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When was the last time you shook up your writing instruction?
Shawna Coppola's new book is built on the premise that our students
are ever-changing, and so is our global landscape. While there's
nothing inherently wrong with relying on instructional strategies
that have worked in the past, Shawna challenges writing teachers to
rethink and revise their practice regularly--leading to the renewal
of their professional lives. By looking at whether a practice
matches students' needs and interests and examining whether it fits
into what we know about children and learning and then adjusting
our teaching accordingly, we can nurture students to become
critical thinkers, problem solvers, and risk takers in the writing
classroom and beyond. Shawna uses a framework of Rethinking,
Revising, and Renewing to examine the most pervasive educational
practices in writing instruction and to help ask the questions
necessary in order to revise those practices so that they are
effective for all students. She describes why it's vital to engage
in this challenging work and goes on to examine some of the most
ubiquitous practices, including what it means to write, the tools
typically used to teach writing, and how writing is often assessed.
She also offers ideas for how teachers can nurture their own
writing lives and thus reinvigorate their instructional practice.
Holding On to Good Ideas in a Time of Bad Ones "is my new favorite
book about how to live as a teacher. Finishing it, I experienced
what I can only describe as a state of grace - moved, renewed, and
grateful that a mind like Tom Newkirk's has been intrigued by
classroom matters for almost forty years now. In this new book Tom
invites teachers to decide and lay claim to what's worth fighting
for, and he offers us substantive ammunition. His eclectic
scholarship, spanning ages and disciplines, pierces the dogma and
cant that can cloud our professional vision. He reminds us that we
are professionals, not technicians, and he illuminates teaching as
an intellectual endeavor: a continuous process of observations,
small experiments, and reflections that inform and change what we
do in the classroom. His realistic, humane argument for "the wisdom
of practice" dignifies the work of a teacher. Both the classroom
veteran and the novice will be heartened and braced by this
brilliant book." - Nancie AtwellAuthor of" In the Middle, " Second
Edition "Lately, we teachers have been suffering through some truly
bad times. But as Tom Newkirk observes in this brilliant and
stirring book, we and our educational forbears have been fighting
this battle for centuries. There is always a struggle to put
children first, to honor knowledge over compliance, and to place
humanity above the aims of the state. Newkirk's good news: today we
have an extraordinary opportunity to get things right. Always one
of the most distinctive and thoughtful voices in education, Newkirk
asserts that no curriculum can ever work unless it fits on the back
of an envelope. And then he offers his own envelope-sized
curriculum for teaching writing, four questions and sixteen focal
points. That's it. Classic Newkirk: direct, incisive, and brimming
with wisdom. " - Harvey "Smokey" DanielsCoauthor of "Comprehension
& Collaboration" "Rich with pedagogy and human enough to make
you burst out laughing, Thomas Newkirk's thoughts made me feel both
heartened and head-slapping awakened. This book is one of the best
teacher books ever. I'll be giving copies of it to lots of teacher
friends as we find our way back to trusting what we know about
kids, about learning, and about teaching writing. The book is
written for anyone who grapples with the modern quagmire: the chasm
between why we became teachers and what schools have become. The
discussions have already begun, and Thomas Newkirk's book will shed
light and warmth where they're so sorely needed. " - Gretchen
BernabeiAuthor of" Reviving the Essay" "This is a wise, insightful,
and thought-provoking book that offers important and useful
perspectives on many of the central issues in literacy education.
What I like best about "Holding On to Good Ideas in a Time of Bad
Ones "is (1) it's a BIG book, not in word count but in range,
scope, and ambitiousness, and (2) it practices exactly what it
preaches. In other words, the goals that Tom argues for--such as,
suggesting that literacy educators should de-clutter our curricula
by identifying and focusing on just a few key goals, that we should
connect and balance reading and writing, that we should accept and
encourage the role of pleasure and personal connection in
learning--are supported by evidence and research but are also
modeled by the way this book is written." - Lad TobinAuthor of"
Reading Student Writin
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