In recent years, while continuing to learn more about strengths, Gallup scientists have also been ex....

    Time and again, we make seemingly endless efforts to moderate, punish, and even medicate our children, when we should instead be concerned with transforming the very nature of our institutions, systems, and structures, large and small. Through delicately crafted portraits of these memorable children—Zora, Lucas, Sean, and Marcus—Troublemakers allows us to see school through the eyes of those who know firsthand what it means to be labeled a problem.From Zora’s proud individuality to Marcus’s open willfulness, from Sean’s struggle with authority to Lucas’s tenacious imagination, comes profound insight—for educators and parents alike—into how schools engender, exclude, and then try to erase trouble, right along with the young people accused of making it. And although the harsh disciplining of adolescent behavior has been called out as part of a school-to-prison pipeline, the children we meet in these pages demonstrate how a child’s path to excessive punishment and exclusion in fact begins at a much younger age.Shalaby’s empathetic, discerning, and elegant prose gives us a deeply textured look at what noncompliance signals about the environments we require students to adapt to in our schools. Both urgent and timely, this paradigm-shifting book challenges our typical expectations for young children and with principled affection reveals how these demands—despite good intentions—work to undermine the pursuit of a free and just society.

    And teachers, like the rest of the population, aren't perfect. Yet good teaching happens, and great teachers continue to inspire and educate generations of students. See Me After Class helps those great teachers of the future to survive the classroom long enough to become great.Fueled by hundreds of hilarious--and sometimes shocking--tales from the teachers who lived them, Elden provides tips and strategies that deal head-on with the challenges that aren't covered in new-teacher training. Lessons can go wrong. Parents may yell at you. Sunday evenings will sometimes be accompanied by the dreaded countdown to Monday morning. As a veteran teacher, Elden offers funny, practical, and honest advice, to help teachers walk through the doors of their classrooms day after day with clarity, confidence...and sanity!"You know how you've always thought that if you were a teacher you'd go insane? Well, this very funny book proves that you definitely would. But in a good way."--Dave Barry, Pulitzer Prize winning humor writer"A useful, empathetic guide to weathering the first-year lumps...a frothy, satisfying Guinness for the teacher's soul."--Dan Brown, NBCT, Director of the Future Educators Association, and author of The Great Expectations School"See Me After Class is a must-have book for any teacher's bookshelf. On second thought, you'll probably want to keep it on your classroom desk since you'll use it so much!"--Larry Ferlazzo, teacher and author of Helping Students Motivate Themselves"This is the kind of no-nonsense straight talk that teachers are starved for, but too rarely get...Roxanna Elden tells it like it is, with a heavy dose of practicality, a dash of cynicism, a raft of constructive suggestions, and plenty of wry humor."--Rick Hess, Director of Education Policy Studies at AEI, author of Education Week blog, "Rich Hess Straight Up"

    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.

    It is a book for everybody who wants to learn how to write or who needs to do some writing to get through the day, as almost everybody does in the age of e-mail and the Internet. Whether you want to write about people or places, science and technology, business, sports, the arts or about yourself in the increasingly popular memoir genre, On Writing Well offers you fundamental priciples as well as the insights of a distinguished writer and teacher. With more than a million copies sold, this volume has stood the test of time and remains a valuable resource for writers and would-be writers.

    In the classroom, EQs are used to stimulate students' discussions and promote a deeper understanding of the content.Whether you are an Understanding by Design (UbD) devotee or are searching for ways to address standards--local or Common Core State Standards--in an engaging way, Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins provide practical guidance on how to design, initiate, and embed inquiry-based teaching and learning in your classroom.Offering dozens of examples, the authors explore the usefulness of EQs in all K-12 content areas, including skill-based areas such as math, PE, language instruction, and arts education. As an important element of their backward design approach to designing curriculum, instruction, and assessment, the authors*Give a comprehensive explanation of why EQs are so important;*Explore seven defining characteristics of EQs;*Distinguish between topical and overarching questions and their uses;*Outline the rationale for using EQs as the focal point in creating units of study; and*Show how to create effective EQs, working from sources including standards, desired understandings, and student misconceptions.Using essential questions can be challenging--for both teachers and students--and this book provides guidance through practical and proven processes, as well as suggested response strategies to encourage student engagement. Finally, you will learn how to create a culture of inquiry so that all members of the educational community--students, teachers, and administrators--benefit from the increased rigor and deepened understanding that emerge when essential questions become a guiding force for learners of all ages.

