Gardening rather than agriculture is the analogy for education.
—Lawrence Stenhouse
For many years, teachers have criticized education research for not being relevant to their needs, or for being written in a way that fails to connect with classroom practice. Teacher research—an extension of everyday teacher inquiry and reflective practice—starts with a pressing question or problem, and the solution can produce immediate benefits in the classroom.
Thoroughly revised and expanded, the second edition of Living the Questions takes you step-by-step through designing and implementing research projects that inform instruction. Presenting a variety of rich examples of real projects from teachers across the country, Ruth Shagoury and Brenda Power help you hone your inquiry skills and better understand your students, while developing your own community of researchers.
The new edition incorporates new technologies for conducting research, analysis, and sharing/networking; offers more short examples from a greater diversity of teacher-researchers; and provides many more research designs.
Living the Questions will inspire you to take the leap into a rewarding and fulfilling process of discovery. Preview the entire text online!
We just posted our exciting lineup of new books and videos for spring 2012! Several of these books are already available to order, the rest will be arriving in our warehouse soon.
Setting up a website and blog was something we have wanted to do for a long time. We have met so many wonderful teachers in the past few years that have come to our conference presentations or workshops in schools and who asked for ways to keep in touch with us. So, with a little help from colleague Kate Tiedeken, we have taken the dive into technology.
At the heart of Mentor Texts with Lynne and Rose (www.mentortextswithlynneandrose.com) is our blog. Each of us has a separate blog space where we can share our thinking on a variety of topics and let readers in on our current personal and professional experiences. We hope this space will help us dialogue with teachers to share ideas and reflections.
Two of the most popular features of our books, the Your Turn lessons and the Treasure Chest of Books, are also a part of our site. In Books Too Good to Miss we will be reviewing new books we come across and discussing how they might be used for writing or reading lessons. Of course, new books (and even some old ones we look at with new eyes) lead to new writing lessons that we will share with our readers as well. From time to time we will also review professional books on the teaching of writing or reading.
From time to time we will also give readers a glimpse into our writing notebooks – memories that are sparked, writing we are trying out, thinking we are engaging in or reflecting on. Hopefully, our writing will spark an idea or thought that our readers can write from or try out themselves.
We hope you will visit our site to gain practical tips for writing workshop and be encouraged to write in your own notebooks. Teachers of writers are teachers who write. Please join us in our conversations!
- Lynne Dorfman and Rose Cappelli, authors of Mentor Texts and Nonfiction Mentor Texts, used their winter vacation wisely and set up a new website and blog. At Mentor Texts with Lynne & Rose you can find information about their books, upcoming presentations, a link to their blog, and a peek inside their writer’s notebook.
- If you are an EdWeek Book Club member, you probably already received information about the upcoming book club discussion of Kelly Gallagher’s new title, Write Like This. Here is some information about the book and details of the discussion. It’s not too late to sign up!
- Are you a book nerd? It’s OK! We all are! So check out this new blog started by Donalyn Miller, book whisperer extraordinaire, along with teachers Colby Sharp and Cindy Minnich. But the blog includes contributions from many, many like-minded readers, teachers, writers — all book nerds, just like you!
- If you have a bit of a notebook obsession — collecting them, writing in them, smelling their pages — head over to Ruth Ayres’ blog Ruth Ayres Writes where you can watch a fun video she put together of all of her notebooks. (Ruth is the coauthor of Day by Day.) What does your notebook look like? Did you start a new one with the new year?
Sage Carnahan’s first grade classroom at Askew Elementary in Houston, Texas, was abuzz with activity last week — and not just because of his lively students. Debbie Diller was shooting her new math work stations video, due out mid-2012. The kids were especially fascinated by all of the recording equipment, especially the huge boom mike and camera stands. On the last day of shooting, the students spent some time drawing what was going on in their classroom.
