Allen, Janet.
On the Same
Page. Portland, ME: Stenhouse, 2002. This is a professional book on shared reading, the methodology employed by the New Haven school district in which students read along with a fluent reader in class in order to move the focus away from decoding toward comprehension and analysis.
Allen, Janet.
Tools for Teaching Content Literacy.
Portland, ME: Stenhouse, 2004. This is a very practical collection of strategies and graphic organizers for bringing literacy skills into the disciplines. I find it useful not only when teaching Social Studies, but especially when reading non-fiction books with my students.
Bruner, Jerome.
The Process of Education.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1960. A classic education text, Bruner's work really outlines the idea of building upon student knowledge in a structured way. It's a tough read, but lots of good info.
Grierson, Sirpa, Jacqueline S. Thursby, Deborah Dean and Chris Crowe "
Mississippi
Trial, 1955: Tangling with Text through Reading, Discussion, and Writing."
College
English Journal 96, no. 3 (2007): 80. This is a journal article that offers a few suggestions for using Crowe's fiction book with students.
Newkirk, Thomas.
Holding on to Good Ideas in a Time of Bad Ones: Six Literacy
Principles Worth Fighting For. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2009. Although I didn't use this book directly in my unit, it's just been a refreshing read over the last year. Newkirk does a great job of cutting through trends in education in order to identify core principles that Language Arts teachers should strive to hold onto. A must-read for any teacher, regardless of discipline.
"What is VTS," Visual Thinking Strategies, Accessed July 3
rd
, 2011, http://www.vtshome.org/pages/what-is-vts. More information on the VTS strategy including some useful videos and demonstrations.
Wiggins, Grant and Jay McTighe.
Understanding by Design
. Alexandria, VA: ASCD,
Outlines the methodology of planning backwards. This book really helps reshape how teachers think about lesson planning and helps replace ownership of curriculum and planners with teachers.