. . frequently and across the grades! The biggest issue? Most of our grades 4-12 students continue to make the same old errors year after year. Grammar Keepers to the rescue, with 101 lessons that help students internalize the conventions of correctness once and for all. Bernabei’s key ingredients include Daily journal writing to increase practice and provide an authentic context Minilessons and Interactive Dialogues that model how to make grammatical choices A “Keepers 101” sheet to track teaching and “Parts of Speech Sheet” for student reference

    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.

    Academic conversations push students to think and learn in lasting ways. Academic conversations are back-and-forth dialogues in which students focus on a topic and explore it by building, challenging, and negotiating relevant ideas.In Academic Conversations: Classroom Talk that Fosters Critical Thinking and Content Understandings authors Jeff Zwiers and Marie Crawford address the challenges teachers face when trying to bring thoughtful, respectful, and focused conversations into the classroom. They identify five core communications skills needed to help students hold productive academic conversation across content areas:Elaborating and ClarifyingSupporting Ideas with EvidenceBuilding On and/or Challenging IdeasParaphrasingSynthesizingThis book shows teachers how to weave the cultivation of academic conversation skills and conversations into current teaching approaches. More specifically, it describes how to use conversations to build the following:Academic vocabulary and grammarCritical thinking skills such as persuasion, interpretation, consideration of multiple perspectives, evaluation, and applicationLiteracy skills such as questioning, predicting, connecting to prior knowledge, and summarizingAn academic classroom environment brimming with respect for others' ideas, equity of voice, engagement, and mutual supportThe ideas in this book stem from many hours of classroom practice, research, and video analysis across grade levels and content areas. Readers will find numerous practical activities for working on each conversation skill, crafting conversation-worthy tasks, and using conversations to teach and assess. Academic Conversations offers an in-depth approach to helping students develop into the future parents, teachers, and leaders who will collaborate to build a better world.

    In Kids Deserve It!, Todd and Adam encourage you to think big and make learning fun and meaningful for students. While you’re at it, you just might rediscover why you became an educator in the first place. - Learn why you should be calling parents to praise your students (and employees). - Discover ways to promote family interaction and improve relationships for kids at school and at home.- Be inspired to take risks, shake up the status quo, and be a champion for your students.#KidsDeserveIt"For anyone working with young people and in need of a pep talk, this is the book for you.” -Brad Montague, creator of Kid President“Kids Deserve It! provides real-life takeaways for anyone involved in making the world a better place for our kids." -Steve Mesler, Olympic Gold Medalist, co-founder and CEO of Classroom Champions"Kids Deserve It! is a brilliant—and much-needed—invitation to educators to dare to innovate.” -Peter H. Reynolds, author of The Dot “After reading this book, you will be crazy about all kids. They deserve it!” -Salome Thomas-EL, award-winning principal and author of The Immortality of Influence“It's an outstanding read for educators at any level.” -Angela Maiers, educator, author, speaker, founder of Choose2Matter“Whether you are a parent, teacher, or administrator, this powerful little collection of ideas and stories will nurture your spirit and refresh your memory about why you chose to work with kids in the first place.” -Erik Wahl, artist, author, ambassador for kids

    In Building Teachers Capacity for Success, authors Pete Hall (winner of the 2004 ASCD Outstanding Young Educator Award) and Alisa Simeral offer a straightforward plan to help site-based administrators and instructional coaches collaborate to bring out the best in every teacher, build a stronger and more cohesive staff, and achieve greater academic success. Their model of Strength-Based School Improvement is an alternative to a negative, deficit-approach focused on fixing what s wrong. Instead, they show school leaders how to achieve their goals by working together to maximize what s right. Filled with clear, proven strategies and organized around two easy-to-use tools the innovative Continuum of Self-Reflection and a feedback-focused walk-through model this book offers a differentiated approach to coaching and supervision centered on identifying and nurturing teachers individual strengths and helping them reach new levels of professional success and satisfaction. Here, you ll find front-line advice from the authors, one a principal and the other an instructional coach, on just what to look for, do, and say in order to start seeing positive results right now.

    Empowerment. Student Leadership. These buzz words get a lot of press, but what do they really mean for today's students? Can students really handle the responsibility of leading the class? Can they actually learn what they need to if they are working together so often? Won't all this freedom cause chaos in the classroom? Not if you're teaching them to learn like PIRATES! Peer Collaboration builds community and supports teamwork and cooperation. Improvement-focused learning challenges students to constantly strive to be their best. Responsibility for daily tasks builds ownership in the classroom. Active learning turns boring lessons into fun and memorable experiences. Twenty-first century skills engage students now and prepare them for their futures. Empowerment allows students to become confident risk-takers who make bold decisions. In Learn Like a PIRATE, teachers will discover practical strategies for creating a student-led classroom in which students are inspired and empowered to take charge of their learning experience. You'll learn strategies for: - Crafting active, relevant, and interesting lessons - Creating opportunities for student leadership - Providing effective and beneficial feedback - Instilling confidence so students can take risks - Increasing curiosity and passion for learning Incorporate the techniques and strategies Paul Solarz uses in his student-led classroom and watch your students transform into confident, collaborative leaders."In Learn Like a PIRATE, Paul Solarz explains how to design classroom experiences that encourage students to take risks and explore their passions in a stimulating, motivating, and supportive environment where improvement, rather than grades, is the focus. The particular techniques (and the underlying philosophy) he offers are highly consistent with teaching practice at the distinguished level in my Framework for Teaching. In that model, I tried to describe, at the distinguished level, classrooms in which the teacher has created a community of learners, with the students themselves assuming much of the responsibility for what occurs there. Mr. Solarz offers specific ideas for how to accomplish that." - Charlotte Danielson, author of Enhancing Professional Practice: A Framework for Teaching "As I read Learn Like A PIRATE I regretted that I was not teaching in the classroom where I would be able to work with students in the thoughtful and imaginative ways that he suggests. It is rare that we have a first hand report of the day to day practicalities of transforming classes into places where students can become self-directed, curious, interdependent learners. Paul has succeeded in sharing his passion for authentic 21st century teaching as well as inspiring us to imitate and invent our own models for preparing our students for an increasingly complex world of invention and problem solving." - Bena Kallick, Co-director of the Institute for Habits of Mind

