Fake news and misinformation is everywhere. Learn how to teach elementary students to locate reliable information, evaluate sources, and develop their writing skills in the classroom and in the library. Empower students to find and evaluate information with this practical guide to supporting classroom writing and research instruction. You'll learn ways to teach students to evaluate information for accuracy and to collect information from credible sources such as library journals. Additionally, you'll learn how to incorporate writing into your makerspace, encourage curiosity through the inquiry process, and help students to find their voice. Along the way, you'll discover how to support various writing genres including technical writing and the research project and how to teach prewriting for digital media such as websites, blogs, and social media. Lesson plans, which can be adapted from year to year as a part of the classroom and library curriculum, explain how students can use databases, search engines, books, and expert testimony to gather information. Also included are student samples and hands-on activities that will get students excited about learning.

Geared toward English and social studies teachers as well as school librarians, this book provides a clear and concise way to approach the teaching of persuasive writing-and to develop the skills students need to excel on high stakes tests as well. In Four by Four: Practical Methods for Writing Persuasively, well-known authors and teachers of writing Joyce Armstrong Carroll and Edward E. Wilson provide a practical guide to teaching students how to write persuasively. Organized in four chapters, each containing four sections, the text opens with a history of rhetoric that serves as a logical preface to the persuasive writing basics, guides, and patterns presented in the remainder of the book. It covers topics such as the Carroll/Wilson Inquiry Schemata as a data collection technique for persuasive writing, planning and organizing a persuasive paper, strategies for efficient editing, and writing the conclusion. Appropriate for educators who work with fourth-grade through college-level students in English and social studies, this guidebook spotlights the research process, a 21st-century skill that teachers should teach collaboratively with their school librarians. Card graphics that make following the model easy to follow Appendices providing mnemonics, registers of language, sample persuasive theses, and the major fallacies students use in their writing

Using a research-based approach, this book examines the critical connections between writing and reading, and it explains how to encourage early literacy in the classroom and library. How can teachers and librarians support true literacy in young learners? Are very young children guided by meaning in constructing their reality and their relationship to the world? What is the value of championing writing at the kindergarten level? Guided by Meaning in Primary Literacy: Libraries, Reading, Writing, and Learning answers these questions and many more, providing best practices in early literacy through explicit lessons in writing and reading and demonstrating how the library can extend learning in deep and powerful ways. While some books emphasize reading, others emphasize writing, and still others focus on library instruction, this profound resource brings all of the components of literacy together in a meaningful way. Throughout the book, the authors highlight examples of student writing, anecdotes from the real world, and connections between theory and what happens in practical application. Unique in its thoroughness of content for this age group, this text is essential reading for all early childhood teachers and librarians working in schools and in public libraries with young children. The book also serves trainers working with teachers and librarians to increase their effectiveness in working with young children to promote early literacy. Provides critical information that helps educators improve early literacy programs-a current need in libraries of all types Combines research findings about early literacy that document the connection between writing and reading with meaningful theory to offer a strong rationale for library programming Reminds readers of the inherent joy and value of working with young children by telling them stories and engaging them in magical early literacy activities in the classroom and library

Teachers will use this book as a quick but intensive way to brush up on their grammar skills and a guide to hands-on ways to teach grammar concepts. Brushing Up on Grammar: An Acts of Teaching Approach is grounded in a belief that grammar should be taught within the context of writing and reading. Of course, teachers need to know grammar to be able to teach it, something that has become harder as topics like sentence diagramming and parts of speech have disappeared from curriculums in recent years. This book provides the solid grammar foundation so necessary for teachers in the field of English/language arts. Brushing Up on Grammar illuminates the five meanings of grammar; identifies six key grammar characteristics; and covers all of the categories and labels, rules and history, research, and etymologies relative to the subject. The examples and connections here are designed first and foremost as verbal clay. With them, educators can help students mold, probe, shape, reshape, and above all, enjoy their acts of language.

High-quality original writing doesn't happen by accident; it results from a logical, inquiry-based process. Educators will be able to apply the concepts and techniques in this book to help their students master the critical writing process. Many students tremble at the mere thought of "the dreaded research paper" when in fact the inquiry process that should be applied for a writing project should be an engaging and exciting mental activity. This work explains how teachers and librarians can guide the critical writing process to go hand-in-hand with inquiry and produce logical and carefully honed papers. The Critical Writer: Inquiry and the Writing Process starts with a general treatment of inquiry to detailed coverage of specific teaching strategies, explaining how critical writers should make the proper emendations during prewriting and while drafting as well as during the revising process. The book presents fresh information and teaching techniques that can be applied by anyone in the field of education with students of any grade level; examples from kindergarten through instructors in teacher training are included. Presents information about one school district's application of-and results from-authors Carroll and Wilson's inquiry-based critical writing schemata throughout the year Combines accessible explanations of pedagogical theory with practical guidance on how to teach the writing process along with the inquiry process Offers information directly related to helping students achieve standards