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Engage your students with Literature Circles! This book will show you how to prepare your students to lead their own active, focused discussion in small groups. Give your students the tools to engage with books and with each other. You can even incorporate film versions of classic texts into discussion.
Here are the detailed strategies teachers need to introduce and use literature circles: implementation, management, organization, and assessments. The book also includes extension activities and dozens of reproducible masters. Activities are correlated to McREL s Standards.
Presents advice for teachers on making classroom book discussions successful, covering such topics as choosing books, grouping students, using writing, assessing participation and comprehension, and supporting students who struggle with reading.
Harvey Daniels' Literature Circles introduced tens of thousands of teachers to the power of student-led book discussions. Nancy Steineke's Reading and Writing Together showed how a teacher can nurture friendship and collaboration among young readers. Now, Daniels and Steineke team up to focus on one crucial element of the Literature Circle model; the short, teacher-directed lessons that begin, guide and follow-up every successful book club meeting. Mini-lessons are the secret to book clubs that click. Each of these forty-five short, focused, and practical lessons includes Nancy and Harvey's actual classroom language and is formatted to help busy teachers with point-by-point answers to the questions they most frequently ask. How can I: steer my students toward deeper comprehension? get kids interested in each others' ideas? make sure kids choose just-right books? help students schedule their reading and meeting time? deal with kids who don't do the reading? get kids to pay more attention to literary style and structure? help special education and ELL students to participate actively in book clubs? get kids to expand their repertoire of reading strategies? make sure groups are on-task when I'm not looking over their shoulder? introduce writing tools (including role sheets) that support student discussion'. help shy or dominating members get the right amount of "airtime?" give grades for book clubs without ruining the fun? use scientific research to justify the classroom time I spend on literature circles? Each mini-lesson spells out everything from the time and materials needed to word-by-word instructions for students. The authors even warn "what could go wrong," helping teachers to avoid predictable management problems. With abundant student examples, reproducible forms, photographs of kids in action, and recommended reading lists, Mini-lessons for Literature Circles helps you deepen student book discussions, create lifelong readers, and build a respectful classroom community.
The benefits and importance of Socratic seminars are widely recognized, but little has been written on how to make them happen successfully in the classroom. In Socratic Circles: Fostering Critical and Creative Thinking in Middle and High School , author Matt Copeland provides real-world examples and straightforward answers to frequent questions. He creates a coaching guide for both the teacher new to Socratic seminars and the experienced teacher seeking to optimize the benefits of this powerful strategy. Socratic Circles also shows teachers who are familiar with literature circles the many ways in which these two practices complement and extend each other. Effectively implemented, Socratic seminars enhance reading comprehension, listening and speaking skills, and build better classroom community and conflict resolution skills. By giving students ownership over the classroom discussion around texts, they become more independent and motivated learners. Ultimately, because there is a direct relationship between the level of participation and the richness of the experience, Socratic seminars teach students to take responsibility for the quality of their own learning. Filled with examples to help readers visualize the application of these concepts in practice, Socratic Circles includes transcripts of student dialogue and work samples of preparation and follow-up activities. The helpful appendices offer ready-to-copy handouts and examples, and suggested selections of text that connect to major literary works. As our classrooms and our schools grow increasingly focused on meeting high standards and differentiating instruction for a wide variety of student needs and learning styles, Socratic seminars offer an essential classroom tool for meeting these goals.Socratic Circles is a complete and practical guide to Socratic seminars for the busy classroom teacher.
In Teaching with Poverty in Mind: What Being Poor Does to Kids' Brains and What Schools Can Do About It, veteran educator and brain expert Eric Jensen takes an unflinching look at how poverty hurts children, families, and communities across the United States and demonstrates how schools can improve the academic achievement and life readiness of economically disadvantaged students. Jensen argues that although chronic exposure to poverty can result in detrimental changes to the brain, the brain's very ability to adapt from experience means that poor children can also experience emotional, social, and academic success. A brain that is susceptible to adverse environmental effects is equally susceptible to the positive effects of rich, balanced learning environments and caring relationships that build students' resilience, self-esteem, and character. Drawing from research, experience, and real school success stories, Teaching with Poverty in Mind reveals * What poverty is and how it affects students in school; * What drives change both at the macro level (within schools and districts) and at the micro level (inside a student's brain); * Effective strategies from those who have succeeded and ways to replicate those best practices at your own school; and * How to engage the resources necessary to make change happen. Too often, we talk about change while maintaining a culture of excuses. We can do better. Although no magic bullet can offset the grave challenges faced daily by disadvantaged children, this timely resource shines a spotlight on what matters most, providing an inspiring and practical guide for enriching the minds and lives of all your students.
This updated edition of a 1990 classic advocates the use of real books in a classroom context that places children's enjoyment and interpretation of literature at the center. New material includes a foreword by Shelley Harwayne and tributes to the book's influence by Stephanie Harvey, Lester Laminack, Frank Serafini, and Mary Glover. In addition to illuminating the powerful components of a literature-based reading program, the authors provide a number of assessment tools. For use with Grades 2- 6.
The ideal? Newly minted high school graduates all across the nation, each one a complex text genius, a writer and analytic thinker beyond compare. All on to glorious colleges and careers, thanks to the Common Core. The reality? The 1.3 million students who fail to graduate from high school each year and the hundreds of thousands more who either gave up or lost interest long ago . . . The reality is why Common Core CPR is needed. Urgently. Because if we continue to insist that all students meet expectations that are well beyond their abilities and mindsets, these kids will only decline faster. We must be brave enough-and trained enough-to cast aside what we know harms students and apply with renewed vigor the teaching methods we know work. Releah Lent and Barry Gilmore rise to the challenge, and there are no two authors better equipped to do so. They embrace what is best about the standards-their emphasis on active, authentic learning-and then explicitly show teachers how to connect these ideal outcomes to practical classroom strategies, detailing the day-to-day teaching that can coax reluctant learners into engagement and achievement. You'll learn how to: Consider choice and relevance in every assignment Plan and spot opportunities for success Scaffold students' comprehension of complex fiction and nonfiction texts Model close reading through thoughtful questioning Teach students to use evidence in reading, writing, speaking, and reflection . . . And so much more It's not the big sweeping formulas for achievement that will win the day; it's the incremental growth that teachers need to make happen: that one book, that one writing assignment, to help a student turn a corner. "If we can get that one transformational moment to occur, and follow it up by designing more opportunities for success, that's the ideal," say Lent and Gilmore.
