Love Learning

Love Learning About Literacy & Language

Dear Readers,

Here is my second blog post on recommended reading! I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

This book is truly a Hidden Gem. It made me look at writing in an entirely different light. Katherine Bomer focuses on finding the positive components in any piece of writing and has wonderful feedback prompts to give students.

The use of mentor texts is an essential component of literacy instruction. All students are authors, Lisa Eickholdt shows us how to use peer writing to showcase skills and strategies.

I always spend time building rapport with my students. However, Colleen Cruz has a fantastic interest survey that explores the a student's world including music, video games, television shows, etc. It really helped me to get to know my students on an entirely different level.

Why does it seem like most of our reluctant writers happen to be male? Ralph Fletcher discusses the inability for boys to write about topics of interest because they are frequently categorized as "inappropriate" for school. How do we help male students find their writing voice?

Middle School learners are going through developmental, social, emotional changes. Kelly Gallagher does an excellent job focusing on adolescents.

Academic writing contains argument, persuasion, cited sources, evidence, analysis, etc. Graff and Birkenstein do a terrific job of providing prompts, sentence starters and ideas for writing positions papers and essays. Depending on the grade level, can be a direct resource for high school and college students to own themselves. 

Students need models of writing as anchors when they proceed through the writing process. Ruth Culham puts a new focus on the Traits of Writing. This resource is a treasure chest of possible mentor texts.

Beth Olshansky has an innovative approach to writing. She shows how students can take pieces of art through a parallel "writing process" and then turn that art into writing. 

One of my favorite literacy sources of all time. Lehman and Roberts show us how to use close reading strategies in literature and informational text. It is a great visual for students to see their thinking.

Another of my favorite literacy resources. I have this right next to my desk and am constantly referring to it for prompts, especially when writing in response to reading or engaging in book discussions.

Who doesn't love being read to? Unfortunately, read aloud is often misunderstood and starts to disappear from classrooms as students move from elementary to middle school and beyond. Steven Layne has realistic examples of how to use read aloud at the secondary level.

A beautiful book about how and why children benefit from read alouds. Mem Fox gives excellent skills and strategies to an effective read aloud. 

This is one of the most important resources I have read. The lessons in here teach our students how to be upstanders in society, collaborate with each other and respectively disagree. Harvey Daniels and Sara Ahmed did an unbelievable job putting together texts, resources and lessons. 

Happy reading!

Warmly,

Teresa