Also see book reviews by members
of the MiddleWeb discussion group
Teaching What Matters Most:
Standards and Strategies for Raising Student Achievement
by Richard W. Strong, Harvey F. Silver, and Matthew J.
Perini
From the Introduction: "This is a book about responsibility
-- about our responsibility to teach what matters most to the increasingly
diverse students who face us in our classrooms. It is a practical book,
packed with the tools that can enable us to meet this responsibility. It
is a positive book, filled with examples of schools, teachers, and administrators
around the country who are helping students achieve high levels of performance
on state and national assessments. Finally, this book is based on the simple
premise that these goals can be achieved by putting in place three simple,
but deep, changes in the practice of schooling. We call these changes responsible
standards, responsible strategies, and responsible assessment practices,
because the three taken together make it possible for schools to fulfill
their responsibilities to their students. In our vision, they are what matter
most in U.S. education today."
Read excerpts
from the book!
Order Teaching
What Matters Most from the Association for Supervision and Curriculum
Development. $22.95 ($18.95 for members). [2001, 131pp/paper, ISBN 0-87120-518-1].
OTHER BOOKS OF INTEREST
Taking Center Stage:
A Commitment to Standards-Based Education
for California's Middle Grades Students
By James Fenwick, Rozlynn Worrall and Diane Levin
Although it was written for California middle grades educators, Taking
Center Stage deserves a center spot on principal and teachers' bookshelves
across the US. The book, published by the California Department of Education,
explores in depth the knowledge and skills teachers and principals need
to work effectively in a standards-based middle school. But there's much
more. Taking Center Stage discusses school culture, classroom organization,
differentiated instruction, accelerated learning, an emotionally and physically
safe school environment, and the knowledge and skills teachers and principals
need to work effectively in a standards-based middle school.
As a bonus, the California League of Middle Schools is offering a free PowerPoint
presentation to accompany Taking Center Stage. Go to the CLMS
main page and find the appropriate link.
Order Taking
Center Stage from the California Department of Education Press. $13.50.
[2001, 272 pp/paper, ISBN 0-8011-1503-5]. Call 1-800-995-4099 and ask for
Item No. 1503. Ordering details can be found here.
I Read It, But I Don't Get It:
Comprehension Strategies for Adolescent Readers
By Cris Tovani
Cris Tovani's highly readable book, "I Read It, But I Don't Get It:
Comprehension Strategies for Adolescent Readers," has found an enthusiastic
audience among middle grades teachers. In her foreword, Ellin Oliver Keene
(author of "Mosaic of Thought") writes that Tovani's book will
equip middle and high school teachers "with a huge cache of new ways
to approach and extend the kids' comprehension, whether they are reading
the lunch menu or Tolstoy." Tovani has "nailed it," Keene
says, "because she deeply understands and cares about adolescents and
because she understands reading, inside out, upside down, and backwards."
A book for teachers in every content area.
In an on-line excerpt,
Tovani addresses the issue of helping middle schoolers get control of their
reading. She offers six tell-tale signals that signal readers they are having
trouble with comprehension and suggests teaching points that will help them
improve their understanding and move them from struggling to fluent reading.
Order I Read It, But I Don't
Get It from Stenhouse Publishers. $18.50. [2000, 152 pp/paper, ISBN
1-57110-089-X]
What Every Middle School
Teacher Should Know
by Trudy Knowles and Dave F. Brown
Teachers and principals on the MiddleWeb Listserv who have read "What
Every Middle School Teacher Should Know" praise it highly. They recommend
it not only to beginning teachers and folks who are working in the middle
grades for the first time, but for veterans as well. Co-published by Heinemann
and the National Middle School Association, the book "describes everything
a middle school teacher should know when teaching adolescents." The
book emphasizes a democratic approach to teaching where "students'
concerns and questions ultimately shape the curriculum."
Order What
Every Middle School Teacher Should Know from NMSA for the Internet price
of $19.20. [2000, 177 pages, 8 1/2 x 11, ISBN 0-325-00266-5]
Making Big Schools Feel Small:
Multiage Grouping, Looping, and Schools-Within-a-School
By Paul S. George and John Lounsbury
Focused on the middle school, this new book by two leaders of the middle
school movement describes how middle level schools are achieving smallness
within bigness and creating long-term teacher-student relationships. The
contents include: The Case for Smallness and Long-Term Teacher-Student Relationships;
Three Middle School Organizational Patterns; Research on Middle School Organizational
Patterns; and Guidelines for Implementation.
Order Making
Big Schools Feel Small from National Middle School Association for $19.00
($15.20 for members). Call 1-800-528-6672 and ask for Book #1300. You can
also order the book on the NMSA website at the lower price. [2000, paperback,
ISBN: 1-56090-165-9, 118 pp.]
