Most Popular Books by Frank Serafini

Serafini shows how you can help students learn to read so they want to.

Today’s teachers need up-to-the-minute information to help their students make sense of the multimodal texts they encounter daily in and out of school. Reading the Visual is an essential introduction that focuses on what teachers should know about multimodal literacy and how to teach it. This engaging book provides theoretical, curricular, and pedagogical frameworks for teaching a wide-range of visual and multimodal texts, including historical fiction, picture books, advertisements, websites, comics, graphic novels, news reports, and film. Each unit of study presented contains suggestions for selecting cornerstone texts and visual images and launching the unit, as well as lesson plans, text sets, and analysis guides. These units are designed to be readily adapted to fit the needs of a variety of settings and grade levels. Book Features: An accessible introduction to visual literacy and multimodality.Classroom strategies and demonstrations for analyzing and interpreting multimodal texts.Hands-on examples of units of study for ten types of multimodal texts.Resources for developing and adapting units, including suggested texts, analysis guides, and learning objectives. “Frank Serafini gets it. He knows that language and literacy were our original multimodal forms. He knows that today they are as crucial as they have ever been, but that they comport with a great many new relatives which are daily widening and transforming what we mean and how we mean it.” —From the Foreword by James Paul Gee, Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies, Arizona State University “Reading the Visual positions the analysis of visual images and multimodal ensembles as essential to language arts and literacy learning. Serafini’s book contributes important scholarship in understanding the theories behind this analysis and the significance of the visual in the many texts we encounter in and out of school settings.” —Peggy Albers, Georgia State University “Reading the Visual is based on wide scholarship; it brings that to a point of profound insight and of intense practicality. Those taking first steps into the area will find a path smoothed by a seductively simple style; those there already are offered constant insight and challenge. It is a book that will be valued by both kinds of reader.” —Gunther Kress, Professor of Semiotics and Education, Institute of Education, University of London Frank Serafini is an author, illustrator, photographer, educator, musician, and an associate professor of Literacy Education and Children’s Literature at Arizona State University. Visit the author’s website at www.frankserafini.com

Serafini has created a teaching treasure trove that contains nearly a year''s worth of comprehension instruction plus an extensive list of children''s literature that he has successfully woven into his own reading workshop. Lessons in Comprehension introduces and reinforces meaning-making concepts through eight broad thematic strands that scaffold understanding and responsibility for novice readers.

Look closely. Look very closely. Is it u0080 flakes of oatmeal? A moldy orange? Give up? Just turn the page and, lo and behold, it''s a spotted toadstool! See what looks like gummy candy revealed as a millipede, a woolly scarf as frost on leaves, and many more surprises when you look closely through the forest. The Looking Closely series takes children on a journey of discovery through four environments -- the forest, the shore, the desert and the garden. Frank Serafini''s camera lens enlarges each world through the magic of close-up photography. Young eyes will rediscover our planet as a place of beauty, mystery and delight. Readers are first challenged to guess the identity of each closeup photograph. The next page reveals the entire photograph of the plant, animal or natural object accompanied by a simple but detailed description of the habitat. By inspiring children to ask questions and use their imaginations, these books help build problem-solving skills. They also encourage curiosity about environments that, examined this closely, are full of unexpected wonders.

Readers examine a series of close-up photographs of things that might be found in a back yard, and try to decide what is really in the picture.

This book in the Looking Closely series will take children on a journey of discovery across the desert while inspiring them to ask questions and use their imaginations.

Through the magic of close-up photography, the author first asks the reader to identify an object found in a pond in a super-close-up picture, with the next page revealing the entire picture.

This book in the Looking Closely series will take children on a journey of discovery along the shore while inspiring them to ask questions and use their imaginations.

Through the magic of close-up photography, the author first asks the reader to identify an object found in a rain forest in a super-close-up picture, with the next page revealing the entire picture.

