For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... and the Rest of Y'all Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education


Christopher Emdin - 2016
    He begins by taking to task the perception of urban youth of color as unteachable, and he challenges educators to embrace and respect each student’s culture and to reimagine the classroom as a site where roles are reversed and students become the experts in their own learning.Putting forth his theory of Reality Pedagogy, Emdin provides practical tools to unleash the brilliance and eagerness of youth and educators alike—both of whom have been typecast and stymied by outdated modes of thinking about urban education. With this fresh and engaging new pedagogical vision, Emdin demonstrates the importance of creating a family structure and building communities within the classroom, using culturally relevant strategies like hip-hop music and call-and-response, and connecting the experiences of urban youth to indigenous populations globally. Merging real stories with theory, research, and practice, Emdin demonstrates how by implementing the “Seven C’s” of reality pedagogy in their own classrooms, urban youth of color benefit from truly transformative education.Lively, accessible, and revelatory, For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood...and the Rest of Y’all Too is the much-needed antidote to traditional top-down pedagogy and promises to radically reframe the landscape of urban education for the better.

Fresh Takes on Teaching Literary Elements: How to Teach What Really Matters About Character, Setting, Point of View, and Theme


Jeffrey D. Wilhelm - 2010
    Rich, original passages illuminate the intricacies of character, setting, point of view, and theme, and deeply engaging activities framed by inquiry enable students to transfer what they learn to new reading situations as well as to the way they think through problems and live their lives.

Better Than Carrots or Sticks: Restorative Practices for Positive Classroom Management


Dominique Smith - 2015
    But studies show that when educators empower students to address and correct misbehavior among themselves, positive results are longer lasting and more wide reaching. In Better Than Carrots or Sticks, longtime educators and best-selling authors Dominique Smith, Douglas Fisher, and Nancy Frey provide a practical blueprint for creating a cooperative and respectful classroom climate in which students and teachers work through behavioral issues together. After a comprehensive overview of the roots of the restorative practices movement in schools, the authors explain how to * Establish procedures and expectations for student behavior that encourage the development of positive interpersonal skills; * Develop a nonconfrontational rapport with even the most challenging students; and * Implement conflict resolution strategies that prioritize relationship building and mutual understanding over finger-pointing and retribution.Rewards and punishments may help to maintain order in the short term, but they're at best superficially effective and at worst counterproductive. This book will prepare teachers at all levels to ensure that their classrooms are welcoming, enriching, and constructive environments built on collective respect and focused on student achievement.

Word Matters: Teaching Phonics and Spelling in the Reading/Writing Classroom


Gay Su Pinnell - 1998
    Hailed for its practical, systematic approach, the book showed hundreds of thousands of teachers how to address the needs of the whole classroom as well as individual readers. Now, with the publication of Word Matters, Pinnell and Fountas offer K-3 teachers the same unparalleled support, this time focusing on phonics and spelling instruction.Word Matters presents essential information on designing and implementing a high-quality, systematic literacy program to help children learn about letters, sounds, and words. The central goal is to teach children to become "word solvers": readers who can take words apart while reading for meaning, and writers who can construct words while writing to communicate. Where similar books are narrow in focus, Word Matters presents the theoretical underpinnings and practical wherewithal of word study in three contexts:word study that includes systematically planned and applied experiences focusing on the elements of letters and wordswriting, including how children use phoneme-grapheme relationships, word patterns, and principles to develop spelling abilityreading, including teaching children how to solve words with the use of phonics and visual-analysis skills as they read for meaning.Each topic is supported with a variety of practical tools: reproducible sheets for a word study system and for writing workshop; lists of spelling minilessons; and extensive word lists, including frequently used words, antonyms, synonyms, and more. Armed with these tools-and the tried-and-true wisdom of Gay Su Pinnell and Irene Fountas-teachers can help students develop not just the "essential skills," but also a joyful appreciation of their own literacy.

Reading Poetry in the Middle Grades: 20 Poems and Activities That Meet the Common Core Standards and Cultivate a Passion for Poetry


