Offers ideas for creating English classrooms where students can be nourished intellectually, emotionally, and morally by literature, and includes young adult literature pairings with classic texts, tips for motivating reluctant readers, a study guide, and guidelines for curriculum development.

This practical, easy-to-read guide explains how to raise the rigor for students with special needs so they can achieve higher levels of learning. Learn how to set clear goals and expectations establish a climate of success scaffold and model lessons use graphic organizers and "think-alouds" apply modifications and accommodations use rigorous questioning strategies differentiate instruction increase family involvement Get even more out of this book by discussing it with others! It’s ideal for study groups and the appendix features a detailed guide on how to make it work for your group! Bonus! You get a great variety of handy black line masters for use in your own classroom.

Offers high school English teachers advice on how to help their students read, understand, and appreciate classic literary works.

Learn how to increase instructional rigor so that all students can reach higher levels of learning! In this new edition of a best seller, author Barbara R. Blackburn offers practical ideas for raising expectations, increasing complexity, integrating scaffolding into instruction, creating open-ended choices and projects, and much more. This timely new edition provides connections to rigorous standards, plus it features new sections on topics such as questioning models, student ownership, Genius Hour, summative assessments, becoming a teacher-leader, and increasing rigor in instructional technology. Appropriate for teachers of all grade levels and subject areas, the book is filled with helpful strategies and tools that you can implement immediately. In addition, full-sized templates are available as eResources on our website (www.routledge.com/9781138569560) so you can download and print them for classroom use. With its practical advice and helpful tools, Rigor Is NOT a Four-Letter Word will set you and your students on the fast track to higher learning and sustained success.

Reader-friendly and practical, Rigor is NOT a Four-Letter Word is filled with tools you can use every day to raise the level of rigor in your classroom. These strategies can be incorporated immediately across content areas, grades, and subjects. Barbara Blackburn clearly defines what rigor is and how individual teachers can provide challenging learning experiences in their classrooms to prepare students for a better future.

Learn how to differentiate instruction while maintaining a rigorous learning environment. In this practical book, rigor expert Barbara R. Blackburn shows that the differentiated classroom doesn’t mean extra work for top students and easy work for others; instead, you can have high expectations for all students and provide scaffolding so that everyone can reach success. She also addresses many of the greatest concerns teachers have about implementing differentiated instruction, including: How to manage your time so that you can create lessons, find resources, and grade assignments for students working at different levels; How to balance differentiated instruction and teaching standards; How to ensure rigor at all tiers of instruction; How to collaborate with teachers and other faculty members; How to differentiate homework and other out-of-class assignments; How to explain differentiated instruction to parents and families; And more... Each chapter includes practical tools and activities that you can use immediately to bring all students to higher levels of achievement. Many of these tools are available as eResources and can be downloaded for free from the book’s product page: www.routledge.com/9780815394471.

First published in 2011. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A bold, brain-based teaching approach to culturally responsive instruction To close the achievement gap, diverse classrooms need a proven framework for optimizing student engagement. Culturally responsive instruction has shown promise, but many teachers have struggled with its implementation—until now. In this book, Zaretta Hammond draws on cutting-edge neuroscience research to offer an innovative approach for designing and implementing brain-compatible culturally responsive instruction. The book includes: Information on how one’s culture programs the brain to process data and affects learning relationships Ten “key moves” to build students’ learner operating systems and prepare them to become independent learners Prompts for action and valuable self-reflection

"The book in question starts by looking at a teacher lament that Carol hears whenever she speaks to teachers: kids don't read. The book continues by examining how/why teachers make their myriad classroom decisions each day and drawing on the work of great thinkers and writers from outside education to inform and broaden that decision-making. Subsequent chapters offer instructional moves for guiding students into and through classical texts, which continue to be read because--not in spite--of their continued relevance to contemporary readers. 'Quirky' book lists (not 'Best Books for 8th Graders' but more like 'Books to Grab when Leaving a Burning House') draw the book to a conclusion"--

What does rigor, a word that frequently pops up in conversations about education, really mean? More specifically, what does it mean for literacy instruction, and how does it relate to challenging standards-based assessments? In this informative and practical guide, literacy expert Nancy Boyles uses the framework from Webb's Depth of Knowledge (DOK) to answer these questions, offering experience-based advice along with specific examples of K–8 assessment items. Boyles defines rigor and shows how it relates to literacy at each DOK level and explains the kind of thinking students will be expected to demonstrate. She then tackles the essence of what teachers need to know about how DOK and its associated rigors are measured on standards-based assessments. Specifically, readers learn how each DOK rigor aligns with standards, text complexity, close reading, student interaction, the reading-writing connection, and formative assessment. Teachers, coaches, and administrators will find clear guidance, easy-to-implement strategies, dozens of useful teaching tools and resources, and encouragement to help students achieve and demonstrate true rigor in reading and writing.