Teach students the architecture beneath a successful story—and boost their reading comprehension and writing skills for a lifetime Writing instruction can sometimes seem scattershot, as teachers try to cover a galaxy of craft techniques, ideas, intentions, and genres. The possibilities are endless—and that’s the problem. In Text Structures from Picture Books, elementary and middle grade teachers tap into a well-ordered universe of inspiring and illustrative stories to help students frame their thinking and focus choices. Using the bite-size format of picture books as a starting point, the authors share 50 low-prep, quick-access lessons to help you teach students seven concrete ways to respond to text in any genre. Through these lessons, students will be able to: Generate their own writing, using a text structure harvested from the work of professional authors Retell a story, using the text structure from the story Generate reading responses, using structures that support clarity Analyze a story to construct thematic statements, capturing the author’s message and bigger themes Write about a theme or big idea demonstrating empathic and evidence-based interpretation Answer open-ended questions by selecting a technique that reflects the text and their engagement Experiment with author’s craft in their own writing Based on master writing teacher Gretchen Bernabei’s instructional model, the lessons offer a lively, high-impact mix of reading aloud, discussion, modeling, student writing, and peer share. Plus, readers have access to a complete companion website full of text structure reproducibles, reading response prompts, additional lessons and extensions, students samples, and links to demo videos. State tests are now assessing reading and writing together. And that’s a good thing—but we’ve got some catching up to do. Written for students beginning in second grade, Text Structures from Picture Books will help your students swiftly and surely become text-savvy readers and writers.

Poetry is a joyful art form, but how do you teach students to joyfully read, analyze, and write poems? In Text Structures from Poetry, Grades 4-12, award-winning educator Gretchen Bernabei teams up with noted poet Laura Van Prooyen to light the path. Centered around 50 classroom-proven lesson and poem pairs, the mentor texts represent a broad range of voices in contemporary poetry and the canon. These unique and engaging lessons show educators how to "pop the hood" on a poem to discover what makes it work, using text structures to unlock the engine of a poem. This method enables educators to engage students in reading and re-reading a poem closely, to identify how the parts of the poem relate to each other to create movement, and to leverage what they have learned to write their own evocative poems. Each of the 50 lessons includes a mentor poem that serves as an excellent model for young writers, a diagram that illustrates the text structure of the poem, and several inspiring examples of student poems written to emulate the mentor poem. Easy-to-use instructional resources enhance instructor and student understanding and include: Teaching notes for unlocking the text structure of a poem and the engine that makes it work. Tips for exploring rhyme scheme, meter, and fixed forms. Instructional sequences that vary the ways students can read and write poems and other prose forms. Ideas for revising and publishing student poems. A "Meet the Contemporary Authors" section that includes fascinating messages from the contemporary poets. Teach your students to learn about poetry using the magic of poems themselves and lead the way to a rewarding love of poetry for teachers and students alike.

It’s one of education’s greatest challenges: How do we shape our youngest students, who often are just learning how to hold a pencil, into capable writers within the span of a single school year? Text Structures from Nursery Rhymes offers the solution: a clear and actionable framework for guiding young students to write successfully in any style, from narrative to descriptive to persuasive. The key to the strategy lies in using familiar text structures to break down a story into its main components — for example, "Where I was," "Who I saw," and "What I thought" — in order to immediately thrust students into the role of the writer. This groundbreaking book provides 53 lessons, each centered around a classic nursery rhyme, and all the tools you’ll need to Capitalize on the story’s rhythm and rhyme to make an instant connection with your students Convey the story’s text structure using the lesson’s whimsical illustrations, providing a visual model that resonates with children Lead the classroom in creating new stories — in words, pictures, or both — utilizing the text structure you’ve defined Put each nursery rhyme to work as a springboard for important language-arts topics Fine-tune your approach at every step based on your preferred teaching style and students’ progress Put Text Structures from Nursery Rhymes to work in your classroom and discover how text structures, already a remarkable success in later grades, can also have a profound impact on younger students’ progress. Bonus! Includes eight downloadable paper dolls—1 man, 1 woman, 1 girl, 1 boy, and 4 animals. Your students can use the paper dolls to retell the nursery rhymes, illustrate their own stories based on a nursery rhyme, or even to act out stories from other books in your classroom library.

Text Structures from the Masters provides 50 short texts written by famous Americans driven by what Peter Elbow described as “an itch” to say something. By examining the structure of these mentor texts, students see that they too have an “itch” and learn how to use the text structure of each document to express it. Each 4-page lesson includes: A planning sheet that shows the structure of the mentor text Brainstorming boxes A method for “kernelizing” (outlining) their own essay Student examples

Make formative assessment work for you—and your math students! Finally, formative assessment that adds up! Bringing Math Students Into the Formative Assessment Equation is the ultimate resource for helping teachers implement formative assessment in the middle school mathematics classroom. And it’s much more than that. With this research-based, teacher-tested guide, you won’t just learn effective teaching strategies—you’ll turn your students into self-regulated learners. They’ll monitor and assess their own progress—and communicate to you about it! Features include: A clear and manageable six-aspect instructional model Detailed strategies for helping students own their successes Real-life examples from middle school mathematics teachers Useful resources and a companion website to help you implement formative assessment in your classroom Formative assessment isn’t just for teachers anymore. With the help of this essential resource, you’ll work together with your students toward a common goal of math success. "This book is outstanding. I would recommend it to any math educator. The depth of research integrated into practice is extensive and, as a result, it is the most practical book I have come across related to formative assessment and mathematics The self-regulation aspects, as well as the ownership and involvement emphasized in the book, went beyond the traditional cognitive strategies endorsed in most books." Marc Simmons, Principal Ilwaco Middle School, Ocean Beach School District, Long Beach, WA "The ideas in this book are brought to life with examples of teachers and students in the classroom. The teacher voices, comments, and quotes lend credibility and are a big component of the book’s strengths as well as the visuals and graphics." Rita Tellez, Math Coordinator Ysleta Independent School District, El Paso, TX

Mentor-text-based lessons on finding topics, organizing material, writing leads and endings, exploring genre, and more.

Ready-to-go lessons for using picture books to teach the use of literary devices in writing.

"Here is what I love about this book:€ It has gobs and gobs of student writing samples with smart and lively explanations of how to use each as the focus of a craft lesson to teach writing. The right models of student writing are the best mentor texts a teacher can find and with this book, you need look no further. ... Breathe, fellow writing teachers.€ Much needed and wanted help has arrived."--Ruth Culham, Author of Traits WritingSometimes a student's best teacher is another studentIf ever there were a book to respond to the pressure to increase students' test scores, this is it. You see,

Your best offense against the state assessments No matter what state you teach in, you can be certain that grammar is being tested . . . frequently and across the grades! The biggest issue? Most of our grades 4-12 students continue to make the same old errors year after year. Grammar Keepers to the rescue, with 101 lessons that help students internalize the conventions of correctness once and for all. Bernabei’s key ingredients include Daily journal writing to increase practice and provide an authentic context Minilessons and Interactive Dialogues that model how to make grammatical choices A “Keepers 101” sheet to track teaching and “Parts of Speech Sheet” for student reference

Guides teachers through a variety of projects, samples, and classroom anecdotes that demonstrate how teachers can help students become more effective writers of good nonfiction.