding by Design® framework (UbD® framework) for curriculum design, which emphasizes teaching for understanding, not rote memorization. Readers will learn * the components of the UbD framework; * the fundamentals of language and language development; * how to use diversity as a valuable resource for instruction by gathering information about students’ background knowledge from home, community, and school; * how to design units and lessons that integrate language development with content learning in the form of essential knowledge and skills; and * how to assess in ways that enable language learners to reveal their academic knowledge. Student profiles, real-life classroom scenarios, and sample units and lessons provide compelling examples of how teachers in all grade levels and content areas use the UbD framework in their culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms. Combining these practical examples with findings from an extensive research base, the authors deliver a useful and authoritative guide for reaching the overarching goal: ensuring that all students have equitable access to high-quality curriculum and instruction.
`Joanne Larson and Jackie Marsh's Literacy Learning is easily the most theoretically sophisticated and practically useful discussion of sociocultural and critical approaches to literacy learning that has appeared to date' - James Paul Gee, Tashia Morgridge Professor of Reading, University of Wisconsin-Madison Making Literacy Real is the essential reference text for primary education students at undergraduate and graduate level who want to understand literacy theory and successfully apply it in the classroom. Doctoral students will find this a useful resource in understanding the relationship of theory to practice. The authors explore the breadth of this complex and important field, orientating literacy as a social practice, grounded in social, cultural, historical and political contexts of use. They also present a detailed and accessible discussion of the theory and its application in the primary classroom. The book covers: o Defining literacy: multimodalities and new literacies o Digital literacies o New literacy studies o Critical literacy o Sociocultural-historical theory o Connecting theoretical frameworks o Implications for teacher education and literacy research Each chapter examines a theoretical model, accompanied by a discussion of case study material with a leading proponent of the field, including Barbara Comber, Michele Knobel, Colin Lankshear, Barbara Rogoff and Brian Street.
In this one-of-a-kind resource, a seasoned educator guides primary teachers through planning and managing a cohesive, balanced literacy program. She begins by asking them to consider district requirements, national standards, and our individual goals. From there, she demonstrates how to map out plans for each month, week, and day. Chocked full of organizational tips, sample plans, and model lessons, this book will make teachers feel empowered and in control. For use with Grades K-2.
Practical resources for building cohesive governance teams As a supplement to the best-selling The Governance Core, this practical guide will help trustees and superintendents adopt a governance mindset and partnership that creates coherence throughout the district. With a systems thinking approach, the authors provide readers with the strategies and tools needed to build cohesive teams and engage in deeper learning and decision making. The Taking Action Guide for the Governance Core offers readers: • a deeper understanding of core governance and how to build it • a planning guide to help new trustees get started • protocols and sample agendas for focusing on strategy and systems during open board meetings Educational leaders will find this guide offers them a foundation for building strong, flourishing school districts that are equipped to adapt to and meet the daunting challenges of our time.
Every elementary teacher deals with students who struggle as readers on a daily basis. Each struggling child is complex and each has a unique history as a learner. In One Child at a Time, experienced literacy specialist and consultant Pat Johnson provides a framework she has used in numerous K-6 classrooms to help teachers understand and assist individual children. The four-step process outlined in the book enables teachers to focus carefully on specific strategies and behaviors; analyze them with theoretical and practical lenses; design targeted instruction in keeping with current research on reading process; and then assess and refine the teaching in conferences with the child. The framework is by no means an easy answer to a difficult problem, but through its use teachers learn how the reading process works for proficient readers and how to support struggling readers as they construct their own reading process. The text is packed with examples of actual conferences with students, detailing how and when Pat and her colleagues intervene to instruct and assess. The examples of follow-up assessment and analysis of struggling readers over days and weeks provide an indispensable model for teachers. Pat shows how to use this framework successfully with a range of learners, including young children, English language learners, and students in the upper elementary grades who are stalled in their literacy progress. She builds upon her decades of work as a classroom teacher, literacy specialist, and consultant in schools with high poverty and diversity, to demonstrate how this framework can be useful in any setting.