Unlocking Close Reading

Unlock complex informational text through close reading. Use this book as a guide to teach close reading in a way that delves deeply into the text and aligns with the Common Core State Standards. Each standards-based lesson includes: * Complex informational text that is grade-level appropriate. * Text-dependent questions designed to facilitate discussion and provide differentiation for all students. * Thought capturers to help students organize their thoughts into writing. * Constructed response prompts, exemplars, and rubrics.

A once-in-a-generation text for assisting a new generation of students Content teachers and ESOL teachers, take special note: if you’re looking for a single resource to help your English learners meet the same challenging content standards as their English-proficient peers, your search is complete. Just dip into this toolbox of strategies, examples, templates, and activities from EL authorities Diane Staehr Fenner and Sydney Snyder. The best part? Unlocking English Learners’ Potential supports teachers across all levels of experience. The question is not if English learners can succeed in today’s more rigorous classrooms, but how. Unlocking English Learners’ Potential is all about the how: How to scaffold ELs’ instruction across content and grade levels How to promote ELs’ oral language development and academic language How to help ELs analyze text through close reading and text-dependent questions How to build ELs’ background knowledge How to design and use formative assessment with ELs Along the way, you’ll build the collaboration, advocacy, and leadership skills that we all need if we’re to fully support our English learners. After all, any one of us with at least one student acquiring English is now a teacher of ELs. "Schools are not intentionally equitable places for English learners to achieve, but they could be if the right system of support were put in place. Diane Staehr Fenner and Sydney Snyder recommend just such a system. Not only does it have significant potential for providing fuller access to the core curriculum, it also provides a path for teachers to travel as they navigate the individual needs of students and support their learning journeys." —Douglas Fisher, Coauthor of Visible Learning for Literacy

TEACH YOUR STUDENTS TO READ WITH PRECISION AND INSIGHT The world we are preparing our students to succeed in is one bound together by words and phrases. Our students learn their literature, history, math, science, or art via a firm foundation of strong reading skills. When we teach students to read with precision, rigor, and insight, we are truly handing over the key to the kingdom. Of all the subjects we teach reading is first among equals. Grounded in advice from effective classrooms nationwide, enhanced with more than 40 video clips, Reading Reconsidered takes you into the trenches with actionable guidance from real-life educators and instructional champions. The authors address the anxiety-inducing world of Common Core State Standards, distilling from those standards four key ideas that help hone teaching practices both generally and in preparation for assessments. This 'Core of the Core' comprises the first half of the book and instructs educators on how to teach students to: read harder texts, 'closely read' texts rigorously and intentionally, read nonfiction more effectively, and write more effectively in direct response to texts. The second half of Reading Reconsidered reinforces these principles, coupling them with the 'fundamentals' of reading instruction—a host of techniques and subject specific tools to reconsider how teachers approach such essential topics as vocabulary, interactive reading, and student autonomy. Reading Reconsidered breaks an overly broad issue into clear, easy-to-implement approaches. Filled with practical tools, including: 44 video clips of exemplar teachers demonstrating the techniques and principles in their classrooms (note: for online access of this content, please visit my.teachlikeachampion.com) Recommended book lists Downloadable tips and templates on key topics like reading nonfiction, vocabulary instruction, and literary terms and definitions. Reading Reconsidered provides the framework necessary for teachers to ensure that students forge futures as lifelong readers.

Translanguaging: The Key to Comprehension for Spanish-speaking Students and Their Peers is a teacher’s guide for effective vocabulary and comprehension instruction in the translanguaging classroom. Translanguaging is a new approach that incorporates students’ languages and cultures with the goal of strengthening academic achievement. This book focuses on Spanish-speaking emergent bilingual learners, as they constitute over 70% of the English learners in American schools. Also included are activities designed for students who speak only English or languages other than Spanish. We provide teachers with practical tools for achieving translanguaging goals through a method called Cognate Strategy Instruction (CSI). The goal is to teach upper elementary and secondary students to unlock academic texts and meet Common Core Standards. This approach has been classroom-tested and validated by research in English immersion and bilingual classroom settings. This book includes detailed vignettes and over 30 lessons plans, demonstrating how to purposefully plan and deliver translanguaging instruction. Also provided are student texts, games, and assessments – all of the materials needed for a complete instructional program.

All the tips and tools you need to realize the goal of balanced literacy learning. Students learn to read and write best when their teachers balance literacy instruction. Best-selling authors Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and Nancy Akhavan help you strike the right balance of skills and knowledge, reading and writing, small and whole group instruction, and direct and dialogic instruction, so that all students can learn to their maximum potential. Using this essential guide, tap your intuition, collaborate with your peers, and put the research-based strategies embedded within to work in your classroom for a strong and successful balanced literacy program.

Close . . . Closer . . . Closest! Close Reading. Not in a very long while has a term been freighted with so much responsibility to lead every student to a great future of college and career readiness. Finally, here’s a book that tunes out all of the hubbub and gets down to the business of showing how exactly to “get close reading right.” Chapter by chapter, Nancy Boyles delivers astoundingly practical ideas on how to Connect close reading with other instructional practices Select rich texts and plan for initial close reading lessons Deliver initial and follow-up close reading lessons Coordinate comprehension strategies and close reading

This essential guide to the EL Education 6-8 Language Arts Curriculum is one part roadmap to the curriculum, one part orientation to its instructional practices, and one part coach--to answer your questions, relieve your stress, and put you and your students on the path to success. Your Curriculum Companion explores the foundations of the curriculum including the principles and research it was built on and the instructional practices that make it unique. The book is designed to help you "look under the hood" at practices embedded throughout the curriculum so that you can sharpen your instruction, support students to be leaders of their own learning, and make well-informed changes to best meet your students' needs. Key features of Your Curriculum Companion include: Twenty-two accompanying videos--see the curriculum in action Task cards for guidance on how to plan when the planning has been done for you A deep dive into the purpose and structure of close reading, including a sample annotated lesson An exploration of the relationship between reading and writing and how the curriculum is designed to help students become strong communicators, including an annotated "read-think-talk-write" lesson The why, what, and how of supporting students to meet grade-level expectations, supporting students who need additional challenges, and supporting English language learners Guidance for turning evidence of student progress into usable data that can inform your instruction Support for school leaders

The most original and ground-breaking work on Beowulf in several decades, this book uses “lexomic” methods that blend computer-assisted statistical analysis with traditional approaches to reveal new and surprising information about the construction and sources of the greatest surviving Old English poem. Techniques of cluster analysis identify patterns of vocabulary distribution that indicate robust similarities and differences among segments of the poem. The correlation of these patterns with knowledge gained from source-study, philological analysis, and neglected previous scholarship sheds new light on the material of which Beowulf was made and the way it was composed. The implications of this investigation for the dating, structure, and cultural context of Beowulf will overturn the current scholarly consensus and significantly improve our understanding of the poem, its nature, and origins.