When one of her students, ten-year-old Seamus Farrell, is diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, Elaine, her students, and her innovative methods of teaching are put to their most severe test. Elaine's Circle is the true account of this small-town teacher who led her fourth-grade students through the biggest challenge of their young lives. This book provides a heart-wrenching, intimate look at the utterly remarkable achievements of this dedicated teacher, a supportive community, and a group of children who rallied to make Seamus Farrell's impending death an unforgettable lesson about life.

    The book is divided into three parts: Out of the Gate contains easy ideas to help you get started, More Reasons to Write shows you how to teach across genre, both fiction and nonfiction writing, and Refining Writing addresses everything you need to know about revision, grammar, punctuation, and assessment. In every chapter you'll find two running features: 1) “Try This”, ready-to-use lessons for you and your students; and 2) “Yeah But” where Barry answers the real questions and concerns he's collected from teachers around the country.

    Despite our best intentions, grades seem to reflect student compliance more than student learning and engagement. In the process, we inadvertently subvert the learning process. After careful research and years of experiences with grading as a teacher and a parent, Cathy Vatterott examines and debunks traditional practices and policies of grading in K -12 schools. She offers a new paradigm for standards-based grading that focuses on student mastery of content and gives concrete examples from elementary, middle, and high schools. Rethinking Grading will show all educators how standards-based grading can authentically reflect student progress and learning--and significantly improve both teaching and learning.

    How you, as an educator, respond to students’ natural curiosity can help further their own exploration and shape the way they learn today and in the future.The traditional system of education requires students to hold their questions and compliantly stick to the scheduled curriculum. But our job as educators is to provide new and better opportunities for our students. It’s time to recognize that compliance doesn’t foster innovation, encourage critical thinking, or inspire creativity—and those are the skills our students need to succeed.In THE INNOVATOR'S MINDSET, George Couros encourages teachers and administrators to empower their learners to wonder, to explore—and to become forward-thinking leaders. If we want innovative students, we need innovative educators. In other words, innovation begins with you. Ultimately, innovation is not about a skill set but about mindset.THE INNOVATOR'S MINDSET is for you if: •You are a superintendent, district administrator, or principal who wants to empower your staff to create a culture of innovation.•You are a school leader—at any level—and want help students and educators become their personal best.•You are a teacher who wants to create relevant learning experiences and help students develop the skills they need to be successful.THE INNOVATOR'S MINDSET includes practical suggestions for unleashing your students’ and teachers’ talent. You’ll also read encouraging accounts of leaders and learners who are innovating “inside the box.” You'll be inspired to:•Connect with other innovative educators•Support teachers and leaders as learners •Tap into the strengths of your learning community•Create ongoing opportunities for innovation•Seek more effective methods for measuring progress •And, most importantly, embrace change and use it to do something amazing

    This unique budgetary survival guide will enhance your instructional, technical, and managerial skills not only as the school′s leader but also as the school′s visionary, planning coordinator, and budgeting manager.

    The authors provide six different culturally proactive teaching stances or "poses" that secondary ELA teachers can use to meet the needs of all students, whether they are historically marginalized or privileged. They describe how teachers can expect to "wobble" as they adapt instruction to the needs of their students, while also incorporating new insights about their own cultural positionality and preconceptions about teaching. Teachers are encouraged to recognize this flexibility as a positive process or "flow" that can be used to address challenges and adopt ambitious teaching strategies like those depicted in this book. Each chapter highlights a particular pose, describes how to work through common wobbles, incorporates teacher voices, and provides questions for further discussion. Pose, Wobble, Flow presents a framework for disrupting the pervasive myth that there is one set of surefire, culturally neutral "best" practices.Book Features: A structure for career-long growth for ELA teachers, including ways to adapt pedagogy from one year to the next. A focus on culturally proactive positions within ELA classrooms to ensure criticality in how we teach and how we advocate for the teaching profession. Six different poses that are standards-aligned, critical, and expand the possibilities of what takes place in school. Guidelines for creating original poses beyond the scope of the book, discussion questions for courses, and resources for classroom teachers.

    This complex, contested intersection has led to censorship and worse-alarm, irrationality, and a failure to examine our ways of teaching, particularly teaching literacy to boys. In this book Tom Newkirk takes an up-close and personal look at elementary boys and their relationship to sports, movies, video games, and other venues of popular culture. Unlike the alarmists, he sees these media not as enemies of literacy, but as resources for literacy.Through a series of extraordinary interviews, Newkirk listens to young boys, and girls, who describe the pleasure they take in popular culture. They explain the ways in which they use visual narratives in their writing. They even defend their use of violence in their work. Newkirk disproves the simplistic stereotype of boys who are primed to imitate the violence they see. He shows that, rather than mimic, boys most often transform, recombine, and participate in story lines, and resist, mock, and discern the unreality of icons of popular culture.Using a mixture of memoir, research project, cultural analysis, and critique of published findings, Newkirk encourages schools to ask questions about what counts as literacy in boys and what doesn't, to allow in their literacy programs boys' diverse tastes, values, and learning styles. In other words, if we want boys to join the literacy club, then we have to invite them in with genres of their own choosing.

