Getting It Right: Fresh Approaches to Teaching Grammar, Usage, and Correctness (Theory and Practice) Review

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Getting It Right: Fresh Approaches to Teaching Grammar, Usage, and Correctness (Theory and Practice) ReviewEach year teachers are amazed at how little their students know about grammar, usage, and correctness. "Why don't you know this?" they ask their students. "Didn't your teacher TEACH you this last year?" Blank expressions on their faces, the kids shake their heads "no," but a visit to last year's teacher brings indignation. "I certainly DID teach them (fill in the blank with your favorite grammar term)!" she says testily -- or quizzically, depending on her mood.
Sound familiar? It does to me, which is why I bought GETTING IT RIGHT. After years of frustration with "Teflon Grammatical Memory Syndrome" and with correcting a gazillion errors on a gajillion student papers, I looked to two familiar names -- Michael Smith and Jeffrey Wilhelm -- for answers. I wasn't disappointed.
Smith and Wilhelm start with conclusive research that the teaching of grammar in isolation does not work. Then they roll up their sleeves to show us what DOES work. Essentially they argue that it is a depth vs. breadth issue when it comes to grammar. Rather than trying to teach everything, teachers should focus on what's important and most likely to benefit the students in the long run. Their two justifications for teaching a term? "1. The term is so commonly used that teachers, texts, and tests presume that students know it. 2. The term is essential to being able to explain an important issue of style or correctness."
Boiling the vast world of grammar minutiae down to 16 basic terms/concepts, Smith and Wilhelm demonstrate creative ways to teach them based on their own experiences as well as those of student teachers who have worked under their tutelage. The practical ideas will be invaluable to teachers looking for new methods of reaching their kids in this most challenging of tasks. Prompts and handout examples are provided, along with samples of typical student errors and ways to help students learn from them.
Teachers will especially appreciate the section called "A Model Sequence: Learning to Proofread." Here the authors have mercy by telling teachers to free themselves of their shackles. Circling every error on every paper is NOT productive (unless improving your own editing skills while your kids learn nothing counts as "productive"). Instead, teachers should model proofreading and provide practice on carefully selected concepts, then serve as mentors by teaching specific skills and having students serve as their own editors by focusing on errors related to those skills only. Also, peer proofreading ideas that work are spelled out -- one in particular that involves creative use of the TV series CSI. Here it means "Correct Sentence Investigators" -- and yes, the proofreaders are "agents" and the errors are the "crime" (meaning you're about to witness the unlikely marriage of "fun" and "editing").
Buy it. Read it. Use it. Most importantly, it will help your students become better writers and self-editors; less importantly (but still worthy of your consideration!) YOU will feel a little more sane and a lot more effective when you send your kids off to the next grade where they might just surprise their new teacher by saying, "Participles? Yeah, we actually DID learn how to use THEM last year!"
Getting It Right: Fresh Approaches to Teaching Grammar, Usage, and Correctness (Theory and Practice) OverviewThe authors consider what grammatical concepts and correctness issues are most worth teaching andhow to teach those concepts and issues deeply.They explain how to understand the causes of students' errors, how to address those causes through authentic and engaging activities, and how teachers can work together to increase their effectiveness.They provide both guiding principles and plenty of examples that readers will be able to employ immediately For use with Grades 4 & Up.

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Oral Language for Daily Use, Grade 6 Review

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Oral Language for Daily Use, Grade 6 ReviewI am a school-based speech pathologist, so I use the "Oral Language For Daily Use, Grade 6" (OLDU) to supplement work classroom teachers assign during their Language Arts instruction. The lessons are quick and can easily be modified to meet my needs during individualized therapy. This resource is an excellent resource for quick review of language skills!Oral Language for Daily Use, Grade 6 Overview
Oral Language for Daily Use features thirty-six weeks of daily lessonsthat introduce, review, and maintain skills in punctuation,capitalization, and usage. Each week's lessons center on a topic, andeach topic includes facts or ideas from across the curriculum.Enrichment activities give students practice in research, writing, andcritical thinking. This series has six books total.


