No matter wherestudents' lives lead after graduation, one of the most essential tools we can teach them is how to comprehend, analyze, and respond to arguments. Students need to know how writers' and speakers' choices are shaped by elements of the rhetorical situation, including audience, occasion, and purpose. In Teaching Arguments: Rhetorical Comprehension, Critique, and Response, Jennifer Fletcher provides teachers with engaging classroom activities, writing prompts, graphic organizers, and student samples to help students at all levels read, write, listen, speak, and think rhetorically.Fletcher believes that, with appropriate scaffolding and encouragement, all students can learn a rhetorical approach to argument and gain access to rigorous academic content. Teaching Arguments opens the door and helps them pay closer attention to the acts of meaning around them, to notice persuasive strategies that might not be apparent at first glance. When we analyze and develop arguments, we have to consider more than just the printed words on the page. We have to evaluate multiple perspectives; the tension between belief and doubt; the interplay of reason, character, and emotion; the dynamics of occasion, audience, and purpose; and how our own identities shape what we read and write. Rhetoric teaches us how to do these things.Teaching Arguments will help students learn to move beyond a superficial response to texts so they can analyze and craft sophisticated, persuasive arguments - a major cornerstone for being not just college-and career-ready but ready for the challenges of the world.

Talking and writing about unfinished ideas is vital to learning mathematics, but most students only speak up when they think they have the right answer - especially middle school and high school students. Amanda Jansen and her collaborating teachers have developed a breakthrough approach to address this challenge.

In Rough Draft Math: Revising to Learn, Jansen shares the power of infusing math class with the spirit of revision so that students feel comfortable thinking aloud as they problem-solve rather than talking only to perform right answers.

Creating a Community of Learners: As part of the rough draft framework, a class of students becomes an equitable and inclusive community of thinkers, one where students feel safe to engage in discourse while developing mathematical competency and confidence

Practical Application of Innovative Ideas: This book includes specific teaching techniques and a range of classroom vignettes showing rough draft math in action within a student-centered teaching approach. Children can develop solutions at their own pace and share thought processes behind their conclusions

Classroom Tested: Jansen has developed the concept of rough draft math in collaboration with a diverse group of dynamic and reflective teachers.

Rough Draft Math provides a blueprint for educators to allow free-thinking discussion while maintaining the mathematical learning goalsRough Draft Math, Jansen shows how to create an energetic classroom culture where students readily participate and share their evolving understanding while engaging in math talk, collaborative problem solving, and ongoing revision of ideas. '

In Writing Rhetorically: Fostering Responsive Thinkers and Communicators, author Jennifer Fletcher aims to cultivate independent learners through rhetorical thinking. She provides teachers with strategies and frameworks for writing instruction that can be applied across multiple subjects and lesson plans. Students learn to discover their own questions, design their own inquiry process, develop their own positions and purposes, make their own choices about content and form, and contribute to conversations that matter to them.

Inside this book, Fletcher helps remove some of the scaffolding and explains how to put in practice some methods which can successfully foster:

• Inquiry, Invention, and Rhetorical Thinking
• Writing for Transfer
• Paraphrasing, Summary, Synthesis, and Citation Skills
• Research Skills and Processes
• Evidence-Based Reasoning
• Rhetorical Decision Making

Rhetorical decision making helps students develop the skills, knowledge, and mindsets needed for transfer of learning: the ability to adapt and apply learning in new settings. The more choices students make as writers, the better prepared they are to analyze and respond to diverse rhetorical situations. Writing Rhetorically shows teachers what it looks like to dig into real texts with students and novice writers and how it develops them for lifelong learning.

In his new book, In the Best Interest of Students: Staying True to What Works in the ELA Classroom, teacher and author Kelly Gallagher notes that there are real strengths in the Common Core standards, and there are significant weaknesses as well. He takes the long view, reminding us that standards come and go but good teaching remains grounded in proven practices that sharpen students' literacy skills.Instead of blindly adhering to the latest standards movement, Gallagher suggests: Increasing the amount of reading and writing students are doing while giving students more choice around those activitiesBalancing rigorous, high-quality literature and non-fiction works with student-selected titlesEncouraging readers to deepen their comprehension by moving beyond the four corners of the text-Planning lessons that move beyond Common Core expectations to help young writers achieve more authenticity through the blending of genresUsing modeling to enrich students' writing skills in the prewriting, drafting, and revision stagesResisting the de-emphasis of narrative and imaginative reading and writingAmid the frenzy of trying to teach to a new set of standards, Kelly Gallagher is a strong voice of reason, reminding us that instruction should be anchored around one guiding question: What is in the best interest of our students

The Teacher's Bundle includes the 84-page Teacher's Guide, 36-page hardcover student book, and access to digital formats.

