Reading Linda Rief’s Read Write Teach is like sharing coffee with a master teacher. Her experience, advice and inspiration make it feel like a very helpful conversation. Reviewer Tyler McBride tries one of her activities and shares the successful results.
The NCSM book It’s TIME offers a framework for math education that can help schools and districts ramp up CCSS-M instruction. But district math coordinator Jami Garner says it fails to address resource issues and Response to Intervention implications.
Dramathemes (4th edition) can help build literacy through its activities on revealing identity, planting hope, and more. Reviewer Mark Domeier would like to have more guidance about using the materials, which he feels are mostly too “little kid” for middle school.
In this brisk book in ASCD’s Arias series, Jane Bluestein reviews 7 popular classroom management practices that don’t work and then offers teacher behaviors that can build a positive learning environment. Reviewer Angie Grimes finds the 43-page book “short, sweet, and to the point.”
The authors of “Blended” clearly know their stuff, says principal/reviewer Matt Renwick, providing multiple examples of blended learning supported by technology. But Renwick questions the heavy corporate focus and one-sided citations he finds pervade the text.
Dan Feigelson makes the case for reimagined reading projects and goes on to share conversations, student notes, and teacher conference plans. The result, says reviewer Linda Biondi, is a fresh approach to having students think for themselves and helping teachers take conferring to a new level.
In “59 Reasons to Write” Kate Messner shifts from teaching writers workshop and writing books for tweens to helping teachers build their own writing skills, assisted by more than 30 published authors. Reviewer Wendy Moore plans to try out their strategies.
Reading Nathan Barber’s book, educators can apply a sports coach’s perspective to communicating effectively, harnessing the power of teamwork, making work meaningful, embracing technology, building a winning tradition, and more, says reviewer Joanne Fuchs.
Book Reviews / Narrative for Learning
by MiddleWeb · Published 02/19/2015 · Last modified 11/14/2019
Thomas Newkirk makes a convincing argument in Minds Made for Stories that narrative is the framework for all good learning experiences, says teacher-reviewer Jenni Miller. This insight about storytelling can be used by teachers to help students learn and retain more in any subject.
Despite some organizational problems, says reviewer Susan Schwartz, “West Meets East” offers many insights into the comparative teaching practices of Chinese and US teachers recognized for excellence and shows that educators have much they can learn from each other, wherever they may practice their profession.