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Engaging Readers & Writers with Inquiry (Theory and Practice) Review

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Engaging Readers & Writers with Inquiry (Theory and Practice) ReviewWhen we were kids -- and this is true of both all teachers and all students -- we actually WANTED to learn. We asked questions galore. We were curious about things that interested us, and we were relentless in putting together the pieces or engaging the experts (Mom, Coach, the camp windsurfing counselor) necessary to get our answers. So, what happened to all that enthusiasm once the kid moved on to the classroom? Jeffrey Wilhelm (and the vast body of research he cites) has some answers in his new must-read-if-you're-a-teacher book, ENGAGING READERS & WRITERS WITH INQUIRY.
Wilhelm's book is, hands down, one of the "meatiest" resources I've read. The initial chapters go over definitions and research to give you a foundation in inquiry's history and latest manifestations, but after that it is one practical strategy after another, each rich with examples from Wilhelm's own classes.
The heart of the inquiry method is questioning. Wilhelm teaches us to build "inquiry units" by creating "guiding questions" that students are actually curious about and want to answer during the unit. He also shows how these open-ended questions should be constructed (tips and pitfalls are included) so that they relate not only to your educational goals, but to the kids' lives and our shared world. Here we are putting the "fascinated kid" back into the "formerly bored student." Once you have the question(s), you move to designing the final product(s), followed by the creation of all of those formative tasks (from simpler to more complex) used to get to that final product (this is known in educational circles as "backwards planning").
As you get into the heart of the book, Wilhelm offers an array of strategies, including secret prompts; walkarounds; entrance and exit tickets; and before, during, and after questions. He gets into questioning schemes that take students up the ladder of complexity. Some of the schemes involve mentoring the students so that THEY ultimately create schematic questions for each other. So if you think you really learn something by preparing materials to teach it, consider the benefits in teaching your KIDS to do this for each other, thanks to your modelling and mentoring.
Among the questioning schemes Wilhelm covers are "The Questioning Circle," "ReQuest," and "QARs, or Question-Answer Relationships." Then he focuses on author-reader transactions by sharing two authorial reading strategies utilizing inquiry, one called "QtA, or Questioning the Author," and the other called "Hillock's Questioning Hierarchy," which is George Hillock's ladder of increasing complexity. Hillock's Questioning Hieraarchy does for reading what Bloom's Taxonomy does for education as a whole. If you're tearing your hair out trying to get kids to grow more adept at literary analysis, you've hit paydirt at last.
In the final chapter, Wilhelm demonstrates how all of these inquiry-based strategies can be used across the disciplines. He provides examples from math, science, and social studies, proving that inquiry's applications go way beyond the province of language arts. He also makes a point of providing examples from Grades 4 all the way up to high school. All of this work can be customized to fit the age-group you teach.
Bottom line: This is a great book for a community of teachers to read and discuss. I plan on buying copies for two of my fellow teachers (same discipline), so we can roll up our sleeves and go to work on making our units inquiry-based. I'm convinced it will show results and know that, once I've migrated to this method, my students will not only be happier, they'll be smarter and more enthusiastic. In fact, they'll be a lot like that little kid they once were -- the one who not only paid attention to stuff, she kept asking, "Why?" until she was fully satisfied.
Engaging Readers & Writers with Inquiry (Theory and Practice) OverviewWhat makes a good relationship? How does flight influence behavior for humans and birds? Is it ever permissible to lie? Reframing our units and lessons with questions such as these makes learning more exciting for students. Wilhelm debunks the myth that teaching through inquiry is hard. He shares practical, easy ideas for turning state standards into engaging authentic questions that propel students toward deep understandings. Includes sample lessons, discussion techniques, and questioning schemes for all the content areas. For use with Grades 4 & Up.