In the valuable Teacher's Guide, Christopher Danielson gives you everything you need to start your students questioning, arguing and wondering about the shapes in the accompanying Mathical-award-winning children's picture book, Which One Doesn't Belong?

Christopher draws from both research and classroom experience to teach you how students' geometric thinking develops. In clear, approachable language, Christopher discusses the mathematical ideas likely to emerge on each page and helps you anticipate and understand students' likely answers. Through classroom stories from different grade levels, he models listening to, talking about, and delighting in students' ideas about shapes. Finally, Christopher gives you all the practical information you'll need to implement Which One Doesn't Belong? as a classroom routine, from how to launch rich discussions to how to create new sets to match your instructional goals. Reading the Teacher's Guide alongside your copy of Which One Doesn't Belong? will help you and your students discover the beauty of geometry and mathematics together.

Revision is often a confusing and difficult process for students, but it's also the most important part of the writing process. If students leave our classrooms not knowing how to move a piece of writing forward, we've failed them. Revision Decisions: Talking Through Sentences and Beyond will help teachers develop the skills students need in an ever-evolving writing, language, and reading world. Jeff Anderson and Deborah Dean have written a book that engages writers in the tinkering, playing, and thinking that are essential to clarify and elevate writing. Focusing on sentences, the authors use mentor texts to show the myriad possibilities that exist for revision. Essential to their process is the concept of classroom talk. Readers will be shown how revision lessons can be discussed in a generative way, and how each student can benefit from talking through the revision process as a group. Revision Decisions focuses on developing both the writing and the writer. The easy-to-follow lessons make clear and accessible the rigorous thinking and the challenging process of making writing work. Narratives, setup lessons, templates, and details about how to move students toward independence round out this essential book. Additionally, the authors weave the language, reading, and writing goals of the Common Core and other standards into an integrated and connected practice. The noted language arts teacher James Britton once said that good writing floats on a sea of talk. Revision Decisions supports those genuine conversations we naturally have as readers and writers, leading the way to the essential goal of making meaning.

Building on the ideas developed in Word Nerds: Teaching All Students to Learn and Love Vocabulary, Brenda J. Overturf has updated and energized the recommended practices for middle grades students. Vocabularians is for any educator who wants to help young adolescents increase knowledge and competency with word study while bringing interest, motivation, and even joy to their learning. Brenda takes teachers and administrators inside three middle-level schools where educators are integrating vocabulary instruction across the curriculum. In rural, urban, and suburban settings, she highlights effective ways to develop students' vocabulary skills using art, music, games, technology, reading, writing, speaking, listening, and critical thinking. Vocabularians shows teachers of all content areas how to build word networks, flood the classroom environment with academic vocabulary, and incorporate the three word-solving strategies that researchers have found to be the most important-;teaching students how to use context; deciphering words by breaking down prefixes, suffixes, and root words; and using reference materials in authentic ways. By blending current research with real classroom experience and application, Brenda builds on her work with Margot Holmes Smith and Leslie Montgomery and offers an easy-to-implement, customized-to-middle-school resource that will improve instruction and assessment. As one featured seventh grader shared: Vocabulary helps you because the more you know words, the more fluent you can be in reading, the better you can read and write, and the better your writing sounds. There's always going to be a time when you have to sound professional, whether you're applying for a job or anything else. You're just going to have to know how to use a good vocabulary.-

In Start with Joy: Designing Literacy Learning for Student Happiness, author Katie Cunningham links what we know from the science of happiness with what we know about effective literacy instruction. When given a choice about what to write, children express hopes, fears, and reactions to life's experiences. Literacy learning is full of opportunities for students to learn tools to live a happy life. Inside, you'll find:

• Seven Pillars: Cunningham discusses the seven pillars that guide her classrooms and are involved in each literacy lesson'sConnection, Choice, Challenge, Play, Story, Discovery, and Movement.
• Ten Invitations: Designed for teachers to improvise and make their own, these ten lessons may be presented at any time of year in the context of any unit and include children's literature suggestions as well as recommended teacher talk to meet children's specific needs.
• Teaching Tools: Tools and resources that will help students tell their stories and make literacy learning something all students celebrate and cherish.

