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

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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!