Too Old For This, Too Young For That! --
Your Survival Guide for the Middle-School Years
by Harriet S. Mosatche, Ph.D. and Karen Unger
This "survival guide" from Free Spirit Publishing is written especially
for middle schoolers. Survival tips cover everything from the physical and
emotional changes and how to cope, to dealing with family, friends, and
school, to taking charge of your life through good decision making and goal
setting. Includes advice, quotes from kids, and helpful tips for surviving
the in-between years. Download
an excerpt (PDF file). And browse the site for other middle grades books,
including "The
Roller Coaster Years: Raising Your Child Through the Maddening Yet Magical
Middle-School Years."
Order Too
Old for This, To Young for That from the publisher (Free Spirit Publishing)
for $14.95. Order at the website
(ask for FS615) and get a $2 discount. [2000, paperback, ISBN: 1575420678,
200 pp.]
We Can't Teach What We Don't Know:
White Teachers, Multiracial Schools
by Gary R. Howard
"With lively stories and compelling analysis, Gary Howard engages his
readers on a journey of personal and professional transformation. From his
25 years of experience as a multicultural educator, he looks deeply into
the mirror of his own racial identity to discover what it means to be a
culturally competent White teacher in racially diverse schools. Inspired
by his extensive travel and collaboration with students and colleagues from
many different cultures, We Can't Teach What We Don't Know offers
a healing vision for the future of education in pluralistic nations."
[From the publisher's notice.]
Order We Can't Teach
What We Don't Know from the publisher (Teachers College Press) for $20.95
[1999, paperback, ISBN:0-8077-3800-XCl, 160 pp.]
Methods That Matter:
Six Structures for Best Practice Classrooms
by Harvey Daniels and Marilyn Bizar
In "Methods That Matter," Harvey Daniels and Marilyn Bizar share
the results of a decade-long search for "best practice" teachers
and classrooms. Both are former public school teachers who teach at the
Center for City Schools of National-Louis University in Chicago. They work
regularly with a team of six full-time teacher leaders who are supporting
a network of 25 urban schools seeking to implement progressive teaching
methods. They are also the authors of Best Practice: New Standards for
Teaching and Learning in America's Schools. Daniels and Bizar offer
six basic structures they believe can help teachers combine "the ancient
principles of progressive education" and the demands of standards-based
teaching and learning.
Order Methods That Matter: Six
Structures for Best Practice Classrooms from the publisher (Stenhouse)
for $19.50 [1998, paperback, ISBN: 1-57110-082-2.] And read excerpts here.
Reading for Understanding:
A Guide to Improving Reading
in Middle and High School Classrooms
by Ruth Schoenbach, Cynthia Greenleaf, Christine Cziko, Lori Hurwitz
"Reading for Understanding" grows from the work of Ruth Schoenbach
and her colleagues, who developed the "Academic Literacy" program
network, aimed at helping poor, urban youth develop the reading skills they
need to succeed in academic coursework. Read the preface and find out what
educators think about "Reading for Understanding" here.
Order "Reading for Understanding: Guide to Improving Reading in Middle
and High School Classrooms" (Jossey-Bass, in partnership with WestEd)
from Amazon.com
for $19.95 [1999, paperback, ISBN: 0-7879-5045-9.]
Becoming Good American Schools:
The Struggle for Civic Virtue in Education Reform
By Jeannie Oakes, Karen Hunter Quartz,
Steve Ryan, Martin Lipton, 1999
Becoming Good American Schools draws on five years of research among
schools involved in "Turning Points" middle grades reform. Becoming
Good American Schools tells the stories of 16 middle schools in California,
Illinois, Massachusetts, Texas and Vermont "that sought to alter their
structures and practices and become places fostering innovative ideas, caring
people, principles of social justice, and democratic processes." (Read
the Introduction on-line.) And read an
op-ed piece in Education Week by the book's authors.
Order "Becoming Good American Schools" (Jossey-Bass) from the
publisher's website for $28.95. Or order from Amazon.
[1999, hardback, ISBN: 0787940232.]
Looking Together at Student Work:
A Companion Guide to Assessing Student Learning
By Tina Blythe and David Allen, Harvard Project Zero,
Barbara S. Powell, Educational Consultant
1999
Written for teachers, administrators, curriculum coordinators, staff developers,
and researchers, this book offers: 1) A clear process for starting and sustaining
collaborative discussions of student work and student learning. 2) Detailed
descriptions of two kinds of structured conversations (the Tuning Protocol
and the Collaborative Assessment Conference) that guide discussion of student
work. 3) Real examples from schools that have developed their own ways of
looking collaboratively at student work. 4) A useful list of resources and
publications that can provide further help.