This book honors the adventure that learning is meant to be and aims to make happiness more tangible in the classroom. By infusing school days with happiness, teachers can support children as they become stronger readers, writers, and thinkers, while also helping them learn that strength comes from challenge, and joy comes from leading a purposeful life.

Author Jeff Anderson and bilingual teacher and coach Caroline Sweet lead a vibrant approach to grammar instruction in Patterns of Power en español, Grades 1-5: Inviting Bilingual Writers into the Conventions of Spanish. Here, young, emergent writers are invited to notice the conventions of the Spanish language and build off them in this inquiry-based approach to instructional grammar.

The book comes with standards-aligned lessons that can be incorporated in just 10 minutes a day. Patterns of Power's responsive, invitational approach puts students in an involved role and has them explore and discuss the purpose and meaning of what they read. Students study short, authentic texts and are asked to share their findings out loud, engaging in rich conversations to make meaning.

Inside you'll find:

• Ready-to-use lesson plan sets that include excerpts from authentic and diverse Spanish mentor texts curated for grades 1-5 and can be adapted over 5 grade levels

• Real-life classroom examples, tips, and Power Notes gleaned from the authors' experiences that can be applied to any level of writer

• Resources, including a Patterns of Power Planning Guide adapted for Spanish, to use in classroom instruction or as handouts for student literacy notebooks

• How to correlate to Spanish TEKS, Common Core, and other state standards

Patterns of Power en español, Grades 1-5 provides a simple classroom routine that is structured in length and approach, but provides teachers flexibility in choosing the texts, allowing for numerous, diverse voices in the classroom. The practice helps students build cognitive recognition and provides a formative assessment for teachers on student progress. With these short lessons, students will gain confidence and move beyond limitation to produce effortless writing in your class and beyond.

The Patterns of Power series also includes Patterns of Power, Grades 6-8: Inviting Adolescent Writers into the Conventions of Language; Patterns of Power, Grades 1-5: Inviting Young Writers into the Conventions of Language; Patterns of Power, Grades 9-12: Teaching Grammar Through Reading and Writing; and Patterns of Wonder, Grades PreK-1: Inviting Emergent Writers to Play with the Conventions of Language.

In the early grades, talking and drawing can provide children with a natural pathway to writing, yet these components are often overlooked. In Talking, Drawing, Writing: Lessons for Our Youngest Writers, authors Martha Horn and Mary Ellen Giacobbe invite readers to join them in classrooms where they listen, watch, and talk with children, then use what they learn to create lessons designed to meet children where they are and lead them into the world of writing. The authors make a case for a broader definition of writing, advocating for formal storytelling sessions, in which children tell about what they know, and for focused sketching sessions so that budding writers learn how to observe more carefully.The book's lessons are organized by topic and include oral storytelling, drawing, writing words, assessment, introducing booklets, and moving writers forward. Based on the authors' work in urban kindergarten and first-grade classes, the essence and structure of many of the lessons lend themselves to adaptation through fifth grade. The lessons follow a consistent format:

What's going on in the classroom? What do children need to learn next? Materials needed to teach the lesson Language used in each lesson Reasons behind why certain books are chosen and suggestions for additional children's books

The authors show the thinking behind their teaching decisions and provide a way to look at and assess children's writing, giving us much more than a book of lessons; they present a vision of what beginning writing can look and sound like. Perhaps most powerfully, they give us examples of the language they use with children that reveal a genuine respect for and trust in children as learners.

In Nourishing Caregiver Collaborations: Elevating Home Experiences and Classroom Practices for Collective Care, Nawal Qarooni invites us to step beyond school-centric, one-off events and practices to create more authentic, engaging collaborations with caregivers. Instead of asking what families can do to support schools, Qarooni asks how schools can identify and celebrate what families already inherently bring to their children's literacy learning.

Establishing this work in holistic teaching--a pedagogical mindset that affirms the importance of loving the whole child through compassionate, collective care--Qarooni explores five critical literacy tenets by highlighting opportunities to listen for, honor, connect to, and elevate family strengths while inviting them even further into our shared work and encouraging reflection around:

• Recognizing the journey of process,
• Celebrating the role collaboration plays within the collective
• Using observational literacy to read the world
• Advocating for the power of talk to grow ideas and connect with others
• Giving children choice to make self-directed decisions

With moments of memoir woven in alongside diverse family examples and classroom stories connected to realistic instructional practices, Qarooni shows how all families contribute meaningfully to their children's literacy lives. Discover how we can tap into those vast wells to support learning at home and in school while building positive, reciprocal relationships across both settings.

