Recommendations for Your Professional Library

Books that have changed my teaching life.

Carol Ann Tomlinson's  The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners

This book teaches you how to differentiate appropriately and respectfully for all the learners in the classroom. Let's face it, you will have 20 or more students and none of them will be at the same place. This book teaches how to address it.  My favorite way to differentiate is through tiering.  This method makes it easy and efficient to adapt lesson plan and address the learners in the room

Ellin Oliver Keene's Mosaic of Thought and To Understand

These books revolutionized the desire in my heart for teaching reading and writing in the classroom. I knew I wanted something different which is why my curriculum resource instructor pointed me in the direction of Mosaic of Thought. It was exactly what I needed. To believe that reading is more than just answering questions about a passage is exactly what I wanted someone to say. And not only did she say it, but then later produced a second book after I started reader's and writer's workshop that changed the way I look at the entire model in my classroom in the her latest book To Understand. 

Cris Tovani's I Read It, but I Don't Get It

This is an enjoyable read. It does address the older reader, but I have found it is easily adaptable to lower levels.  However, you can also read Debbie Miller's Reading With Meaning and it will provide a great framework for reader's workshop especially for the primary classrooms.

Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis Strategies That Work

This is the book I read after Mosaic of Thought. Every teacher MUST read this if he/she plans to implement reader's workshop.

Ralph Fletcher's Boy Writers: Reclaiming Their Voices

Being a mom of girls, it has always been my fear that I would misunderstand the boy in the classroom and not provide appropriate mentor texts and modeling. This book is a must read! I laughed out loud more than once as I read and had immediate strategies at my fingertips on how to help my boy writers succeed in writing.

Lucy Calkin's: Now she has TONS of books. Big, thick, luscious books.  I will never forget sitting in a National Board meeting and a fellow scholarship recipient informing me she was going to read both editions in 7 days before school started. Without even thinking I began to laugh (I know not one of my better moments) and said, "YOU'RE kidding! That's a lot to digest."  That being said her books on teaching writing and reading are powerful, but for a reader like me I digest them one chapter at a time looking for what I need information on. However, I do use her Units of Study for Writing.  (She also has a primary set.) I would be lost in my writer's workshop without them. I read through the lessons and adapt, change, modify to fit my goal.  I have found these to be a great starting point. I am now on my third year with the set and I notice I am not opening them as much at the beginning of the year. Hoping this is a sign that I have synthesized her work or maybe just channeling Lucy. :-)

If you are a new teacher or new to literacy workshop these are a must read!  I will follow up in a few weeks with more of my favorite books, but these should get you started.

Reading that Catches the Teaching Heart on Fire

My newest book to my collection of go to books for the classroom is Pyrotechnics on the Page: Playful Craft that Sparks Writing by Ralph Fletcher. I absolutely love Mr. Fletcher's writing. He has a way of writing that makes me feel as if we are sitting at Starbuck's talking about best practices in writing. He makes me laugh out loud and often time pause and think about what my classroom looks like and what changes I need to make in regards to writer's workshop.

The book arrived yesterday and I couldn't put it down. I read 1/2 of it in one sitting. A couple of things I noted that I want to remember.

1)A quote Mr. Fletcher mentions by Tom Newkirk in Holding On to Good Ideas in a Times of Bad Ones "Teaching...is an ongoing series of micro-experiments that extend and modify the repertoire of teachers. When we stop experimenting, we stop living as teachers" (2009, 21)

This resonates within me. I have always done what I call little experiments each year, but usually kept them secret from my grade level until about my 5th year teaching (currently on year 10). Little did I know that one of my experiments would lead to a change in our grade level writing.

2) "No writer or writing teacher can be satisfied with lackluster, formulaic sentences. If we aim to empower young writers, we must encourage them to explore the limitless possibilities and effects with words that are readily available to us all" (2010, 19) From Pyrotechnics

I will admit that once upon a time I taught prescriptive essay writing because it allowed majority of my students to be successful on the writing test for the state. I will admit that I hated every single week of it. I used the writer's notebook until January. From January to the end of February I taught the formula. Now that I have delved deeper into Calkins, Fletcher, Graves, and Keene I realize a formula is not needed in order to achieve success--teaching students how to be a good writer, exposing them to good writers, and studying genres of writing are what achieves success.

3) Allowing invention

I love that Mr. Fletcher has inventing words as a chapter all unto it's own. I have to say that I am a guilty of inventing such words, but I never thought about collecting them. Often times when I hear them or say them it is conversational. Being brave and moving beyond conversation and putting them into print is something that I would like to do as a writer this year.

As I get ready to sit down to continue my reading tonight, I feel as if it is Christmas and I am awaiting the presents from my family members. I am looking forward to the new "ah ha" moments I will have tonight with my dear friend, Ralph.