New Releases by Jim Burke

In a compelling and beautifully illustrated story, award-winning author Douglas Wood tells of the teacher who led him to love reading, in spite of his ADHD.

Douglas is the youngest, smallest, and newest student in his second-grade class, and he doesn't like reading. He doesn't like sitting still. And he doesn't like Miss Little, especially when she makes him stay after class day after day, forcing him to sound out lines and blobs and squiggles when he'd rather be throwing a football. Luckily Douglas likes the pictures in the book Miss Little has chosen for him, pictures that remind him of the lake his family visits every summer. Award-winning author Douglas Wood — the boy in the story — alludes to scenes from The Little Island, the first book that enticed him to read, in a tale that will resonate with many children with ADHD. It is also a heartwarming ode to a special teacher whose gentle persistence changed one little boy's life forever.

Dozens of graphic organizers and a hundred ways to use them! Jim's prepared a workbook that's a real workhorse, providing tools to spark student thinking that are both intriguing and precise-and applicable to grades 6 to 12 in all subject areas. These tools range from annotations and literature circle notes to Venn diagrams and vocabulary squares. Each comes as a reproducible accompanied by:

• background information and theoretical foundations
• different ways to use each tool to help students read, write, speak, and think better
• a range of note-taking strategies to help students succeed in all academic classes
• student samples, including many from Jim's ACCESS (Academic Success) program for struggling students who want to succeed.

In addition, three documents help you choose "the right tool for the job." Use Jim's suggestions to help students take better notes and improve their critical thinking. Or use his visual directory to quickly evaluate what you need for an assignment. Tools for Thought works across the spectrum-helping students with learning differences, assisting struggling readers and writers, challenging students in advanced classes.

Like Reading Reminders, its best-selling companion, Writing Reminders is designed to be read on the run-between periods, while planning, even while teaching-to make every minute count in your classroom, to help you work smarter and more effectively. And like Reading Reminders, it features Jim Burke's best techniques, this time for teaching writing, complete with tools and tips on how to implement them. Every reminder is a result of his daily effort to solve the problems he faces in his classroom. And each one shows how it is possible to teach all students, as long as they make a genuine effort, to write clear, cohesive prose.

Look at the table of contents and in thirty seconds get an idea that will help you. Each reminder clearly states a technique in its title and includes:

• A Rationale-a brief explanation of what the reminder means and why it's important
• What to Do-questions to ask, activities to try, strategies to use
• Classroom Connection-sample assignments and student examples
• At a Glance-goals for writing in many genres
• Recommended Reading-sound investments for continued teaching of good writing.

Writing Reminders directly addresses standards-based instruction, too, providing techniques and assignments to hone students' skills in key areas and prepare them to succeed on important state tests. Built on a foundation of recent research into effective literacy teaching, the book offers a wealth of useful resources and processes that result in greater engagement and higher-level performance without "teaching to the test."

Regardless of the grade, the ability level, or even the subject you teach, you can find no better way to easily and quickly improve your writing instruction than to use Writing Reminders. And pair it with Reading Reminders for a complete reading and writing curriculum with ready-to-use techniques for effective teaching.

A new companion for every English teacher

"Why have I written an entirely new English Teacher's Companion? Because to offer you anything less would suggest I had not grown, changed, or evolved these past fifteen years. I am not the same teacher I was when I wrote the first edition."
-Jim Burke

The fourth edition of English Teacher's Companion is 100 percent new. Jim Burke has rewritten it to model methods for reaching a new generation of students-when all the ground rules for teaching are changing.

A teacher's teacher and a recognized leader in English/language arts education, Jim understands the need for instructional methods that connect the why of teaching to the how. "This edition makes the research behind my practice more explicit," he writes. "It is also anchored in the Common Core State Standards, because I am still teaching every day-so these standards are my standards too."

Weaving in ideas for working with ELLs, struggling readers, and technology, English Teacher's Companion, Fourth Edition:

• looks comprehensively at the research and reality of our profession, our students, and our content
• provides practical and thoughtful methods for meeting standards in reading, writing, speaking and listening, and language study
• makes assessment a priority, not only to find out what students know but to help practitioners improve.

"I have taught English for nearly 25 years, and I love it," writes Jim Burke. Never has this love been more apparent than in the numerous lessons and teaching moves he includes as well as in the many examples of his own classroom language. Trust the fourth edition of English Teacher's Companion, and bring the passion, power, and practicality of one of America's best teachers to your classroom.