With an afterword by En Comunidad authors, Carla España and Luz Yadira Herrera, Nourishing Caregiver Collaborations is rooted in the simple truth that we cannot separate knowing our students from knowing their home, communities, and the people that they love. This book offers a toolkit for connecting with families and elevating the intrinsic strengths that reside in every child's home.

With every lesson grounded in the critical strategy of writers talking out their revisions, Patterns of Revision will establish routines, practices, and mindsets to set you and your students up for success from day one. Discover the joy inherent in writing - and writing instruction - when we explore revision through engaging inquiry and the study of models, building flexible, competent revisors, step-by-step, in an open-ended discussion of meaning driven revision choices and their effects.

With increasing school mandates and pressure to perform well on standardized tests, writing instruction has shifted to more accountability, taking the focus away from the writer. In his engaging book, When Writers Drive the Workshop: Honoring Young Voices and Bold Choices, author Brian Kissel asks teachers to go back to the roots of the writing workshop and let the students lead the conference.

What happens when students, not tests, determine what they learned through reflection and self-evaluation? In When Writers Drive the Workshop, you'll find practical ideas, guiding beliefs, FAQs, and Digital Diversions to help visualize digital possibilities in the classroom.

Written in an engaging, teacher-to-teacher style, this book focuses on four key components of writing workshop:

• Student-led conferring sessions where the teachers are the listeners.
• The Author's Chair-, where students set the agenda and gather feedback.
• Structured reflection time for students to set goals and expectations for themselves.
• Mini lessons that allow for detours based on students' needs, not teacher or curricula goals.

All students have the powerful, shared need to be heard; when they choose their writing topics, they can see their lives unfold on the page. Teachers are educated by the bold choices of these young voices.

With a focus on fostering a deep love for reading and prioritizing student growth, A Year for the Books: Routines and Mindsets for Creating Student-Centered Reading Communities is a must-have for educators from kindergarten through middle school. Discover a teacher-friendly resource crafted by Katie Walther, esteemed educator, and respected veteran teacher Maria Walther that will take you behind the scenes and through the school year as they share simple, practical strategies to design learner-centered literacy experiences.

Starting with the first few weeks of school, each chapter highlights multiple ways to embed literacy experiences across the entire year that prioritize learners and literacy. To support you in your decision making, the classroom-tested ideas in each chapter are arranged around five grounding principles:

• Actionable strategies for launching and sustaining a vibrant reading culture
• Clear processes to define and communicate community beliefs
• Creative structures for establishing and maintaining reading routines
• Innovative ideas for cultivating an inclusive reading community
• Equitable techniques for partnering with families and caregivers

Within each chapter you will also find nuggets of wisdom from the Walthers' collective years of teaching, practical ideas about how to keep it simple, and several book suggestions. As an added bonus, this book features companion podcasts or PDCasts where you can hear the authors tackle authentic classroom dilemmas and share their decision-making process.

Whether you're a novice or seasoned educator, you'll want A Year for the Books by your side as you advocate for your student readers and promote independent reading in your classroom all year long.

To help students communicate their mathematical thinking, many teachers have created classrooms where math talk has become a successful and joyful instructional practice. Building on that success, the ideas in Why Write in Math Class? help students construct, explore, represent, refine, connect, and reflect on mathematical ideas. Writing also provides teachers with a window into each student's thinking and informs instructional decisions.Focusing on five types of writing in math (exploratory, explanatory, argumentative, creative, and reflective), Why Write in Math Class? offers a variety of ways to integrate writing into the math class. The ideas in this book will help you make connections to what you already know about the teaching of writing within literacy instruction and build on what you've learned about the development of classroom communities that support math talk.The authors offer practical advice about how to support writing in math, as well as many specific examples of writing prompts and tasks that require high-cognitive demand. Extensive stories and samples of student work from K-5 classrooms give a vision of how writing in math class can successfully unfold.

Dawnavyn James believes Black history shouldn't be relegated to the month of February. In her groundbreaking book, Beyond February: Teaching Black History Any Day, Every Day, and All Year Long, K-3, she provides a practical guide for elementary educators who seek to teach history in truthful and meaningful ways that help young students understand the past, the present, and the world around them.

Drawing on her experiences as a classroom teacher and a Black history researcher, James illustrates the big and small ways that we can center Black history in our everyday teaching and learning practices across the curriculum using read-alouds, music, historical documents, art, and so much more.