One of the students, first grader Lesly, seemed intrigued by the camera stand and spent quite some time taking in all of its details:
Here is the final result:
Another student was taken with the red and black striped sweater worn by James, the sound engineer:
We always love to travel to conferences because we get to see you, our readers, and we get to see our authors. We all enjoy putting faces to names after corresponding by e-mail for months during the book production process. So here are a few pictures from our booth and from a little party where we all got to mingle authors, staff, and future authors.
Stenhouse editor Bill Varner with Liz Hale
Cris Tovani (left) chats with a fan at the Stenhouse booth
Jeff Anderson (back) and Terry Thompson with the newest member of the Stenhouse team, Jill Cooley
Jeff Anderson signs his new book at the booth
Kelly Gallagher and Gail Boushey have some fun at the party
The Sisters have a serious discussion with Ruth Ayres (back right) and Stacey Shubitz.
We are really excited to be heading to Chicago this weekend for NCTE 2011! We hope to see you again this year at booth #303. Browse our books, meet our authors, and take advantage of our 20% show discount. Bring this coupon with you to receive a free poster. Scroll down for a full signing schedule. For a schedule of Stenhouse authors presenting at NCTE, visit our website.
Signing at the Stenhouse booth (#303): FRIDAY
Tim Gillespie (Doing Literary Criticism) — 12:30-1:30
Elizabeth Hale (Crafting Writers) — 12:30-1:30
Jane Baskwill (Books as Bridges, Getting Dads on Board) — 1:30-2:30
Gail Boushey & Joan Moser, “The Sisters” (The Daily 5, The CAFE Book) — 2:30-4:00
Lynne Dorfman & Rose Cappelli (Mentor Texts, Writing with Mentors) — 4:00-5:00
Mark Overmeyer (What Student Writing Teaches Us) — 4:00-5:00 SATURDAY
Kate Messner (Real Revision) — 10:30-11:30
Katie Keier (Catching Readers Before They Fall) — 11:00-12:00
Jeff Anderson (10 Things Every Writer Needs to Know, Mechanically Inclined) — 11:30-12:30
Kelly Gallagher (Write Like This, Readicide) — 12:30-1:30
Cris Tovani (So What Do They Really Know?, Do I Really Have to Teach Reading?) — 2:00-3:00
Ruth Ayres & Stacey Shubitz (Day by Day) — 3:00-4:00
Patrick Allen (Conferring, Put Thinking to the Test) — 3:00-4:00 SUNDAY
Janet Allen (More Tools for Teaching Content Literacy, Inside Words) — 10:00-11:00
Terry Thompson (Adventures in Graphica) — 10:00-11:00
We just have a couple of days to unpack and repack our bags during this month of conferences. We just returned from Lousiville, KY, and this year’s AMLE conference — in time to fly to Chicago and NCTE later this week. Here are a few photos from our booth at AMLE and stay tuned for more information on our author signings and whereabouts at NCTE. See you in the Windy City!
Erik Palmer, author of Well Spoken, chats with a fan
Herb Broda (left), author of Moving the Classroom Outdoors, and Rick Wormeli, author of Metaphors & Analogies, shared a signing table
Stenhouse editor Philippa Stratton (left) and author Janet Allen chat at the Stenhouse booth
Teacher and author Julie D. Ramsay was recently interviewed by her local radio station in Alabama. During the interview Julie talks about her new book, “Can We Skip Lunch and Keep Writing” and shares her strategies for getting students excited about writing.
Listening to the interview you will get a really nice picture of Julie’s classroom and the motivation behind writing her book. Julie says that the interview was a fun experience for her as well, and she got some great sound editing tips from radio experts.
We have two great interviews to share with you today!
The first audio interview is with Bruce Lesh, the author of “Why Won’t You Just Tell Us the Answer?” Bruce and a fellow history teacher discuss the recent NAEP test results and what they mean for history education in America. The program was recorded by the Historical Society of Rockland County.
The second interview we want to share with you was recorded with Kelly Gallagher at California State University Dominquez Hills. Kelly talks about his career as an English teacher and about his new book, Write Like This.
Gardening rather than agriculture is the analogy for education.
