Kristen Bowers

Waste of Money (even if it was free), February 4, 2008

I could not have been more disappointed with this book. I was looking for a low-level book to teach writing to struggling sophomores and juniors who had not passed our state exit exam. This guide was supposedly designed for grades 6-8, so I thought there would be some useful activities for these struggling students.

The main complaints I have about this book in general is that the activities are extremely sparse (1-4 simple questions on a page that take 30 seconds for a class to answer), far too easy (even for 6-8), and quite confusing (student directions are often vague and/or confusing).

The first activity of the book begins with an analysis of a paragraph from… Read more

Excellent Teaching Tool, February 4, 2008

This is an excellent book. It really has a ton of very useful, practical activities that can be used in any classroom. One of the best parts about this book is the sheer number of activities that include technical documents, which can be hard to find, and even harder to write test-prep questions for. Section 1, Reading for Deeper Meaning helps students read technical documents for main ideas, fact and opinion, inferences, author's purpose, and more. Section 2 Reading and Vocabulary includes activities on affixes, root words, figurative language, analogies, vocabulary crossword puzzles, and more. Section 3 Reading Diagrams/Charts, etc. gives students practical reading comprehension… Read more