Wednesday, January 4, 2012

That's a Great Answer 2nd Edition


I teach Language Arts at the middle school level and found this book to be very applicable to direct classroom instruction.  Often, I read material that is “pie in the sky” and does not share direct and explicit ideas that can be immediately used.  I found the availability of the information to be applied directly to my current classroom lessons to be my favorite part of the book. The other parts of the book I found to be positive are:

- The explicit examples as mentioned above are by far the best part of the text and need to be reiterated.

- The gradual release model of instruction was applied in the examples.  This is something my principal is always asking us to incorporate.

- An explanation as to why the new common core standards are important to the field of teaching.

-Rubrics for selecting picture book and other literature.  This is important as a simple list of texts is ever changing.

-I liked that there was an emphasis on reading.  Being a Language Arts teacher I feel that often, other subject areas such as History, Science, and yes, even Math need reading skills. This text was applicable to all subject areas.  The open-ended question style could be applied to a passage from any subject area.

I received a review copy in Adobe format so I did not get the chance to use the CD that is included with the book so I cannot comment on it.  I did find the text to be a valuable tool and would recommend that others teachers use it to come up with new ideas in their classroom

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