Inside this book you'll find:

• Essential ideas that guide our teaching of Black history
• Powerful People Sets: groups of Black historical figures organized by theme with resources for both teacher and student learning
• Book collections and lessons featuring nearly 100 children's books
• Strategies and tips for adapting and disrupting curriculum in order to center Black history
• Ideas for celebrating Black History Month in ways that go beyond February
• FAQ's to help you navigate the ins and outs of teaching Black history in the elementary classroom

With Beyond February, you'll have the tools to teach Black history all year long!

What can we teach kids today that will have utility ten or fifteen years from now? Angela Kohnen and Wendy Saul propose an approach to information literacy that goes beyond the teaching of discreet, easily outdated skills. Instead they use activity to help students build identities as curious individuals empowered to ask their own questions and able to navigate their information-filled world in pursuit of credible answers. A generalist is curious, open-minded, skeptical, and persistent in their quest for information. Thinking Like a Generalist: Skills for Navigating a Complex World demonstrates what it means to take a generalist stance in instruction and provides a set of teaching tools to be able to pass those skills to students'sskills that will transfer beyond the walls of the classroom. Inside you'll find the following:

• A thorough introduction to what it means to be a generalist, and how to develop the practices and tools that help generalists navigate the world we live in
• A focus on the teacher becoming a generalist and tips for modeling those practices in the classroom
• Detailed instructions on how to write a unit of study that emphasizes generalist literacy skills and includes an overview and examples of five different units
• How to use the authors' read-aloud-think-aloud strategy to orient students to generalist tools and practices

The ideas, strategies, and examples Thinking Like a Generalist will give you the tools to think like a generalist and then pass that knowledge on to your students, guiding them to become inquisitive, lifelong learners and preparing them for a future that we can't yet imagine.

Every elementary teacher deals with students who struggle as readers on a daily basis. In One Child at a Time, experienced literacy specialist and consultant Pat Johnson provides a framework she has used with hundreds of students in scores of classrooms to help teachers understand and assist individual children. The four-step process outlined in the book enables teachers to focus carefully on specific behaviors and needs, analyze them with theoretical and practical lenses, design targeted instruction, and then assess and refine the teaching in conferences with the child. Pat shows how to use this framework successfully with a range of learners, including young children, English language learners, and students in the upper elementary grades who are stalled in their literacy progress.

If you are a teacher of grades K-6, you might be asking, Shoud I teach grammar in my class on a daily basis? How would I go about doing this? And how can I teach grammar so it isn't boring to my kids? Grammar Matters, Lynne Dofman and Diane Dougherty answer these questions and more. Using mentor texts as the cornerstone for how best to teach grammar, this book provides teachers with almost everything they need to get kids not only engaged but excited about learning grammar. Divided into four parts--Narrative Writing, Informational Writing, Opinion Writing, and Grammar Conversations--this hand reference provides practical teaching tips, assessment ideas, grammar definitions, and specific mentor texts to help students learn about parts of speech, idoms, usage issues, and punctuation. Through Your Turn Lessons, conversations, conferences, and drafting, revising, and editing exercies, students will learn not only specific concepts but also how to reflect upon and transfer what they have learned to other writing tasks, no matter the subject. The Treasure Chest of Children's Books provides an extensive list of both fiction and nonfiction books that fit naturally into grammar instruction. Eight appendices provide even more resources, including information on homophones, using mentor texts to teach grammar and conventions, checklists, comma rules, help for ELL students, and a glossary of ramar terms.Grammar Matters links instruction to the Common Core State Standards and features quality, classroom-tested tools that help teachers provide their students with the gifts of grammar and literacy.

Stories are all around us. From our digital newsfeeds, interactions with one another, to watching a movie or listening to a curated playlist, we see and hear different tales told to us in various ways.In her book, Story: Still the Heart of Literacy Learning, author and teacher Katie Egan Cunningham reminds us that when we bridge reading strategies with the power of story, we can deepen literacy learning and foster authentic engagement with students. Cunningham shows how to create classrooms of caring and inquisitive readers, writers, and storytellers. Inside you'll find:

• How to build a diverse, multicultural classroom library that reflects all voices through rich, purposeful, and varied texts
• Numerous examples of multi-genre and multi-modal stories from children's and young adult literature
• A practical toolkit at the end of each chapter to demonstrate how to make stories come alive in any classroom

Throughout the book, Cunningham shares her experiences as a teacher, literacy specialist, and staff developer and how building and talking about stories brings them to life. She honors the importance of teaching strategies to read different kinds of text, to write across genres, and to speak and listen with purpose while reminding us about the importance of story.