    But sometimes it's better to be unconventional. In Rethinking Rubrics in Writing Assessment, Maja Wilson offers a new perspective on rubrics and argues for a better, more responsive way to think about assessing writers' progress.Though you may sense a disconnect between student-centered teaching and rubric-based assessment, you may still use rubrics for convenience or for want of better alternatives. Rethinking Rubrics in Writing Assessment gives you the impetus to make a change, demonstrating how rubrics can hurt kids and replace professional decision making with an inauthentic pigeonholing that stamps standardization onto a notably nonstandard process. With an emphasis on thoughtful planning and teaching, Wilson shows you how to reconsider writing assessment so that it aligns more closely with high-quality instruction and avoids the potentially damaging effects of rubrics.Stop listening to the conventional wisdom, and turn instead to a compelling new voice to find out why rubrics are often replaceable. Open Rethinking Rubrics in Writing Assessment and let Maja Wilson start you down the path to more sensitive, authentic style of writing assessment.

    Organized according to the elements of explicit instruction (what? why? when? and how?), the Sourcebook includes both research-informed knowledge base and practical sample lesson models. Like the first edition, the updated and revised second edition of the Teaching Reading Sourcebook combines the best features of an academic text and a practical hands-on teacher's guide. It is an indispensable resource for teaching reading and language arts to both beginning and older struggling readers.New to the Teaching Reading Sourcebook, 2nd Edition:All new sample lesson modelsMore reproducible activity mastersA whole new section on reading fluencyMore about letter knowledge and multisyllabic word readingMore about the comprehension strategies that good readers useUseful information about the Comprehensive Reading Model (Three-tier Model)Highly respected contributing authors who are experts in the field of reading

    "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.

    Douglas Riley’s ear-to-the-ground insights will give much-needed help to desperate parents who have one overriding question: Why does my child act like this? This compassionate yet no-nonsense therapist explains that explosive behavior is the mere tip of the iceberg. Instead of using a one-size-fits-all strategy, Dr. Riley identifies the eleven most common causes of explosions and accordingly tailors his treatment strategies to address the underlying cause of the behavior. What Your Explosive Child Is Trying to Tell You is a lifeline for parents who are at their wits’ end. DR. DOUGLAS RILEY is a clinical psychologist whose practice focuses on children and adolescents who are explosive, oppositional, depressed, or have difficulties with concentration and learning. He is the author of The Defiant Child: A Parent’s Guide to Oppositional Defiant Disorder as well as The Depressed Child: A Parent’s Guide for Rescuing Kids.

    Together the three authors have thoroughly updated Inside Out with the latest information on technology, a substantial reference section on resources, and loads of new examples.

    If you’ve ever questioned how to make math stations work, you’ll find this photo-filled, idea-packed resource invaluable. This book extends Debbie Diller’s best-selling work on literacy work stations and classroom design to the field of mathematics, detailing how to set up, manage, and keep math stations going throughout the year. There’s even a chapter devoted solely to organizing and using math manipulatives. Each chapter includes:Key concepts based on NCTM and state math standardsMath vocabulary resources and literature linksSuggested materials to include at each station for the corresponding math content strandIdeas for modeling, troubleshooting, differentiating, and assessmentReflection questions for professional development Throughout the book, Diller has included hundreds of colored photos showing math work stations in action from a variety of classrooms in which she has worked. Charts, reproducible forms, and math work stations icons are included to provide everything you’ll need to get started with stations in your classroom right away.

    If you are a high school teacher or a kindergarten teacher, the seven steps in The Wild Card will give you the knowledge and the confidence to bring creative teaching strategies into your classroom.You'll learn: Why the deck is not stacked against you, no matter what kind of hand you've been dealt Why you should never listen to the Joker How to identify the "Ace up your sleeve" and use it to create classroom magic How to apply the "Rules of Rigor" in order to fuse creativity with learning How to become the "Wild Card" that changes the game for your students

    The one who went the extra mile to truly affect lives, whose lessons carried as much importance outside the classroom as inside. This book is a celebration of those teachers who continue to make an impact. A collection of stories from some of the country's top educators, this book is a celebration of teachers' work, and motivation for them to continue. Joseph Underwood has collected stories from each of the twenty-eight 2004 Disney Teacher™ of the Year honorees. And every story celebrates a different obstacle they overcame, the power and know-how needed to triumph, and the reward granted upon beating the odds. Today I Made a Difference is the perfect gift for anyone in or considering the profession.