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Reproducible Forms for the Writing Traits Classroom: Middle School: Checklists, Graphic Organizers, Rubrics, Scoring Sheets, and More to Boost Students' Writing Skills in All Seven Traits Review

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Reproducible Forms for the Writing Traits Classroom: Middle School: Checklists, Graphic Organizers, Rubrics, Scoring Sheets, and More to Boost Students' Writing Skills in All Seven Traits ReviewThis series is a breakthrough in ready-made and easy to follow instructional aids. I bought the entire series and suggest those who purchase do the same. I have rebuilt my entire writing curriculum around this series and can't wait until school starts to begin with it. The reproducible forms are also on CD and are compatible with my interactive whiteboard for teacher-led instruction. The wording and instruction on the forms is straight forward and constructive. I highly recommend the entire series.Reproducible Forms for the Writing Traits Classroom: Middle School: Checklists, Graphic Organizers, Rubrics, Scoring Sheets, and More to Boost Students' Writing Skills in All Seven Traits OverviewThis time-saving resource is essential to any middle school teacher dedicated to providing high-quality writing instruction, whether she's new to the traits or has been applying them for years. Compiled by the expert in trait-based teaching, it contains over 50 reproducible forms for assessing writing, planning instruction, keeping records, communicating with parents and-most important-helping students in grades 6 to 8 write with conviction and confidence. With a CD of all reproducible forms from the book.For use with Grades 6–8.

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Differentiation in Practice, Grades 5-9: A Resource Guide for Differentiating Curriculum Review

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Differentiation in Practice, Grades 5-9: A Resource Guide for Differentiating Curriculum ReviewDifferentiation In Practice: A Resource Guide For Differentiating Curriculum Grades 5-9 is a very practical, tool filled resources complete with annotated lesson plans applicable to social studies, language arts, science, mathematics, foreign languages, and more. Providing sample differentiated worksheets, product assignments, rubrics, homework handouts, and a great deal more, Differentiation In Practice is a very highly recommended, "user friendly", step-by-step guide to evolving the curriculum to adequately meet the manifold challenges of inquisitive young minds.Differentiation in Practice, Grades 5-9: A Resource Guide for Differentiating Curriculum OverviewThis book is the first in a new series from Carol Ann Tomlinson and Caroline Cunningham Eidson exploring how real teachers incorporate differentiation principles and strategies throughout an entire instructional unit. Focusing on the middle grades, but applicable at all levels, Differentiation in Practice, Grades 5-9 will teach anyone interested in designing and implementing differentiated curriculum how to do so or how to do so more effectively. Included are* Annotated lesson plans for differentiated units in social studies, language arts, science, mathematics, and world/foreign language. * Samples of differentiated worksheets, product assignments, rubrics, and homework handouts.* An overview of the essential elements of differentiated instruction and guidelines for using the book as a learning tool.* An extended glossary and recommended readings for further exploration of key ideas and strategies. Each unit highlights underlying standards, delineates learning goals, and takes you step by step through the instructional process. Unit developers provide running commentary on their use of flexible grouping and pacing, tiered assignments and assessments, negotiated criteria, and numerous other strategies. The models and insight presented will inform your own differentiation efforts and help you meet the challenge of mixed-ability classrooms with academically responsive curriculum appropriate for all learners.

