This book illustrates how teachers can draw upon young adult literature to facilitate students’ social action. Each chapter centers on one novel that represents a contemporary topic including police brutality, women’s rights, ecojustice, and bullying. In each, authors provide pre-, during-, and after reading strategies for teaching that connect the social issues in the texts to students’ lives and to the world around them. They then offer a multitude of avenues for student action, emphasizing the need to move readers from understanding and awareness to asserting their own agency and capacities to effect change in their local, national, and global communities. In addition to methods for scaffolding students’ analysis of texts and topics, authors also offer a plethora of additional resources such as documentaries, canonical companions for study, connected music, and supplementary lesson plans.
Reading as Collective Action examines literature's power to reshape our world in very public and very active ways. Whether through readers publicly posting poems of Shakespeare and Amiri Baraka to criticize the Bush administration, forming a community reading program using Grapes of Wrath to organize support during the recent Great Recession, or taking to public transit to talk with strangers about working-class literature, this book challenges dominant academic modes of reading. For adherents of the "civic turn," it suggests how we can create more politically effective forms of service learning and community engagement grounded in commitment to tactical, grassroots actions. -- from back cover.
An award-winning journalist and literacy advocate provides a clear, step-by-step guide to helping your child thrive as a reader and a learner. When her child went off to school, Maya Smart was shocked to discover that a good education in America is a long shot, in ways that few parents fully appreciate. Our current approach to literacy offers too little, too late, and attempting to play catch-up when our kids get to kindergarten can no longer be our default strategy. We have to start at the top. The brain architecture for reading develops rapidly during infancy, and early language experiences are critical to building it. That means parents’ work as children’s first teachers begins from day one too—and we need deeper knowledge to play our positions. Reading for Our Lives challenges the bath-book-bed mantra and the idea that reading aloud to our kids is enough to ensure school readiness. Instead, it gives parents easy, immediate, and accessible ways to nurture language and literacy development from the start. Through personal stories, historical accounts, scholarly research, and practical tips, this book presents the life-and-death urgency of literacy, investigates inequity in reading achievement, and illuminates a path to a true, transformative education for all.
"Teachers know scientifically based reading research (SBRR) is important - but how can they use it in their everyday classroom instruction to improve students' literacy outcomes? They'll find the answers in this practical SBRR guide. Answers to these questions come complete with straightforward explanations of research and vingettes that demonstrate how to work research-based practices into classroom reading instruction."--BOOK JACKET.
"Much of the professional literature has focused on what disciplinary literacy entails; this valuable contribution explores how it can be implemented in complex school settings." —Doug Buehl, Author of Developing Readers in the Academic Disciplines What happens when middle and high school teachers who know their content very well are told they should be teaching reading and writing too? Is there a bit of resistance? A decrease in self-efficacy? An overturning of curricula? In Disciplinary Literacy in Action, ReLeah Cossett Lent and Marsha Voigt show us a better way. In this sequel to ReLeah’s bestselling This Is Disciplinary Literacy, the authors provide educators with what they’ve wanted all along: a framework that keeps their subjects at the center and shows them how to pool strengths with colleagues in ongoing communities of professional learning (PL) around content-specific literacy. In each chapter, and with a blend of lively disciplinary literacy teaching ideas and razor-sharp insights on developing teacher efficacy and leadership, ReLeah and Marsha take educators through a powerful PL cycle they can replicate in their school. The authors know it works not just because the research says so, but also because they have spent years refining the model in schools, districts, and regions. With this book, you will be ready for Collaborative learning that preserves discipline-specific content yet keeps innovative daily practices of reading, writing, thinking, and doing at the forefront Planning by autonomous literacy leadership teams with administrative support Implementation augmented by peer and disciplinary literacy coaching Reflection that leads to ongoing collective problem solving In the end, it all comes back to how content teachers can best help students use literacy in all its forms to learn more deeply. With Disciplinary Literacy in Action, you have a proven framework for doing just that. This is the resource to lean on as you work to ensure all students use literacy as a tool to think, create, and communicate in any endeavor.
"Reading to Make a Difference shows teachers how to move beyond including diverse literature in their classroom to become caring citizens and agents of change. With examples from many classrooms across grade levels, Lester and Katie engage students in critical conversations around topics that arise in literature and in life. They share concrete steps for how teachers can support students to take action and make a difference in their classroom, school or community"--
Call to Action includes the information businesses need to know to achieve dramatic results from online efforts. Are you planning for top performance? Are you accurately evaluating that performance? Are you setting the best benchmarks for measuring success? How well are you communicating your value proposition? Are you structured for change? Can you achieve the momentum you need to get the results you want? If you have the desire and commitment to create phenomenal online results, then this book is your call to action. Within these pages, New York Times best-selling authors Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg walk you through the five phases that comprise web site development, from the critical planning phase, through developing structure, momentum, and communication, to articulating value. Along the way, they offer advice and practical applications culled from their years of experience "in the trenches."
Nancy moves students through a series of lessons that refine their skills while deepening their interests in reading, writing, and listening to the opinions of others.