Paul B. Janeczko - 2011
    Here's the cool thing: poetry can get you there. It is inherently turbo-charged. Poets distill a novel's worth of content and emotion in twenty lines. The literary elements and devices you need to teach are all there, powerful and miniature as a Bonsai tree. Paul B. JaneczkoYou'd like to teach poetry with confidence and passion, but let's face it: poetry can be intimidating to both you and your students. Here is the book that takes the fear factor out of poetry and shows you how to use this powerful genre to spark student engagement and meet language arts requirements. Award-winning poet Paul B. Janeczko is the master for creating anthologies for pre-teen and adolescent readers, and here he's chosen 20 contemporary and classic selections with step-by-step, detailed lessons for investigating each poem from the inside out. Kids learn to become active readers of poetry, using graphic organizer worksheets to help them jump over their fear and dive into personal, smart, analytical responses. There's no better genre than poetry for helping students gain perspective on their own identities and their own worlds, and Paul provides a space on each reproducible poem for private thoughts, questions, feelings, and ideas. Your students will discover what each poem means to them.The 20 poems in this collection were chosen for their thought-provoking topics; compelling real-world themes that lead to conversation and collaboration in middle school classrooms. And by showing you how the poems and activities address the common core standards for English Language Arts (complete with a sample chart linking the poems to the standards), Paul provides a clear understanding of how you can get there using poetry.You can cultivate a passion for poetry in your classroom. Take the journey with Paul B. Janeczko and grow in confidence with your students, meeting some standards along the way.

The Growth Mindset Coach: A Teacher's Month-by-Month Handbook for Empowering Students to Achieve


Annie Brock - 2016
    The Growth Mindset Coach provides all you need to foster a growth mindset classroom, including:A Month-by-Month ProgramResearch-Based ActivitiesHands-On Lesson PlansReal-Life Educator StoriesConstructive FeedbackSample Parent LettersStudies show that growth mindsets result in higher test scores, improved grades and more in-class involvement. When your students understand that their intelligence is not limited, they succeed like never before. With the tools in this book, you can motivate your students to believe in themselves and achieve anything.

Growing Readers: Units of Study in the Primary Classroom


Kathy Collins - 2004
    Many teachers find the independent reading workshop to be the component of reading instruction that meets this challenge because it makes it possible to teach the reading skills and strategies children need and guides them toward independence, intention, and joy as readers.In Growing Readers, Kathy Collins helps teachers plan for independent reading workshops in their own classrooms. She describes the structure of the independent reading workshop and other components of a balanced literacy program that work together to ensure young students grow into strong, well-rounded readers. Kathy outlines a sequence of possible units of study for a yearlong curriculum. Chapters are devoted to the individual units of study and include a sample curriculum as well as examples of mini-lessons and reading conferences. There are also four “Getting Ready” sections that suggest some behind-the-scenes work teachers can do to prepare for the units. Topics explored in these units include:print and comprehension strategies;reading in genres such as poetry and nonfiction;connecting in-school reading and out-of-school reading;developing the strategies and habits of lifelong readers.A series of planning sheets and management tips are presented throughout to help ensure smooth implementation.We want our students to learn to read, and we want them to love to read. To do this we need to lay a foundation on which children build rich and purposeful reading lives that extend beyond the school day. The ideas found in Growing Readers create the kind of primary classrooms where that happens.

Who's Doing the Work?: How to Say Less So Readers Can Do More


Jan Burkins - 2016
    Jan Burkins and Kim Yaris rethink traditional teaching practices in  Who's Doing the Work: How to Say Less So Readers Can Do More . They review some common instructional mainstays such as read-aloud, guided reading, shared reading, and independent reading and provide small, yet powerful, adjustments to help hold students accountable for their learning.Next generation reading instruction is much more responsive to student needs and aims to remove some of the scaffolding that can hinder reader development. Instead of relying on teacher prompts,  Who's Doing the Work  asks teachers to have students take ownership of their reading by managing their challenges independently and working through any plateaus they encounter. Whether you are an elementary teacher, literacy coach, reading specialist, or parent,  Who's Doing the Work  provides numerous examples on how to readjust the reading process and teach students to gain proficiency and joy in their work.

Instructional Coaching: A Partnership Approach to Improving Instruction


Jim Knight - 2007
    Experienced trainer and researcher Jim Knight describes the "nuts and bolts" of instructional coaching and explains the essential skills that instructional coaches need, including getting teachers on board, providing model lessons, and engaging in reflective conversations. Each user-friendly chapter includes:First-person stories from successful coaches Sidebars highlighting important information A "Going Deeper" section of suggested resources Ready-to-use forms, worksheets, checklists, logs, and reports