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The Middle School Writing Toolkit Review

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The Middle School Writing Toolkit ReviewIf you are a middle school teacher, this book is a must-have! I'm a fairly new teacher and this book has given me enough material to run my writer's workshop for months. There are tons of lessons and assignments here that you can use the day you get the book. The lessons are very straightforward and easy to use. Each writing strand has its own chapter and set of lessons that help you teach any of the major writing genres, including persuasive, literary essay, narratives, how to, and reports.
My school is moving toward differentiated instruction in writing, so this book is a blessing. Each lesson has four writing tasks associated with it, from easy to challenging ones. Not only that, but this book takes you step by step through the process of teaching a differentiated lesson to a heterogeneously grouped class. I think this alone is priceless!
There are tasks, rubrics, charts--everything you'd want in a book about middle school writing.
Highly recommended!The Middle School Writing Toolkit Overview
Designed specifically for all middle-school teachers, The Middle School Writing Toolkit has everything needed to get your writer's workshop up and running whether you're a language arts teacher looking for new writing workshop ideas or a subject-area teacher who wants to improve the quality of student papers.
The Middle School Writing Toolkit addresses the five major writing genres that middle-school students are expected to master reports, persuasive essays, how-to (procedural) essays, narratives, and literary responses and provides mini-lessons and tasks to start English teachers well on their way to creating a successful writing program in the classroom.
Teachers in other subjects will find plenty of writing tasks on research, informational reports, biographies, and more to work into their daily curriculum, allowing for both subject exploration and writing mastery.
Fifty-seven writing mini-lessons and more than 200 differentiated workstation tasks, as well as time-saving forms, charts, and rubrics, make this a complete and useful resource for any middle-school classroom.
With The Middle School Writing Toolkit, you can transform your classroom into a successful writer's workshop and students of all abilities can master writing in any genre.
NEW! The Middle School Writing Toolkit is a finalist for the 2008 Next Generation Indie Book Awards!


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Teaching Middle School Language Arts: Incorporating Twenty-first Century Literacies Review

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Teaching Middle School Language Arts: Incorporating Twenty-first Century Literacies ReviewI was honored when the author asked me to write a preface for this splendid book. I have been teaching for about 30 years, but I learned a tremendous amount reading it. Ms. Roseboro's concrete examples and illustrations about teaching language arts will help teachers of all ages and subjects. She has learned by doing, by trying creative approaches and then refining the ones that worked the best.
I've always thought that language arts (I teach communication) is one of the most interesting topics to teach. Language arts is about people and relationships, and about stories that can enrich our lives and build common understanding for the good of community and society. Reading this book renewed my love affair with the field. Ms. Roseboro's own enthusiasm is infectious. I can understand why she is an award-winning teacher and a national board certified instructor.
I especially hope that new teachers will consider the ways that Ms. Roseboro has integrated deep pedagogical insights with practical teaching skills. It's easy as a new teacher to get so overwhelmed with daily preparations and classroom activities that one loses track of the theories behind one's instructional approaches. When it comes to teaching language arts with new literacies in mind, this kind of theoretically disconnected teaching becomes very problematic. Teachers fall prey to the latest "media" fads that are both unproven and usually a waste of time.
I'm grateful for Ms. Roseboro's inspiring book. I am honored to have written the preface.
Quentin J. Schultze, Ph.D., author of How to Write Powerful College Student Resumes and Cover Letters: Secrets That Get Job Interviews Like MagicTeaching Middle School Language Arts: Incorporating Twenty-first Century Literacies OverviewTeaching Middle School Language Arts is the first book on teaching middle school language arts for multiple intelligences and related 21st century literacies in technologically and ethnically diverse communities. More than 670,000 middle school teachers (grades six through eight) are responsible for educating nearly 13 million students in public and private schools. Thousands more teachers join these ranks annually, especially in the South and West, where ethnic populations are ballooning. Teachers and administrators seek practical, time-efficient ways of teaching language arts to 21st century adolescents in increasingly multicultural, technologically diverse, socially networked communities. They seek sound understanding, practical advice, and proven strategies for connecting diverse literature to 21st century societies while meeting state and professional standards. Teaching Middle School Language Arts provides strategies and resources that work. Roseboro's book provides an entire academic year of inspiring theory and instruction in multimedia reading, writing, and speaking for the 21st century literacies that are increasingly required in the United States and Canada. An appendix includes supplementary documents to adapt or adopt, and a companion web site is designed to continue communication with readers.