Order "Looking Together at Student Work" (Teachers College Press)
from the Project Zero website for $11.95 (DA-1048) using this
order form. Or order from Amazon.
[1999, paperback, ISBN: 0807738557.]
Safe To Be Smart: Building a Culture
for Standards-Based Reform in the Middle Grades
By Anne Wheelock
1998
"The promise of the 'standards movement,' Wheelock argues, "lies
in its capacity to correct the problems that most powerfully undermine student
learning and boost achievement in the process. These problems are manifold
and long-standing. They include curriculum that emphasizes breadth rather
than depth; teaching driven by standardized testing; unequal access to valued
knowledge and resources within and across schools; misguided beliefs that
only 'deserving' students can benefit from challenging classrooms; school
climates that discourage caring relationships; high student-to-teacher ratios;
and routines and norms that emphasize compliant behavior over learning."
Written with refreshing candor, this publication is punctuated with an abundance
of examples, teachers' comments, and classroom scenarios that give life
and credence to the message. "Safe to be Smart: Building a Culture
for Standards-Based Reform in the Middle Grades" will be a most welcome
resource as educators seek to move beyond the rhetoric of advocacy to implementing
practices that will result in higher student achievement. (Mary Mitchell,
National Middle School Association.)
Read an excerpt from "Safe To Be Smart"
here at MiddleWeb
Order "Safe To Be Smart" (National Middle Schools Association)
on-line or print the order form here.
Ask for Publication #1256; $25 for non-members; $20 for members. [ISBN#1-56090-126-8
/1998/206 pp./November 1998.] Also try Amazon
books. To order by phone from NMSA, please call 1-800-528-6672.
What Current Research Says to the Middle Level Practitioner
Edited by Judith L. Irvin
1997
The 31 chapters, written by acknowledged experts, cover topics such as grouping,
inclusion,
curriculum, teaming, and organization. The link leads to a summary of the
contents, which are arranged under these headings: teaching/learning; curriculum;
teacher education; social context; leadership; issues and future directions.
Order "What Current Research Says" from the National Middle Schools
Association on-line or print the order form here.
Ask for Publication #1244; $37 for non-members; $32 for members. [1997,
384 pages, 7 x 9 1/2, ISBN 1-56090-120-9.] To order by phone from NMSA,
please call 1-800-528-6672.
Teaching to Change the World
by Jeannie Oakes and Martin Lipton
1998
A comprehensive introduction to education that can be used in Introduction
to Education, Social Foundations, or Multicultural Education courses --
or simply to provoke fresh thinking among practicing teachers. (See the
detailed
table of contents.)Teaching to Change the World is "fresh
and geared towards practical support of emerging teachers because it allows
a new teacher to see the implications of a particular philosophy of teaching
and learning embedded in contemporary classroom practice," says Patricia
A. Wasley, Dean of the Graduate School, Bank Street College of Education.
The single copy price of Teaching
to Change the World is $22.00 at barnesandnoble.com.
Or e-mail McGraw-Hill
for quicker service. Review
copies are available to teacher education faculty. [ISBN # 0-07-109381-8
/ 1999 / 432 pages. Published October 1998.]
* * * * * * * * * *
In The Middle: New Understandings About Writing, Reading, and Learning
Nancie Atwell
1998
"Because change in education usually occurs at a glacial crawl, the
1984 publication of Nancie Atwell's In the Middle qualified as
a cataclysmic event.... Following Atwell's lead, teachers at all grade levels
began dismantling the traditional classroom to create a 'genuine' community
of writers in which students discuss and edit each other's work. Now, nearly
15 years later, Atwell's followers may have to do some rethinking.... What
Atwell renounces in this second edition is the pact of noninterference she
advocated in the first. (from the Aug/Sept '98 Teacher
review.)
Order the revised edition of In the Middle from Boynton/Cook
(Heinemann) [1998 / 546pp / Paper / $32.50 / 0-86709-374-9 / ]. Also
available from amazon.com
at the same price. See teacher reviews.
* * * * * * * * * *
Transforming Middle Schools: A Guide to Whole-School Change
Barry Raebeck
1998
"Sound theory, deep insight and clear examples of how one can actually
affect wholesale, school-wide change," says middle grades expert Howard
Johnston. This second-edition book promises "real answers to problems
of middle-level schools." Barry Raebeck -- a former middle school principal
and now a superintendent in New York state -- draws on his experience as
a teacher, counselor and principal of a middle school recognized as exemplary
by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Order Transforming Middle Schools from Technomic
Publishing Company, Inc. (225 pp. / pb, $44.95 ).