    It is a multilayered, multivoiced literary experience. Genres of narrative thinking require writers to make an imaginative leap, melding the factual with the imaginative. Writers cant just tell. They must show. They must make their topics palpable. They must penetrate experience. Multigenre papers enable their authors to do that. Blending Genre, Altering Style is the first book to address the practicalities of helping students compose multigenre papers. Romano discusses genres, subgenres, writing strategies, and stylistic maneuvers that students can use in their own multigenre papers. Each idea is supported with actual student writing, including five full-length multigenre papers that demonstrate the possibilities of a multigenre approach to writing. There are also discussions of writing poetry, fiction, and dialogue, in which readers will discover how students can create genres out of indelible moments, crucial processes, and important matters in the lives of the subject under inquiry. One chapter alone is devoted to helping writers create unity and coherence in their papers.Imbued with Romanos passion for teaching, Blending Genre, Altering Style is an invaluable reference for any inservice or preservice English language arts teacher. The only prerequisite is a desire to help students write.

    

     The time-tested secrets this book discloses include Cicero’s three-step strategy for moving an audience to action—as well as Honest Abe’s Shameless Trick of lowering an audience’s expectations by pretending to be unpolished. But it’s also replete with contemporary techniques such as politicians’ use of “code” language to appeal to specific groups and an eye-opening assortment of popular-culture dodges—including The Yoda Technique, The Belushi Paradigm, and The Eddie Haskell Ploy. Whether you’re an inveterate lover of language books or just want to win a lot more anger-free arguments on the page, at the podium, or over a beer, Thank You for Arguing is for you. Written by one of today’s most popular language mavens, it’s warm, witty, erudite, and truly enlightening. It not only teaches you how to recognize a paralipsis and a chiasmus when you hear them, but also how to wield such handy and persuasive weapons the next time you really, really want to get your own way.

    The average young person in the UK will spend 10,000 hours gaming by the age of twenty-one. What's causing this mass exodus? According to world-renowned game designer Jane McGonigal the answer is simple: videogames are fulfilling genuine human needs. Drawing on positive psychology, cognitive science and sociology, Reality is Broken shows how game designers have hit on core truths about what makes us happy, and utilized these discoveries to astonishing effect in virtual environments. But why, McGonigal asks, should we use the power of games for escapist entertainment alone? In this groundbreaking exploration of the power and future of gaming, she reveals how gamers have become expert problem solvers and collaborators, and shows how we can use the lessons of game design to socially positive ends, be it in our own lives, our communities or our businesses. Written for gamers and non-gamers alike, Reality is Broken sends a clear and provocative message: the future will belong to those who can understand, design and play games.

    His students, some of the nation’s brightest minds, were adrift when it came to the big questions: how to think critically and creatively, and how to find a sense of purpose.Excellent Sheep takes a sharp look at the high-pressure conveyor belt that begins with parents and counselors who demand perfect grades and culminates in the skewed applications Deresiewicz saw firsthand as a member of Yale’s admissions committee. As schools shift focus from the humanities to "practical" subjects like economics and computer science, students are losing the ability to think in innovative ways. Deresiewicz explains how college should be a time for self-discovery, when students can establish their own values and measures of success, so they can forge their own path. He addresses parents, students, educators, and anyone who's interested in the direction of American society, featuring quotes from real students and graduates he has corresponded with over the years, candidly exposing where the system is broken and clearly presenting solutions.