This package has 3 components: Reflections on Literacy (also available separately A compilation of short articles, each focusing on a key area of literacy A brief review of research underpinnings An outline of the broad implications for classroom practice Literacy Talk A facilitator''s guide to purposeful, organized and focused professional dialogue about any of the topics, or topic clusters, in Reflections on Literacy. These 30 to 90-minute sessions can be for: teachers, administrators, lead literacy teachers, and/or consultants staff from a school or from a number of schools staff meetings, professional activity or development days, after-school workshops, school training days Instruction DVD A 45-minute video in three parts featuring Dr. Frank Serafini presenting ideas about professional learning communities and a vision for literacy, with prompts to foster dialogue. Part 1: The Four Major Principles of Professional Learning Communities Part 2: Structures of Effective Professional Learning Part 3: A Vision for Literacy Instruction

Provides upper elementary and middle school teachers with lessons that support sophisticated ways of reading and thinking.

Beyond the Visual is a survey of contemporary approaches to researching a wide range of visual and multimodal phenomena. Building on his earlier book, Reading the Visual, Serafini shares resources for conducting multimodal research across the social sciences. Beginning with a comprehensive overview of the theoretical foundations that support the analytical frameworks, the text is organized into two parts—texts and objects, events and spaces—with corresponding analytical approaches. Examples and outlines are provided to help novice and experienced researchers conduct their own studies. Vignettes by some of the most renowned scholars in the field of multimodality research take the reader behind the scenes of various projects to experience the thoughts and decisions that go into conceptualizing and applying the analytical frameworks presented in the book. This resource will enable both students and experienced scholars to acquire new research skills and designs resulting in more rigorous, high-quality research. Book Features: Assists researchers and educators to make better connections among theoretical orientations, analytical frameworks, and research designs. Showcases 16 models for conducting research on visual and multimodal phenomena across a variety of social, virtual, and physical contexts. Provides examples of how eminent researchers conceive, design, initiate, and conduct their studies. Explores the research methods cited in the author’s previous book, Reading the Visual.

Frank Serafini has written extensively on the reading workshop, and in talks around the country, he''s answered the tough questions about teaching through this powerful medium. Now in Around the Reading Workshop in 180 Days, his most practical book to date, Serafini answers your most frequently asked questions and shows you the daily ins and outs of the workshop. Picking up where his bestselling titles The Reading Workshop and Lessons in Comprehension left off, Serafini gives you month-by-month strategies for running a reading workshop across an entire school year. He provides everything you need to change the way intermediate and middle level students think and talk about reading, including: instructional strategies how-tos for organizing ideas for lessons ways to connect reading and writing instruction assessment and evaluation techniques tips for helping students choose books lists of recommended children''s literature for your students and recommended professional resources for you. In addition, classroom teacher Suzette Serafini-Youngs illustrates Serafini''s ideas with "Windows on the Workshop," classroom vignettes that bridge theory to practice and demonstrate with precision the teacher''s role in workshop-based reading instruction. Whether you''re a thirty-year veteran or a novice teacher, go Around the Reading Workshop in 180 Days with Frank Serafini and take your students on a memorable journey into literacy.

Intended for teachers frustrated by test-driven assessments that merely mimic real reading behaviors, this text focuses assessment on knowing individual students so that teaching addresses their individual strengths and needs.

As reading teachers, how do we deal with the massive shifts that digital literacy is creating? We can''t abandon what we know works to keep up with the latest online-literacy fads. Yet, we need to prepare readers for a world of digital content. Reading Workshop 2.0 gives us teaching that puts reading for meaning first while also balancing the need for kids to become sophisticated users of books as well as online reading resources. "This book," writes Frank Serafini, "is designed to help teachers organize their reading workshops in order to take advantage of the latest technologies." With his guidance, you''ll bring more digital reading into your teaching without sacrificing sound instructional principles or practices. Reading print shares four essential processes with digital reading: accessing and navigating; archiving and sharing; commenting and discussing; and interpreting and analyzing. Frank introduces important, well-established digitally based resources that further these processes, while his lesson ideas transfer learning from classroom to real-world digital reading. "If it doesn''t help children develop as readers," writes Frank Serafini, "it doesn''t matter how shiny the new object is." With Reading Workshop 2.0, you''ll help students with print while also helping them use online resources and technologies as they are intended-to make sense of texts more deeply, effectively, and efficiently.

Shares strategies to maximize the effectiveness of conversations surrounding a text students are engaged in reading to allow teachers to determine their students'' level of comprehension.

The authors provide the practical wherewithal to implement reading aloud as an instructional strategy for both the language arts and the content area disciplines.