Category: Book Reviews

How to Add Daily Writing to Your Content Area

Mary Tedrow shows how to cultivate students’ individual relationships with writing using a low stakes approach called a Daybook – a safe, authentic space for students to write and think that can feed into other disciplines and writing genres. Ariel Sacks calls it her “new top resource.”

Rethinking How We Teach Sentence-Building

In Between the Commas 6th grade teacher Jeny Randall is delighted to have found a new mentor in writing instruction who emphasizes a sentence construction framework. She looks forward to growing even more as a writing teacher thanks to Martin Brandt’s “irreverent wisdom.”

Bringing Drama Alive: Lessons and Scripts

The Drama Book a great resource for introducing drama into the ELA classroom, especially for inexperienced teachers who are unsure how to best tackle it. It offers practical teaching advice and amazing lesson plans, writes middle school teacher Erin Corrigan-Smith.

The Power of Writing for Young Math Students

Bringing the four types of writing from ELA to math class allows students to explain their thinking, opening a big window for teachers into their level of understanding. “Why Write in Math Class? K-5” by Linda Dacey shows how to make this happen, says Kathie Palmieri.

Measuring What We Do in Schools

In Measuring What We Do in Schools, assessment expert Victoria Bernhardt provides a framework schools can use to evaluate and reconfigure plans for continuous school improvement. Doctoral student Scott Holcomb highly recommends the text’s clear and practical models.

Infusing Narrative into Nonfiction Writing

If we want students to be better writers and communicators, we need to teach them real world writing. Liz Prather’s Story Matters is exactly the guide teachers need to blend narrative, argumentative and information writing, says English/history teacher Michelle Voelker.

Hands-On Archaeology: Digs for Youngsters

Help middle graders connect past and present using the easy-to-understand lessons in Hands-On Archaeology. Teacher educator Linda Biondi says the authors show us how giving kids opportunities to ‘dig’ in and out of class can build team skills and cross-curricular learning.

Physical Science Probes Every Teacher Needs

These 32 formative assessment probes, designed by leading authority Page Keeley, are carefully chosen, researched, worded and explained to give students a strong understanding of key underlying concepts in physical science, writes science educator Dr. Laura Von Staden.