Anna J. Small Roseboro offers educators a trio of books filled with an assortment of reading and writing strategies for teaching middle school students. Both veteran and beginning teachers will find any of these titles useful, writes education consultant Anne Anderson.
With its ready-made product menus and immediate applicability, Differentiating Instruction with Menus is one of those books that won’t gather dust, as teachers will turn to it for quick reference throughout the school year, says ELA and gifted facilitator Kim Rensch.
Reading Nancie Atwell and Anne Atwell Merkel’s The Reading Zone, 2nd edition, is like getting a letter from a good friend and mentor, says ELA teacher Amy Matthes. Find reading workshop case studies to help readers become passionate, skilled, and habitual.
In “Text Structures From the Masters,” educators Gretchen Bernabei and Jennifer Koppe did the hard work for English and social studies teachers of grades 6–10 when they collected 50 quality, nonfiction mentor texts and created an easy-to-follow lesson structure for each one.
In Lessons and Units for Closer Reading, Nancy Boyles dives into curriculum design, explaining the creation of units starting with a theme, an author, a genre, and more. Reviewer Jennifer Wirtz appreciates the book’s usefulness to middle grades teachers.
Easy to implement suggestions and detailed reading response lessons make educator Marilyn Pryle’s recent book a helpful addition to the Common Core ELA bookshelf. Reviewer Sandy Wisneski recommends its common-sense resources for modeling, assessing, and practice.
Genre Connections provides teachers with “concrete” advice for helping kids discover different genres in a variety of ways. Tanny McGregor’s suggestions for using art and music are particularly helpful, says reviewer Elisa Waingort.
Writing Pathways: Performance Assessments and Learning Progressions can help K-8 educators at the grade, school and district levels develop effective collaborative writing programs, says reviewer Linda Biondi. Teachers will find extensive resources to build student ownership of writing.
With Common Core discussions as a sturdy frame, Heather Wolpert-Gawron provides solid commentary about how writing and literacy relate to all curriculum areas, says reviewer Kathleen Pham. Central to the sample lessons: project based learning.
In Reading Unbound, reviewer Alexa Patterson says, Jeff Wilhelm and Michael Smith share student attitudes about reading and suggest ways to add favorite genres in the classroom, boost student interest in books, and make ties to the Common Core.
