Some recent favorites and my take away

 This timely book uses thinking structures to deepen student writing.  Powerful Writing Structures revolves around “brain pockets” to help students become familiar with the qualities of different writing forms.  They learn to access memory pockets for personal writing, fact pockets for writing nonfiction, and imagination pockets for story writing.  Based on extensive classroom testing, this comprehensive approach to developing a balanced year-long writing program includes tips for implementing weekly writing practice, effective mini lessons, and using different forms of writing in the content areas.  From writing goals to writing joy, Powerful Writing Structures helps teachers guide students through the skills, the structures, the language, and the beauty of effective writing.    

 In these challenging times, teaching children to think critically and reflectively AND be compassionate, responsible, and caring citizens at the same time is a tall order. Powerful Understanding explores effective ways to build social emotional skills and  help students make connections, question what they read, and reflect on their learning as they develop into stronger readers and learners. Strategic and critical thinking strategies revolve around core anchor books that help integrate thinking into everything you teach, from social responsibility, to immigration, to life cycles. This highly readable book includes a wealth of classroom examples and extensive hands-on activities designed to help students to think more deeply, learn more widely, and develop a more powerful understanding of what it means to be a responsible and compassionate person. 

 This ground-breaking approach to reading comprehension shows teachers how to help students think while they read: connect, question, visualize, infer, and transform. Since the publication of the first edition of Reading Power, Adrienne Gear has continued to reflect on and refine her ideas about metacognition, comprehension instruction, and the Reading Power strategies. This new edition shares these new understandings, and offers teachers new ideas, new lessons, and, of course, new anchor books to support the Reading Power principles. An ideal resource for teachers familiar to this strategic approach, or for those looking for new ways to connect thinking with reading.