Building Literacy Through Classroom Discussion: Research-Based Strategies for Developing Critical Readers and Thoughtful Writers in Middle School [Paperback]

Mary Adler (Author), Eija Rougle (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2005 | ISBN-10: 0439616506 | ISBN-13: 978-0439616508

Want to help students achieve greater depth of reading, writing, and understanding? This book shows teachers how to facilitate discussions where students share rich, defensible interpretations of literature and solid, reasoned, understandings of any concepts under study. Based on the authors’ extensive research in middle schools, it describes why discussion-based instruction is crucial to achievement, and then shows you how to introduce and sustain discussions. The authors clearly define the teacher’s role and provide lots of successful strategies such as provocative statements and journal jots. Trouble-shooting sections answer common questions teachers have, such as how to correct a wrong interpretation and how to teach students to build on each other’s comments.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Mary Adler is an Assistant Professor of English at California State University Channel Islands. She specializes in English education, including literature instruction, classroom discourse, and writing development and processes. Previously she was a Research Scientist for the National Center on English Learning and Achievement at the University at Albany, State University of New York.

Eija Rougle received her Ph.D from SUNY from the Department of Education: Educational Theory and Practice. She is currently a lecturer and research scientist at the University at Albany, School of Education and at the National Research Center on English Learning & Achievement. She coaches teachers in Capital district middle schools as a facilitator of professional and instructional development. Eija and Mary were facilitator colleagues in the two-year study Partnership for Literacy that involved some 70 middle school teachers, some 1400 students and 18 middle schools in both Wisconsin and New York state. The partnership for Literacy-research study was conducted by Arthur Applebee, Judith Langer and Martin Nystrand. Eija has been teaching and studying literacy from Kindergarten to College level in Sweden, Finland and Russia, as well as the United States.

Product Details

• Paperback: 216 pages
• Publisher: Theory and Practice (November 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0439616506
• ISBN-13: 978-0439616508
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #354,818 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book for all grade levels...and all teachers, September 16, 2009

By 

Johanna B. Shogan - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Building Literacy Through Classroom Discussion: Research-Based Strategies for Developing Critical Readers and Thoughtful Writers in Middle School (Paperback)

Mary Adler and Eija Rougle's Building Literacy through Classroom Discussion: Research-Based Strategies for Developing Critical Readers and Thoughtful Writers in Middle School (2005) is an essential in-hand tool for teachers of students with inquiring minds (in other words pre-K through college and graduate school!).

This text offers actual insights into middle school teachers' classrooms, with examples from student thought as the thinking becomes overt in uncovering what students are actually learning and are inherently curious about. There are models of comprehension tools like Reader's Marks, developed by a teacher who participated in the 2000-2001 research project of Judith Langer, Arthur Applebee, and Martin Nystrand through the Center on English Learning and Achievement housed at the University at Albany, New York.

Perhaps the most genuine gift of the text is that it shows teachers and their coaches believing the students into the thinkers, readers, writers, and literate minds that they are becoming with actual real world texts and strategies and tools.

The text has proven itself as a meaty substance for rich professional discussions. It also can serve as a text that individual teachers can dip into again and again for reinforcement of a strategy and the "why" and the "how" of scaffolding student thinking. I encourage you to examine the complexity of such a seemingly simple topic as seating arrangement as you build your own literate classrooms. Always, always, always, reflect, and please let Dr. Mary Adler and Dr. Eija Rougle know the new heights to which you bring your students. It is an awesome height!