Boost the Engagement and Achievement of Adolescent Readers Building Academic Literacy: Lessons from Reading Apprenticeship Classrooms, Grades 6—12, features pieces by five middle and high school teachers working with the Reading Apprenticeship instructional framework introduced in Reading for Understanding (Schoenbach et al., Jossey-Bass, 1999). Filled with instructional tips, lesson plans, and curriculum resources, this book offers guidance on conducting Academic Literacy courses using readings from the companion student book–Building Academic Literacy: An Anthology for Reading Apprenticeship (Fielding and Schoenbach, Jossey-Bass, 2003). It can serve as an excellent resource for any content area teacher, grades 6—12, looking for classroom-based ideas to motivate adolescents in becoming more active, engaged and strategic readers. "Whenever we read books about teaching, we ask ourselves, 'But what does that look like in the classroom?' Building Academic Literacy: Lessons from Reading Apprenticeship Classrooms answers the question of what 'Academic Literacy' is, why it matters, and how teachers can develop these key intellectual habits in their students. This book, and its companion anthology, provide me the guidance and resources that I need." —Jim Burke, author, The Reader's Handbook and The English Teacher's Companion "Following close upon the heels of the widely acclaimed book Reading for Understanding, this new two-volume companion set, Building Academic Literacy: An Anthology for Reading Apprenticeship and Building Academic Literacy: Lessons from Reading Apprenticeship Classrooms, is certain to propel Academic Literacy as a course of study into increasingly more middle and high school classrooms." —Donna Alvermann, professor of education, University of Georgia and past president, International Reading Association

The editors and contributors to this collection explore what it means to adopt an “academic literacies” approach in policy and pedagogy. Transformative practice is illustrated through case studies and critical commentaries from teacher-researchers working in a range of higher education contexts—from undergraduate to postgraduate levels, across disciplines, and spanning geopolitical regions including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Cataluña, Finland, France, Ireland, Portugal, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Building Academic Literacy is a coach-in-a-pocket for educators seeking to build strong academic literacy and higher-order thinking. This book is for anyone with responsibility for instruction – teachers, instructional coaches, professional developers, principals, curriculum leaders, teacher preparation faculty. It provides pathways to developing higher-order thinking in every student and setting. Key to its success is that it connects reading, writing, listening, thinking, and speaking. Readers will find that they can engage all students with content, but more importantly, students will process content in ways appropriate to a particular subject. They also develop independent learning skills -- exactly what the Common Core State Standards call for. The text is engaging yet practical and practicable – grounded and useful to teachers in enacting more student-centered classrooms. Its strategies serve to actively engage all students in high-level thinking and learning, those who have always found school easy and those who have not. Not a prescription, but a book designed to deepen individual and group teacher competencies to implement learning strategies in new ways and to continually refine and develop their craft.

Building Academic Literacy: An Anthology for Reading Apprenticeship is a volume for middle and high school students addressing the topic of literacy and the important role it plays in our lives. Featuring lively and provocative essays, journalistic writings, and poetry as well as inspiring personal stories, the anthology offers a broad range of cultural and historical perspectives on the following themes: Literacy and Identity: The different ways people see themselves as readers. Literacy and Power: How reading and writing can open doors in our lives. How We Read: The different ways our minds work as we try to understand what we read. Breaking Codes: Our need to navigate unfamiliar types of texts.

Set the stage for effective academic language instruction with strategies that are designed specifically for English language learners and support instruction in content-area vocabulary. The teacher-friendly format includes strategy descriptions, rationale, and resources for easy implementation. Each strategy features examples for different grade levels and content areas. Complete sample lessons demonstrate how strategies can be integrated into content-area instruction. This resource is correlated to the Common Core State Standards. 200pp. + Resource CD

Many students, ranging from native English speakers to recent immigrants, need help in understanding and using the language of school. Language is the lifeblood of learning in all content areas, and it plays a major role in academic achievement. Building Academic Language explains the functions and features of academic language that every teacher (language arts, history, math, & science teachers, etc.) should know for supporting academic reading, writing, and discussion. The book includes research-based instructional and assessment activities that content teachers can use to build students' abilities to understand and describe the many abstract concepts, higher-order thinking skills, and complex relationships in a discipline. The book emphasizes an approach that builds from students' existing ways of learning and communicating, scaffolding them to think and talk as content area experts think and talk about math, science, history, and language arts. Major topics and themes include: What is academic language and how does it differ by content area? How can language-building activities (discussions, small groups, etc.) support content understanding? How can we build language abilities for content reading and writing - and vice versa? How can we build on students' diverse ways of understanding, learning, and communicating about the world? How can we more effectively model and scaffold academic language in our teaching and assessment?

This book reports on a two-year long, qualitative literacy case study of the academic literacies of first and second-generation immigrant youth in an afterschool tutoring program in South Bronx, New York. Through transcripts of tutoring sessions, interview data, and youths’ written work, each chapter highlights how youth interpreted and navigated various school assignments, and what resources and perspectives they brought to unpacking the meaning and significance of texts and disciplinary discourses. By focusing on the immigrant youth themselves, and not on the teaching that happens (or does not happen) inside classrooms, this volume provides a unique and much-needed vantage point to understanding the academic literacies and engagement of urban immigrant youth.

"Academic language and literacy are essential keys to conceptual understanding and ultimately to student success. Eli Johnson provides a foundation that all teachers and school leaders can use for improvement that will reach every classroom and every student." —Peter Dallas Finch, Assistant Superintendent West Valley School District, Yakima, WA Develop students′ understanding of academic language and watch literacy skills soar! To achieve higher levels of learning, students must be able to understand academic language—the formalized language of instruction found in classrooms, textbooks, and standardized tests. Eli R. Johnson conveys a powerful message of the need for teachers to provide explicit academic language instruction for all students, especially English language learners or those struggling with reading. Filled with 36 hands-on strategies, this practical, solidly researched guide helps teachers make the critical connection between academic language, literacy, and student achievement for all learners, regardless of home language or socioeconomic status. Explained in reader-friendly terms, each strategy helps teachers give their students the tools and skills necessary to decipher academic language in reading, writing, listening, and speaking. This K–12 book also includes: A strategy matrix to help teachers select appropriate strategies for their grade level A description of each strategy, with information on how it works in the classroom and why it is effective Collaborative protocols to help infuse academic language throughout the content areas Lists of words that can be introduced at each grade level to build students′ vocabulary Academic Language! Academic Literacy! helps teachers instruct students on the language of education so they have a chance to demonstrate what they know and experience success.

This book prepares mainstream teachers to provide content instruction to English language learners.

The Peer Effect: Non-Traditional Models of Instruction in Spanish as a Heritage Language guides an important pedagogical conversation on the relevance of heritage language and literacy practices as resources for instruction, framing heritage teaching and learning as a social justice issue. Presenting ethnographic and discourse analyses of a heritage peer tutoring program at a university in California, this book focuses on the ways in which the dynamic translanguaging practices that Spanish heritage language (SHL) peer tutors mobilize in a non-classroom, student-led, collaborative academic space directly respond to the literacy demands of academic language development. Based on the in-depth analysis of peer tutors’ translingual practices, the book advances scholarship in SHL pedagogy, providing concrete classroom-based examples, techniques, and activities that nurture equitable pedagogies for heritage student belonging, while challenging the deficit discourse that has traditionally governed the dialogue around literacy instruction for multilingual students. This versatile volume is designed for educators, researchers, practitioners, and students in the fields of heritage language pedagogy, bilingual education, educational linguistics, and literacy studies for multilingual students.