Speech to Print: Language Essentials for Teachers


Louisa Cook Moats - 2000
    Updated meticulously with the very latest research, the new edition of this bestselling text helps elementary educators grasp the structure of written and spoken English, understand how children learn to read, and apply this foundational knowledge as they deliver explicit, high-quality literacy instruction.With extensive updates and enhancements to every chapter, the new edition of Speech to Print fully prepares today's literacy educators to teach students with or without disabilities. Teachers will getin-depth explanation of how the book aligns with the findings of current scientific research on reading, language, and spellingexpanded information on the critical elements of language, including orthography, morphology, phonetics, phonology, semantics, and syntaxnew and improved exercises teachers can use to test and reinforce their own knowledge of language contentteaching activities that help teachers connect what they learn in their coursework with what they'll be doing in the classroomnew chapter objectives that make it easier to plan courses and review key conceptsmore samples of student writing to help teachers correctly interpret children's mistakesexpanded sample lesson plans that incorporate the language concepts in the booka cleaner, easier-to-navigate layoutA core textbook for every preservice course on reading instruction, this accessible text is also perfect for use in inservice professional development sessions. Educators will have the knowledge they need to recognize, understand, and resolve their students' reading and writing challenges—and improve literacy outcomes for their entire class.

Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Need of All Learners


Carol Ann Tomlinson - 1998
    She looks to the latest research on learning, education, and change for the theoretical basis of differentiated instruction and why it's so important to today's children. Yet she offers much more than theory, filling the pages with real-life examples of teachers and students using-and benefitting from-differentiated instruction.

Whole Brain Teaching for Challenging Kids


Chris Biffle - 2013
    ... and the world! 80,000 registered members worldwide, 3,000,000 YouTube views, 10,000,000 pages of free ebooks downloaded from WholeBrainTeaching.com, one of the world's largest, free, education websites! If your rambunctious kids are driving you batty, read this book. Guffaw with delight as your class, guided by the Guff Counter, halts back talking students in their tracks! Weep with joy at the power of the Independents that turns rebel cliques against each other. Gasp in awe as you discover Mirror, the simple technique that makes every lesson magnetically engaging. Chortle with merriment as the magical Scoreboard transforms classroom management into a living video game. Whole Brain Teaching, a grass roots, education reform movement, begun in 1999 by three Southern California teachers, has attracted an astonishing following among educators across the U.S. and in 30 foreign countries. Based on cutting edge scientific research, Whole Brain Teaching recognizes that students learn the most when they are engaged in lessons that involve seeing, hearing, doing, speaking and feeling. Join the revolution! Transform your students from passive receivers of information to dynamic creators of high energy lessons. "In my 38 years in education, I have never seen a more successful classroom management system than Whole Brain Teaching. It's simple, effective and powerful. Chris Biffle and his colleagues have developed a strategy that works for all students." Dominic F. Mucci, Superintendent of Schools, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey

Fires in the Bathroom: Advice for Teachers from High School Students


Kathleen Cushman - 2003
    Now in paperback, Kathleen Cushman's groundbreaking book offers original insights into teaching teenagers in today's hard-pressed urban high schools from the point of view of the students themselves. It speaks to both new and established teachers, giving them firsthand information about who their students are and what they need to succeed.Students from across the country contributed perceptive and pragmatic answers to questions of how teachers can transcend the barriers of adolescent identity and culture to reach the diverse student body in today's urban schools. With the fresh and often surprising perspectives of youth, they tackle tough issues such as increasing engagement and motivation, teaching difficult academic material, reaching English-language learners, and creating a classroom culture where respect and success go hand in hand.

Mentor Texts: Teaching Writing Through Children's Literature, K-6


Lynne R. Dorfman - 2007
    Each “Your Turn” lesson is built around the gradual release of responsibility model, offering suggestions for demonstrations and shared or guided writing. Reflection is emphasized as a necessary component to understanding why mentor authors chose certain strategies, literary devices, sentence structures, and words.This practical resource demonstrates the power of learning to read like writers. It shows teachers and students how to discover the ways that authors make writing come alive, and how to use that knowledge to inspire and improve their own writing.

Breathing New Life Into Book Clubs: A Practical Guide for Teachers


Sonja Cherry-Paul - 2019
    Managing classroom book clubs can be hard. Real hard. But honestly, is there any better way to get students vested in reading? When book clubs work, don't they create a culture of reading unlike anything else? One that brings out the very best in our students?With both infectious enthusiasm and a realistic perspective, Sonja and Dana take on teachers' doubts and concerns about book clubs, and build a compelling case for their value in every classroom. They provide all the nuts and bolts for creating and managing successful book clubs, including:Dozens of pitfalls and pathways minilessons that address common roadblocks Tips for using technology to enhance book club work for deeper student engagement Suggested book bins for book club work, organized by grade level and genre. Whether you're looking to breathe new life into book clubs or begin implementing them in your classroom, Sonja and Dana give you essential strategies to make book clubs work. Because book clubs, they write, are where students fall in love with reading.