Help students appreciate texts and write about them with conviction.Responding to a comprehension question is a surprisingly complex task. It draws on multiple skills: students must be able to read and analyze a text passage; consider what aspect of the text the question addresses; and then quickly and concisely write about their ideas, citing evidence to support them. Hence the prominence of constructed-response questions in standardized testing.In this re...

Storybook characters and situations are perfect for launching discussions of social emotional learning—why not let them help?In picture books, well-loved characters deal with many of the same problems students face in their own lives. What better resource could there be for encouraging students to think about their actions and responses? Using classroom texts to start SEL conversations— during an interactive read- aloud or an extension of shared close- reading less...

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.Boyl...

Every teacher who is struggling to make close reading a cohesive and coherent part of the curriculum, take notice: relief is in sight, thanks to Nancy Boyles’ Lessons and Units for Closer ReadingHere, Nancy redefines what it means to publish on demand with a resource that answers your most urgent questions around how to implement close reading within the literacy block. What’s more, she delivers all the goods: eight three-week units on close reading to immediately drop in ...

Every teacher in K-2 who has ever wished for comprehension lessons that get students where they need to be in reading, talking, and writing about texts, take notice: your wish just came true.With Lessons and Units for Closer Reading: K-2 you get 20 initial close reading lessons and 80 follow-up comprehension skill lessons that expertly scaffold young readers. What makes these lessons so spot-on is that Nancy combed through hundreds of standards and standar...

Close Reading. Not in a very long while has a term been freighted with so much responsibility to pull every student out of a reading tailspin and into a great future of college and career readiness. Finally, here’s a book that tunes out all of the hubbub and gets down to the business of showing how exactly to "get close reading right."What makes Closer Reading such a have-to-have resource? Nancy Boyles knows full well that we’ll never realize the promise o...

It’s 2336, and the future needs heroes! They must reach back in time to find them. What if they come for you? In 2336 there is no war, no pollution, no disease, no crime—but utopia has a price …

Teaching English language arts at grades K-5 is both a science and an art. Educators must teach literacy skills and content with best practices, while also keeping focus on each student’s individual needs. They are challenged to monitor students working independently while also conducting small group instruction. And they must focus on providing differentiated support with a rather complicated text. With increased attention to rigor, requirements, and personalized instruction, it can be a ...

Choice Highly Recommended ReadAddiction is a complex problem that requires more nuanced responses. Transforming Addiction advances addictions research and treatment by promoting transdisciplinary collaboration, the integration of sex and gender, and issues of trauma and mental health. The authors demonstrate these shifts and offer a range of tools, methods, and strategies for responding to the complex factors and forces that produce and shape addiction. In...

You can check in. But you can never leave.Things aren't going well for Pearl Fuller. Reeling from a breakup and struggling to make ends meet, she's sleeping on her ex's couch and working nights at The Driftwood Motel.The same motel that years ago was the scene of the legendary Berkman murder. They say that room 52 has been empty ever since that night. But if that's true, why can Pearl see someone moving around in there? And why is she the only one who can h...

Discerning insights into how an Ignatian principle can redefine leadership and recenter organizationsCura apostolica is a Latin phrase used by the Jesuits that simply means "care for the apostolate." More amply, this term implies the stewarding of a God-given collective enterprise, and thus it connotes caring for work that precedes the present moment and has the potential to accomplish something necessary and important for the human community across the ho...

The nine narrative episodes of Volume Four of the Emmy® Award–winning Netflix Original series Love, Death + Robots.Featuring bestselling authors and screenwriters from all over the globe, curated by filmmakers Tim Miller and David Fincher, and Supervising Director Jennifer Yuh Nelson.Introduction by John Scalzi, with stories by John Scalzi, Stant Litore, Siobhan Carroll, Bruce Sterling, John McNichol, Dave Hutchinson, Marc Laidlaw, and Robert Bisi & Andy Lyon....