eBook downloads, eBook resources & eBook authors
A powerful approach to teaching writing that seamlessly combines the use of mentor texts, strategy lessons, and the traits.
The Literacy Workshop: Where Reading and Writing Converge is a first-of-its-kind resource that offers a practical process for creating an integrated literacy workshop using demonstration lessons that align with current curriculum standards. In this forward-thinking book, authors Maria Walther and Karen Biggs-Tucker share what they've learned over countless reading and writing workshops and combine into one literacy workshop. The authors demonstrate how you can save valuable classroom time while still empowering students to uncover exciting connections in their learning – leading to stronger, more motivational readers and writers. By weaving the common threads of literacy learning together, you can increase the time your students spend engaged in authentic reading and writing. Inside you'll find the following: A clear, succinct explanation of the literacy workshop structure, how to get started, and how to determine the best time to begin the merge 50+ demonstration lesson plans, appropriate for both primary and intermediate grade levels, that use strategies incorporating elements from recommended fiction and nonfiction anchor texts Substantial, printable resources and online tools to help make this instructional shift as smooth as possible. From the big picture to small, helpful details, The Literacy Workshop will be your guide as you blur the lines between your reading and writing workshops - creating space for students to apply their learning and practice the habits, behaviors, and actions of literate and engaged citizens.
From the first edition to the latest, Language Arts: Process, Product and Assessment for Diverse Classrooms has presented sound language arts theory and methodology in a nonthreatening, straightforward manner at a reasonable price. Coverage focuses on the 2017 Standards for Literacy Professionals. Each chapter identifies and addresses the standards applicable to that chapter’s topics. Farris and Werderich infuse their foundational guidelines with the latest research, teaching practices, and assessment and evaluation techniques. Ideas for lesson plans, use of technological applications, internet resources, and comprehensive, up-to-date listings of children’s, young adult, and multicultural fiction and nonfiction titles are among the text’s outstanding features. Other features geared expressly for pre- and inservice teachers include: • Engaging, real-life classroom anecdotes • Instructional activities for reading, writing, listening, speaking, viewing, and visually representing • Boxes containing teaching hints and mini lessons • Section on Response to Intervention (RtI) with the various tiers of intervention • Theories, instruction, and teaching activities for English language learners (ELLs) • Guidelines to meet the needs of special needs learners • Suggestions for literacy-based interdisciplinary instruction (including STEM and STEAM) • Examples of children’s work to help readers understand what to expect from different ages and ability levels • Questions and assignments to strengthen readers’ aptitude, awareness, and application of topics to real life
Why has comprehension instruction become so complex? Sharon Taberski cuts through the pressurized, strategy-overloaded, fluency-crazed atmosphere surrounding reading instruction to lay out the reading and writing workshop practices that are most effective in developing readers in the primary grades. She shares the daily how-tos needed to sustain a literacy block that engages children in authentic reading and writing practices including dozens of effective practices that illustrate amazing ways to organize instructional and independent reading for kids including: letter and sound searches that improve students' word accuracy and fluency companion books bags that develop their confidence and comprehension strategy sheets that make children's thinking about text concrete a Putting Our Strategies to Work Board that enables students to reflect on and discuss the meta-cognitive strategies they're using Idea Books and Ta-da Publishing Books that help children get inside the reading and writing process and see how each feeds the other. Two Options for dynamic DVD-based staff development: for your workshop or PLC, the Lessons from the Ground Up DVD features 105-minutes of video clips of Sharon in the classroom, modeling effective ways to develop comprehension plus a 64-page facilitator's guide supports the DVD, lesson by lesson. It's All About Comprehension is a long-term staff development initiative with 3 DVDs (7 hours) of whole-class, small-group, and one-on-one instruction from Sharon.
What happens when a bestselling nonfiction children's book author pairs up with a nationally known writing teacher to discuss revision strategies? Magic. Sneed B. Collard III and Vicki Spandel blow the roof off everything you thought you knew about teaching nonfiction writing and the purposes for revision. Dozens of strategy lessons pulled from Sneed's professional writing experience followed by Vicki's classroom-savvy tips and exercises give you the nuts and bolts of teaching revision to make nonfiction writing more meaningful, useful, and enjoyable for the reader. Using a "big-to-small" process of revision, from Big Picture ideas down to individual words, Sneed and Vicki demystify revision and help students become clear, persuasive, compelling-even entertaining-writers. "With your encouragement and guidance," they write, "students will discover the joy of turning their first rough ideas into something readers cannot put down."
Why you need a writing revolution in your classroom and how to lead it The Writing Revolution (TWR) provides a clear method of instruction that you can use no matter what subject or grade level you teach. The model, also known as The Hochman Method, has demonstrated, over and over, that it can turn weak writers into strong communicators by focusing on specific techniques that match their needs and by providing them with targeted feedback. Insurmountable as the challenges faced by many students may seem, The Writing Revolution can make a dramatic difference. And the method does more than improve writing skills. It also helps: Boost reading comprehension Improve organizational and study skills Enhance speaking abilities Develop analytical capabilities The Writing Revolution is as much a method of teaching content as it is a method of teaching writing. There's no separate writing block and no separate writing curriculum. Instead, teachers of all subjects adapt the TWR strategies and activities to their current curriculum and weave them into their content instruction. But perhaps what's most revolutionary about the TWR method is that it takes the mystery out of learning to write well. It breaks the writing process down into manageable chunks and then has students practice the chunks they need, repeatedly, while also learning content.
Ask great writers what the key to writing well is and they will tell you revision. Author Ruth Culham, both a successful writer and writing teacher, understands the challenges elementary teachers face when teaching writing and revision and now shares her knowledge in Teach Writing Well: How to Assess Writing, Invigorate Instruction, and Rethink Revision. Divided into two parts, Culham's book provides ways to teach that are both accessible to the teacher and student. You will find techniques to assess writing that are practical, and results driven. Inside you'll discover: Culham's "traits of writing" and how to use them to read and assess student work Ways to guide revision decisions using these traits as common language How to address challenges students may face within the different modes of writing (narrative, expository, and persuasive) Strategic lessons to teach the writer that scaffold students towards making their own craft decisions A chapter on mentor texts which can be used to model traits and key qualities for your students Teach Writing Well pulls best practices together and shows writing with fresh eyes.