* * * * * * * * * *
Among Schoolteachers: Community, Autonomy, and Ideology in Teachers' Work
by Joel Westheimer
1998
"A compelling and thoroughly readable account of two middle schools
-- one urban and one suburban -- that attempt to build communities which
will foster student growth and learning," says Stanford University's
Larry Cuban. Westheimer, he says, "leaves in tatters the tapestry of
rhetoric that has been woven by reformers around the idea that all teacher
communities are alike and that building them requires only a few hardy souls
with moxie and determination."
Order Among Schoolteachers from your bookstore (Teachers
College Press, 192 pp., $17.95) or from amazon.com
for $14.36.
* * * * * * * * * *
Safe Passage: Making It Through Adolescence in a Risky Society
By Joy G. Dryfoos
1998
Examines hundreds of successful research-baed and field-tested community-support
programs for middle grades kids, Inlcuding the Turner Middle School in Philadelphia,
a "university assisted" community school. Promotes the concept
of "full service" middle schools, says Education Week, "initiatives
that make the school the hub of the community, serving as a neighborhood
safe haven and providing health and human services on site." Ed Week
says Dryfoos' "dissection of failed programs is equally valuable."
OrderSafe Passage from your bookstore (Oxford
University Press, 292 pp., $27.50) or from Amazon.com
for $19.95.
* * * * * * * * * *
Nothing's Impossible:
Leadership Lessons from Inside and Outside the Classroom
By Lorraine Monroe
1997
This book was published late in 1997 but we don't want to pass up the opportunity
to suggest it as summer reading to teachers who are in the process of rejuvenating
themselves. Many visitors to this site who work in schools will have heard
Lorraine Monroe speak -- she's the most popular "inspirational"
teacher on the education circuit today. "Nothing's Impossible"
offers her message of hope and possibilities in more detail. We don't have
an excerpt from the book, but we do have an excerpt from a November 1997
speech by Monroe:
Nothing's Impossible: Leadership Lessons from Inside and Outside
can be ordered from Amazon.com
(hardback, 256 pages, $16.10)
* * * * * * * * * *
Making Change: Three Educators Join the Battle for Better Schools
By Holly Holland
Published March 1998
Holly Holland examines the impact
of the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) through the experiences of three
educators -- a superintendent, a principal, and a teacher -- in a small
Kentucky community. If you read the excerpt published in the December 1997
KAPPAN magazine, you know you'll find terrific writing and moving stories
in Making Change.
Making
Change: Three Educators Join the Battle for Better Schools,
can be orderd from the publisher, Heinemann,
or from an on-line bookstore like Amazon.com
(hardback, $24.95)
* * * * * * * * * *
Highly Successful Women Administrators:
The Inside Story of How They Got There
by Sandra Lee Gupton and Gloria Appelt Slick
Published 1996
From an AASA promo:
"What does it take for a woman to be a successful administrator in
education? Is it more than a matter of being the best-qualified person for
the job? Are there specific traits that can help you reach your goals?"
You can order this book in paperback
from Amazon.com($22.95) or from the American Association of School Administrators'
publications
catalog (also $22.95)
Most of these books can be ordered on-line from Amazon.com
or Barnes & Noble. A search
for the author's name will turn up the book and other titles of possible
interest. (If you go to Barnes & Noble, use the "book search"
not the "quick search.") Many are available in both hardback and
paperback.
* * * * * * * * * *
Leading Change: Principals' Stories of
School Reform
To be a leader in a school committed to innovation is to walk a tightrope
between collaboration and supervision, between faculty and community, between
inspiration and perspiration. Each of the principals who contributed to
"Leading Change: Principals' Stories of School Reform" has walked
that tightrope successfully. CES Publications, Brown University.
Educating
Everybody's Children:
Diverse Teaching Strategies for Diverse Learners
Edited By Robert W. Cole. Developed by the Improving Student Achievement
Research Panel of the Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development,
this collection of essays includes "proven instructional strategies
for all students, especially those who are at risk of academic failure.
Features specific, teacher-tested methods for increasing achievement in
reading, writing, mathematics, and oral communication." 182 pages.
Mobilizing Resources for District-Wide Middle-Grades Reform
Holly Hatch, Kathryn Ann Hytten / Paperback / Published 1997
The Nation's Best Schools : Blueprints for Excellence
(Volume 1-Elementary and Middle Schools)
Evelyn Hunt Ogden, Vito Germinario / Published 1994
(Out of print - Amazon.com will search for used copy)
Show Me the Evidence: Proven and Promising Programs for America's
Schools
Robert E. Slavin / Hardcover and softcover available / Published 1998 /
Handbook of Instructional Leadership :
How Really Good Principals Promote Teaching and Learning
Jo Roberts Blase, Joseph Blase / Paperback / Published 1998
A Comprehensive Guide to Designing
Standards-Based Districts, Schools, and Classrooms
Robert J. Marzano, John S. Kendall / Paperback / Published 1996
Education Books Worth Remembering
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