New Professional Books

This is different than my usual posts since it is exclusively for the teachers. So, here is a list and summary of new professional books available in the library for your perusal.

On Excellence in Teaching, edited by Robert Marzano. This book contains three chapters - Theories of Excellence, Systemic Excellence, Classroom Excellence - from renownded education leaders in the world. Chapters are filled with ideas and practical advice to improve instruction.

Cemeteries: Alive with Learning by Barbara Kissling. Ideas on how a cemetary can provide intersting learning experiences.

Visual Impact, Visual Teaching: Using Images to Strengthen Learning by Timothy Gangwer.Practical advice on how to stimulate students' interest and participation by using visual strategies and activites. All subject areas can benefit from this guide.

Primary Source: Teaching the Web 2.0 Way K-12 by Mary Johnson. Extensive listing of popular Web 2.0 tools, primary sources, and a guid eon how to get started.

Nonfiction Mentor Texts: Teaching Information Writing Through Children's Literature, K-8 by Lynne Dorfman and Rose Cappelli. Use this book to help your students become more effective writers of nonfiction. A helpful list is included, as well as insturction on how to select appropriate texts to use.

New Professional Books

In case you haven't stopped in the library for awhile, the professional collection is now in the front of the library where the reference collection used to be. Here is a selection of some new titles:

• More Tools for Teaching Content Literacy by Janet Allen - very nice flip chart similar to her previous book Tools for Teaching Content Literacy.
• Reading Power: Teaching Students to Think While They Read by Adrienne Gear - includes effective strategies to help students be thoughtful readers.
• Nonfiction Reading Power: Teaching Student sHow to Think While They Read all Kinds of Information bu Adrienne Gear - provides lesson and ideas for the five strategies to assist students with informational text.
• 3-Minute Motivators: More than 100 Simple Ways to Reach, Teach, and Achieve More Than You Ever Imagined by Kathy Paterson - includes ideas on how to refocus a group, get moving, brainstorm, etc.
• Teaching Grammar in Context by Constance Weaver - "a rationale and practical ideas for teaching grammar in the context of writing".
• Getting it Right: Fresh Approaches to Teaching Grammar, Usage, and Correctness by Michael Smith and Jeffrey Wilhelm - detailed advice and lessons for providing new, engaging methods to teach grammar in students' own writing.
• Strategies that Work: Teaching Comprehension for Understanding and Engagement by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis - "20 completely new comprehension lessons" as well as application of comprehension strategies across the curriculum.
• Nonfiction Craft Lessons: Teaching Information Writing K-8 by Joann Portalupi and Ralph Fletcher - lesson guides include discussion, how to teach it, and resource material to help students improve their nonfiction writing.
• Deeper Reading: Comprehending Challenging Texts, 4-12 by Kelly Gallagher - teach your students to be able to tackle challenging texts following the strategies in this book.
• Craft Lessons: Teaching Writing K-8 by Ralph Fletcher and Joann Portalupi - 95 practical lessons on topics including character, ending, stronger verbs, and much more.
• If This is Social Studies, Why Isn't It Boring by Stephanie Steffey and Wendy Hood - 23 teachers explain what has worked for their students using a holistic approach.
• Inside Words: Tools for Teaching Academic Vocabulary Grades 4-12 by Janet Allen - "recent research and key content-area teaching strategies show teachers how to help students understand academic vocabulary found in textbooks, tests, articles...".
• Do I Really Have to Teach Reading? Content Comprehension, Grades 6-12 by Cris Tovani - to help your students understand complex concepts, the answer is yes. Use this book to guide you as you teach your students reading comprehension strategies.
• Raising a Digital Child: A Digital Citizenship Handbook for Parents by Mike Ribble - this book is a guide to help parents with raising ethical, responsible users of today's technology.
• Readicide: How Schools are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It by Kelly Gallagher - "specific steps are provided to stop the downward spiral in reading". Stop the loss of another generation of readers.
• Choice Words: How our Language Affects Children's Learning by Peter Johnston - examples of "apparently ordinary words, phrases, and uses of language that are pivotal in the classroom...demonstrates how the things we say (and don't say) have surprising consequesnces for what children learn."
  

Professional Resources

Teachers:

For your summer perusal, consider the following:

• For the Love Of Books: A Guide to Help Teachers Connect Middle Grade Readers with Literature by Jane Vossler.

Young adolescent novels are organized by theme complete with taching ideas. Themes include novels about family relations, survival, other cultures, and speaking out.

• The World’s Best Thin Books: What to Read When you Book Report is Due Tomorrow by Joni Richards Bodart.

This publication includes descriptions or over 90 titles less than 200 pages. Also included are inclusion of curricular areas and readablility indexes.

• Reading Reasons: Motivational Mini-Lessons for Middle and High School by Kelly Gallagher.

You can hear the complaints now, “Why should I read?” Use this book that contains forty mini-lessons to answer the real life applications of why they should read.

• Adolescents in the Search for Meaning: Tapping the Powerful Resource of Story by Mary L. Warner.

The books presents the results of “a survey of more than 1,400 teens” as well as thoughts from YA authors. Over 120 meanigful novels recommended by teens and authors arranged by chapters on such topics as real-life experiences, facing life and death, discrimination, allegory, and parables.

• Reading Doesn’t Matter Anymore: Shattering the Myths of Literacy by David Booth.

Twelve steps to assist both parents and teachers with helping children read all genres and formats. These new formats include the internet, graphic novels, and manuals.

• Nonfiction Matters: Reading, Writing, and Research in Grades 3-8 by Stephanie Harvey.

This book shows “how students can read expository text, engage in research, and write authentic nonfiction that is captivating, visual, and full of voice.” Projects described lead students through the proper research process that helps students become independent thinkers and creative problem solvers.

• Getting it Right: Fresh Approaches to Teaching Grammar, Usage, and Correctness by Michael W. Smith and Jeffrey D. Wilhelm.

Teaching grammar the old-fashioned way just doesn’t work. This book offers a new perspective on teaching grammar and usage.

• Eyewitness to the Past: Strategies for Teaching American History in Grade 5-12by Joan Brodsky Schur.

History comes alive for students when using primary documents to imagine the past. Included are interactive strategies to help students complete written and oral projects such as staging congressional hearings, scrapbooks, newspapers, or debates.

• Managing the Diverse Classroom: How to Build on Students’ Cultural Strengths by Carrie Rothstein-Fisch and Elise Trumbull.

A simple framework is presented to help teachers understand cultural differences of the classrooms. Strategies include communication with families, homework attendance, and assessment.

• Radical Reads: 101 YA Novels on the Edge by Joni Richards Bodart.

The books included in the guide are “engaging, tough, and well-written” with high interest to teens looking for those stories with which they can identify. Titles are arranged by alphabetical order and include subject areas, characters, major themes and ideas, strengths, and reviews.

• Bringing the Outside in: Visual Ways to Engage Reluctant Readers by Sara B. Kajder.

Using those skills students already possess outside of school - texting, blogging, gaming - guidance is offered on how to help kids connect their skills with electronic medium and the curriculum. Help your students redefine literate for today’s world.