    "Ace Your Teacher Interview" offers specific questions and responses gathered from dozens of principals and administrators across the country, along with a creative range of inside information on what impresses interview committees. This book is designed to provide readers with practical and realistic advice that informs and illustrates without being dogmatic or professorial. Teachers and college students majoring in education as well as people entering teaching from other professions will find this book a valuable resource. Key Features 149 of the most frequently asked interview questions, including the one question you must be able to answer, 99 basic questions, and 39 zingers to watch out for Comprehensive information on preparing for job interviews 10 questions you should ask interviewers, etc.

    This highly practical and accessible resource gives special and general education teachers the tools to implement explicit instruction in any grade level or content area. The authors are leading experts who provide clear guidelines for identifying key concepts, skills, and routines to teach; designing and delivering effective lessons; and giving students opportunities to practice and master new material. Sample lesson plans, lively examples, and reproducible checklists and teacher worksheets enhance the utility of the volume. Purchasers can also download and print the reproducible materials for repeated use. Video clips demonstrating the approach in real classrooms are available at the authors' website: www.explicitinstruction.org. See also related DVDs from Anita Archer: Golden Principles of Explicit Instruction; Active Participation: Getting Them All Engaged, Elementary Level; and Active Participation: Getting Them All Engaged, Secondary Level

    They also argue that it should be taught in the simplest way possible. Drawing on twenty years of experience, the authors present the Question Formulation Technique, a concise and powerful protocol that enables learners to produce their own questions, improve their questions, and strategize how to use them.Make Just One Change features the voices and experiences of teachers in classrooms across the country to illustrate the use of the Question Formulation Technique across grade levels and subject areas and with different kinds of learners.

    These are the children and grandchildren of Appalachian families who migrated to northern cities in the 1950s to look for work. They make up this largely "invisible" urban group, a minority that represents a significant portion of the urban poor. Literacy researchers have rarely studied urban Appalachians, yet, as Victoria Purcell-Gates demonstrates in Other People's Words, their often severe literacy problems provide a unique perspective on literacy and the relationship between print and culture.A compelling case study details the author's work with one such family. The parents, who attended school off and on through the seventh grade, are unable to use public transportation, shop easily, or understand the homework their elementary-school-age son brings home because neither of them can read. But the family is not so much illiterate as low literate--the world they inhabit is an oral one, their heritage one where print had no inherent use and no inherent meaning. They have as much to learn about the culture of literacy as about written language itself.Purcell-Gates shows how access to literacy has been blocked by a confluence of factors: negative cultural stereotypes, cultural and linguistic elitism, and pedagogical obtuseness. She calls for the recruitment and training of "proactive" teachers who can assess and encourage children's progress and outlines specific intervention strategies.

    Kim has taught more than 2,000 students, and each has shown her something about the world and the abundant capacity for love, resilience, and appreciation that we all possess. By sharing her students’ stories, she teaches their inspiring lessons to us all.Throughout the ups and downs of her professional and personal life, Kim found that her students were the light that illuminated her path; they were her sanctuary in the storm. From her challenges as a first year teacher, to her triumphs as the cofounder of the highly acclaimed Ron Clark Academy, Kim shares how children can teach each of us the importance of building relationships, abandoning fear, embracing one’s unique gifts, and living with passion.Full of honesty, humor, heartbreak, and humanity, Kim’s experiences show how children can help any one of us, despite life’s obstacles, find the joy and significance in both our personal and professional lives.

    It takes into account recent changes such as ubiquitous connectivity, open-source technology, mobile devices, and personalization to dramatically shift how schools have been run and structured for over a century.  Leading in education becomes exponentially powerful when using technology to your advantage.Eric Sheninger—“Principal Twitter”—shares his Pillars of Digital Leadership to help readers Transform school culture by initiating sustainable change Use free social media tools to improve communication, enhance public relations, and create a positive brand presence  Integrate digital tools into the classroom to increase student engagement and achievement Facilitate professional learning and access new opportunities and resources The time is now, whether you are a building level or teacher leader, to boldly move schools forward in the digital age.

    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

    The authors--a mental health therapist and a veteran principal--provide proven, reliable strategies to help youUnderstand what trauma is and how it hinders the learning, motivation, and success of all students in the classroom. Build strong relationships and create a safe space to enable students to learn at high levels. Adopt a strengths-based approach that leads you to recalibrate how you view destructive student behaviors and to perceive what students need to break negative cycles. Head off frustration and burnout with essential self-care techniques that will help you and your students flourish.Each chapter also includes questions and exercises to encourage reflection and extension of the ideas in this book. As an educator, you face the impact of trauma in the classroom every day. Let this book be your guide to seeking solutions rather than dwelling on problems, to building relationships that allow students to grow, thrive, and--most assuredly--learn at high levels.

    The author explains what a classroom number talk is; how to follow students’ thinking and pose the right questions to build understanding; how to prepare for and design purposeful number talks; and how to develop grade-level specific thinking strategies for the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Number Talks includes connections to NCTM’s Principles and Standards for School Mathematics as well as reference tables to help you quickly and easily locate strategies, number talks, and video clips. Includes a Facilitator’s Guide and DVD.