BOOKS THAT HELP MAKE YOU A BETTER TEACHER: Reading Reminders by Jim Burke

BLURB:

Do you have a minute? That's how quickly this book will help you improve your students' reading skills. Designed to be read on the run and make every minute count in your classroom, Reading Reminders features Jim Burke's one hundred best techniques for teaching reading, complete with tools and tips on how to implement them.

Jim wrote this book to help teachers like himself whose often large and always diverse classrooms contain a wide range of reading abilities and needs. All of the strategies have been tested and tested again with his students, and each one has achieved significant gains in student performance, confidence, and engagement. Together, the reminders will challenge your best students and support struggling ones. This book will help you:

• teach students to read a variety of types of texts, including websites, tests, literature, and textbooks
• use a wide range of teaching and reading strategies based on current reading research
• anchor your teaching in state and national reading standards
• establish and maintain a comprehensive reading program that includes Sustained Silent Reading and direct instruction
• plan your lessons, select your texts, and assess students' learning with tools and techniques specifically designed for those purposes
• improve your students' ability to discuss and understand what they read
• develop a community of reflective readers within your classroom
• increase the amount of writing your students do.

I love this book. Heck, I love anything Jim Burke publishes. It's like having a great mentor teacher who is always available. 

This book is chock full of helpful ideas and techniques for teaching English Language Arts. Jim Burke is a legend in ELA circles, and if you haven't read any of his books, you're missing out on some amazing ideas.

Some of my students, even at the high school level, were seriously struggling readers. This book has lots of practical strategies for helping struggling readers and really all of your students with comprehending difficult texts. We're living in a day and time when there is a real focus on adopting reading goals for the high school classroom. Most ELA teachers are not equipped to teach reading. This book is just what you need if this is your goal. This book also has an appendix chock full of reading strategies, graphic organizers, student surveys, etc., that you will find helpful. Do yourself a favor, add this book to your personal library. You won't regret it.

EASY MEALS: Crockpot Shredded Chicken Gravy Over Mashed Potatoes

 

2 cans cream of chicken soup

2 cans water

2 packets chicken gravy

2 packs chicken breasts

garlic powder

salt

pepper

mashed potatoes (I use instant because...why not?)

1. Place cream of chicken soup, water, and chicken gravy packets in bowl. Stir until well mixed. Pour into crockpot.

2. Season chicken breasts with garlic powder, salt, and pepper to taste.

3. Chicken in crockpot.

4. Cover and cook on low for 7-8 hours.

5. Take out chicken and pull apart. Add back into crockpot.

6. Prepare mashed potatoes.

7. Serve chicken on top of potatoes.

Goes great with rolls or cornbread. Add a healthy side salad. Yummy!

Funny Teacher Story: Call Me Dan

 

This happened to me after I'd been teaching about 10 or 11 years, so I really should have known better. 

At the beginning of school each year, one of the things I always asked my students is what name they preferred to be called. Now, I refused any ridiculous nicknames like "Bowtie" and "Spaghetti-o," but there were often kids who went by shortened versions of their names (Bill instead of William) or their middle names, or even initials.

I was going around the room in my advanced 9th grade English class asking what name they wanted me to call them, and this one boy tells me to call him "Dan." Well, his name was Peter James, so I thought...that's weird. Just to check, I looked around the room. No one was smirking or grinning or laughing. I asked them, just to make sure. They nodded. "Yes, that's what we call him," one girl told me. "It's a family name." Okay. Not impossible. My brother's nickname is Jordy but his given name is Jonathan Reginald S. III.

All year, I called him Dan. He always answered. No one laughed. For the next three years, whenever I saw him in the hall, I called him Dan. He always responded politely. I did hear other teachers call him Peter occasionally, but that always happens when students go by nicknames or middle names. Some teachers just refuse to call them anything but their first name. Or they don't bother to ask. (I think you can see where this is going.)

A couple of years after he had graduated, I saw him in a local grocery store and walked up to him to speak. I greeted him as Dan. He grimaced, shook his head, and told me, "You know, that was just a joke for the first day of school. No one else ever calls me Dan."

No shit. 

New Year's Goals-for Students

 

Looking for a great way to ease your students back into the swing of things after Christmas break? Here is a quick and fun activity to help them start thinking about the new year and to set up some attainable goals (some educational, some not) so they can finish off strong. You can find it here as a freebie in my TPT store.

Favorite Books to Teach: Heroes, Gods, and Monsters of the Greek Myths by Bernard Evslin

When my advanced ninth grade students came to me, their knowledge of Greek mythology was sketchy. Some knew a lot. Some knew a little. Some knew nothing. I didn't have time to teach the entire pantheon, but I needed them to have background in Greek mythology for several reasons. So I decided to assign a mythology refresher book as part of their summer reading.

1. We were going to read The Odyssey later in the year.

2. We were going to read Shakespeare, which, as everyone knows, is full of mythological allusions.

3. We were going to read poetry (same as #2).

4. I knew that in future years students would need some familiarity with mythology in order to identify additional allusions. I mean, these are advanced students, for Pete's sake.

I searched around and discarded several possible books on Greek mythology: Hamilton's Mythology (too dense and hard to read for summer reading), Bulfinch's Mythology (same), etc. I finally stumbled across this little gem and knew it was just what I needed. 

It covers most of the important myths (except for Hercules). It's very readable. It's very short. 

Now, you might think this book is too basic for advanced ninth graders, but I would heartily disagree. I don't want my students to have to slog through some impossible book during the summer. I want them to read something that won't take all their time and turn them off of reading altogether. 

This book was a great success. It refreshed the memories of my students who were somewhat familiar with mythology and gave a great intro to students who were complete mythology virgins. lol!

This book is accessible for everyone from 6-12 grade. Even your struggling readers can get through it.