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Academic Language Academic Literacy: A Guide for K-12 Educators Review

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Academic Language Academic Literacy: A Guide for K-12 Educators ReviewEli R. Johnson's ACADEMIC LANGUAGE! ACADEMIC LITERACY! A GUIDE FOR K-12 EDUCATORS packs in 36 strategies in a research guide to help teachers make connections between academic language, literacy and student achievement. Strategies explain how to give students the tools and skills needed to understand academic language, offering descriptions and collaborative protocols to help with academic language in different disciplines. Word lists for different grade levels blend with clear instructions to make for an excellent guide.Academic Language Academic Literacy: A Guide for K-12 Educators OverviewThishands-on resourceprovides teachers, coaches, and administrators with 36research-based strategies that are proven to help students develop the necessary skillsfor academic language in reading, writing, listening, and speaking. English Language Learners, special needs students, and struggling readers will benefit from these literacy strategies that create academic success. These practical and proven strategies fit in perfectly with an RTI Intervention Framework.Major topics and themes include:
What is academic language and how does itsupport content area instruction?
Howacademic language strategies support academic reading, writing, listening and speaking?
How are English Language Learners and socio-economically students affected by their limited understanding of academic langauge?
Whichresearch-based strategies make the biggest difference for struggling readers?
How can we more effectively scaffold and modelacademic language in our academic instruction and interventions?


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Differentiated Instruction for the Middle School Language Arts Teacher: Activities and Strategies for an Inclusive Classroom (Differentiated Instruction for Middle School Teachers) Review

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Differentiated Instruction for the Middle School Language Arts Teacher: Activities and Strategies for an Inclusive Classroom (Differentiated Instruction for Middle School Teachers) ReviewTeaching middle school students can present its own set of challenges and given that most of the classrooms these days are inclusive, this presents quite an undertaking for teachers who wish to reach out to all their students and take into consideration the diverse needs of the students, in terms of learning styles, communication styles, skills level etc. "Differentiated Instruction for the Middle School Language Arts Teacher" presents a host of practical activities and strategies that can be used in an inclusive classroom.
The book is divided into two parts. Part One: Being Successful in the Inclusive Classroom addresses issues such as collaboration (for intervention, with the Child Study Team, with the school team, and with parents/families); determining learning styles to differentiate instruction; and, effective teaching strategies in an inclusive classroom, including alternative assessment methods.
Part Two: Language Arts activities for the inclusive middle school classroom offers specific activities that can be carried out in an inclusive Language Arts classroom, and these activities are in alignment with national content standards. Every activity has a list of required materials listed, and instructions on how the activity is to be carried out. Each activity also has a worksheet included which is reproducible. At the end of each activity, there is a segment titled "How to Adapt this lesson for an Inclusive Classroom" which has strategies for learning disabled students, resistant learners and students with ADD/ADHD, for students with fine motor weaknesses, and also for gifted learners, and the rest of the class. There is also a link made between the home and school, titled the "Home/School Connection" which helps students link the lesson/activity with real life by engaging their families in the activity (through homework, research, etc). Evaluation strategies are also offered in this segment.
This is an invaluable resource for Language Arts teachers in inclusive classrooms and will enable teachers to address the needs of diverse learners in the classroom. Highly recommended!Differentiated Instruction for the Middle School Language Arts Teacher: Activities and Strategies for an Inclusive Classroom (Differentiated Instruction for Middle School Teachers) OverviewAn essential resource for teachers in inclusive classroomsThis valuable sourcebook offers teachers key strategies on how to design and deliver effective instruction, measure success, and get students to work together. Covering topics such as decoding, vocabulary, blocking, using graphic organizers, mnemonics, literary elements, writing as a process, and doing research, it features dozens of ready-to-use language arts activities that are tied to core curriculum standards, and each activity has adaptations for students with different learning needs.

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