121 Strategies to Probe Deeply into the Text: Learning "More When We Work Together" Resource Type: Professional Resource Discipline: English Language Arts Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades 6–Postsecondary Professional Commentary: In this classroom vignette, middle childhood language arts teacher Angela Thomas offers valuable how-to activities for class- and team-building. These cooperative learning strategies include (1) inside/outside circle (class building); (2) face off (class building); and (3) freeze scenes (team building).... Projects: Writing 6-12 122 Who Better Than the "Leading Learner"? Resource Type: Professional Resource Discipline: English Language Arts Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades 4–Postsecondary Professional Commentary: "Who Better Than the 'Leading Learner'?" is one of three classroom vignettes in this month's (February 2006) issue of AdLIT In Perspective. In this vignette, secondary curriculum and instruction coordinator for Westerville City Schools Laura Lipsett addresses emphatically the role teachers need to take in teaching reading in the content areas: "Teaching content-area literacy isn't another add-on.... Projects: Writing 6-12 123 Our Father-Son Book Club Resource Type: Professional Resource Discipline: English Language Arts Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades 6–Postsecondary Professional Commentary: Scott Morrison and Keith Wayne, both 4th-grade teachers, chronicle their experience generating an idea for and then launching a father-son book club. They include "the nuts and bolts of the process" as well as some selected book titles and activities.... Projects: Writing 6-12 124 Wired Students, Disconnected Learners Resource Type: Professional Resource Discipline: English Language Arts Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades 6–Postsecondary Professional Commentary: The April 2006 featured article is written by David L. Bruce, an assistant professor at Kent State in Teaching, Leadership, and Curriculum Studies.... Projects: Writing 6-12 125 Simple Poems, Powerful Teaching: Experiencing Poetry in Content-Area Classrooms Resource Type: Professional Resource Discipline: English Language Arts Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades 7–Postsecondary Professional Commentary: Allison L. Baer's "Simple Poems, Powerful Teaching: Experiencing Poetry in Content-Area Classrooms" is the featured article in the January 2007 AdLIT's In Perspective.... Projects: Writing 6-12 126 Poetry and the Standards? Resource Type: Professional Resource Discipline: English Language Arts Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades 7–Postsecondary Professional Commentary: This classroom vignette is a short piece written for the January '07 issue of AdLIT In Perspective detailing one teacher's experience with teaching poetry. Sandina Alexander, a teacher at Manchester High School, shares the magic of watching her beginning-of-the-year-facing-the-blank-page-with-trepidation students become her experienced classroom "poets." She begins her story with how she came to teach poetry, explains the progression of her students' writing assignments, and intersperses anecdotes throughout her lively teacher-to-teacher talk .... Projects: Writing 6-12 127 Choice Words [excerpt]: Chapter 1, "The Language of Influence in Teaching" Resource Type: Professional Resource Discipline: English Language Arts Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades K–12 Professional Commentary: This excerpt is the complete first chapter of Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning. With an initial interest in how teachers' use of language might explain their students' success in becoming literate (as documented on literacy tests), author Peter Johnston further expands his approach to include reducing the guilt teachers feel for teaching complex learning that cannot be measured on tests.... 128 Reversing Reading Failure In Young Adults Resource Type: Professional Resource Discipline: English Language Arts Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades 6–12 Professional Commentary: This professional resource details the reading research and teaching occurring in Boys Town, home of a reading center that is part of the National Resource and Training Center. A laboratory for older adolescents with reading problems, the goals of the Reading Center are to develop research-based programs that prove effective in Boys Town's schools and to... 129 Supporting Student Achievement in Literacy Project: A Literature Review Resource Type: Professional Resource Discipline: English Language Arts Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades 6–12 Professional Commentary: This literature review examines thirty years of research studies, then explores specifically those factors that affect contextual literacy development: gender, motivation, instructional strategies, engagement, parent involvement, and media and technology. This article, too, defines a pressing need for a literacy agenda that recognizes the developmental nature of reading and writing across all age groups and not one that is preoccupied almost totally with the literacy learning of young children.... Career Fields: Education & Training, General Career Skills Projects: Writing 6-12, Standards First 130 Teaching Readers Who Struggle: A Pragmatic Middle School Framework Resource Type: Professional Resource Discipline: English Language Arts Ohio Standards Alignment: Grades 6–8 Professional Commentary: This professional development article details a pragmatic framework for reading instruction that focuses on struggling and proficient readers in early adolescence (11-14 years old). Grounded in extensive and key reading research, the framework presented here suggests a structure for balanced literacy instruction in the classroom.... Career Fields: Arts & Communication, Education & Training, General Career Skills Projects: Writing 6-12, Standards First |