    Its not utopia by any means; Sharon deals with the same issues other teachers face: limited resources, tremendous diversity, and the constant threat of overcrowding. What makes her exceptional is her clear vision. She is systematic in her thinking, wise in her decision making. Most of all, she understands her role as a teacher and goals for each student. This is why Sharon is on solid ground. In her book, Sharon shares what shes gained in her twenty years of working with children and teachers. Its organized not around a set of prescribed skills, but around a series of interconnected interactions with the learner:Assessment: Sharon begins by describing her procedures for assessing childrens reading and then using what she finds to inform her work. She covers scheduling and managing reading conferences, taking oral-reading records, and using retellings and discussions as tools.Demonstration: Once she has identified strengths and needs, Sharon demonstrates strategies to help her students become better readers. In this section, she explains how she uses shared reading and read aloud as platforms for figuring out words and comprehending texts, and explores small-group workguided reading and word-study groupsand teaching children one on one.Practice: Here, Sharon describes how she uses independent reading as a time for practice, spelling out the very active roles she and her students play. She also devotes a complete chapter to matching children with books for independent reading.Response: Its important for students to know theyre doing well and where they must concentrate their efforts. Sharon explains how her students use writing and dialogue as tools to better understanding themselves as readers.On Solid Ground is informed by current thinking, yet loaded with advice, booklists, ready-to-use reproducibles, andof coursethe words and work of real children. Sharons approach is clear, sensible, timeless. Youll turn to her book throughout your career.

    The point is, it's a level of understanding that students of any age can achieve with the right kind of instruction. In Rigorous Reading, Nancy Frey and Doug Fisher articulate an instructional plan so clearly, and so squarely built on research, that teachers, schools, and districts need look no further:Purpose & Modeling Close & Scaffolded Reading Instruction Collaborative Conversations An Independent Reading Staircase Performance

    . . . This must-have book will help teachers learn to implement improved, equity-focused grading for impact." --Zaretta Hammond, Author of Culturally Responsive Teaching & The Brain Crack open the grading conversation Here at last--and none too soon--is a resource that delivers the research base, tools, and courage to tackle one of the most challenging and emotionally charged conversations in today's schools: our inconsistent grading practices and the ways they can inadvertently perpetuate the achievement and opportunity gaps among our students.With Grading for Equity, Joe Feldman cuts to the core of the conversation, revealing how grading practices that are accurate, bias-resistant, and motivational will improve learning, minimize grade inflation, reduce failure rates, and become a lever for creating stronger teacher-student relationships and more caring classrooms. Essential reading for schoolwide and individual book study or for student advocates, Grading for Equity providesA critical historical backdrop, describing how our inherited system of grading was originally set up as a sorting mechanism to provide or deny opportunity, control students, and endorse a "fixed mindset" about students' academic potential--practices that are still in place a century later A summary of the research on motivation and equitable teaching and learning, establishing a rock-solid foundation and a "true north" orientation toward equitable grading practices Specific grading practices that are more equitable, along with teacher examples, strategies to solve common hiccups and concerns, and evidence of effectiveness Reflection tools for facilitating individual or group engagement and understanding As Joe writes, "Grading practices are a mirror not just for students, but for us as their teachers." Each one of us should start by asking, "What do my grading practices say about who I am and what I believe?" Then, let's make the choice to do things differently . . . with Grading for Equity as a dog-eared reference.

    It's like sitting next to a skillful, experienced, focused teacher in a real classroom. Kristi and Christine draw on their years of teaching and their dedication to educating children to help students become more empathic and act more thoughtfully and to prepare them with the essentials for success in an uncertain future."-Arthur Costa, author of Learning and Leading with Habits of MindWe know how to teach content and skills. But can we teach the habits of mind needed for academic success, a love of learning, and agency in the world? We can, and A Mindset for Learning shows us how."We want our students to take on challenges with zeal," write Kristi Mraz and Christine Hertz, "to see themselves not as static test scores but as agents of change." Drawing on the work of Carol Dweck, Daniel Pink, Art Costa, and others, Kristi and Christine show us how to lead students to a growth mindset for school-and life-by focusing on five crucial, research-driven attitudes:optimism-putting aside fear and resistance to learn something newpersistence-keeping at it, even when a task is hardflexibility-trying different ways to find a solutionresilience-bouncing back from setbacks and learning from failureempathy-learning by putting oneself in another person's shoes.A Mindset for Learning pairs research-psychological, neurological, and pedagogical-with practical classroom help, including instructional language, charts and visuals, teaching tips, classroom vignettes, and more."This book holds our dreams for all children," write Kristi and Christine, "that they grow to be brave in the face of risk, kind in the face of challenge, joyful and curious in all things." If you want that for your students, then help them discover A Mindset for Learning.