1) More Tools from Janet Allen

In the encore to her best-selling flipchart, Tools for Teaching Content Literacy, Janet Allen shares some of her favorite instructional tools for assisting students as they discover, think about, and apply content information. More Tools for Teaching Content Literacy puts 25 new research-based strategies—from Expert Groups to Point-of-View Guides to Wordstorming—at your fingertips.

This plan book-sized flipchart serves as a ready reference for content reading and writing instruction. The tabbed pages provide the what, why, and how of each tool, with reproducible graphic organizers, models, and step-by-step instructions.

In an age where information is everywhere and easily accessible, the task for learners is in making sense of it all. More Tools for Teaching Content Literacy gives upper elementary to high school teachers the tools they need to help students meet this challenge.

More Tools will start shipping at the end of this month. You can preview the entire flipchart and pre-order online:

http://www.stenhouse.com/0771.asp?r=n149w

More Tools for Teaching Content Literacy
Janet Allen • 46 pp • $12.00 • Available in late October
http://www.stenhouse.com/0771.asp?r=n149w

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2) Author Conversations: Robin Turner

Every population has students who are in a subculture where college success is not part of the game. One of the things I try to address is how do we reverse that culture—how do we get into that culture, find its strengths, celebrate those strengths, and still propel students to academic success?

In today's Author Conversations podcast, Robin Turner reflects on the obstacles he overcame to gain a college degree and on what he's learned from his participation in California's Puente Project, which inspired his book, Greater Expectations: Teaching Academic Literacy to Underrepresented Students. Listen in:

http://www.stenhouse.com/html/turnerpodcast.htm?r=n149w

Get a glimpse into Robin's classroom at Magnolia High School in Anaheim, California. We've just posted a sample clip from his new DVD, Academic Literacy, due out early next month:

http://www.stenhouse.com/0760.asp?r=n149w

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3) PD Corner: Boys and literacy

Literacy development is dependent upon obsessive interests, ones strong enough to sustain the writer in the often-laborious task of developing an extended piece of writing. Writing becomes a way of documenting and employing this allegiance; it piggybacks on these primary affiliations children bring to school.
—Thomas Newkirk, Misreading Masculinity

Ralph Fletcher's new DVD, Dude! Listen to This, captures the essence of his groundbreaking book, Boy Writers. Join Ralph, literacy specialist Jen Allen, and a group of boys that volunteered to give up recess each week to meet and talk about writing:

http://www.stenhouse.com/0747.asp?r=n149w

Be sure to read Liana Heitin's interview with Peg Tyre, Newsweek staff writer, mother of boys, and author of The Trouble with Boys. Heitin and Tyre explore issues featured in the book—from boys' tendencies toward violence to the balancing act schools must achieve to meet the needs of both boys and girls:

http://www.stenhouse.com/rdteachermagtyre.htm?r=n149w

And Tyre penned the lead article in the current issue of Instructor magazine. "Boy Trouble?" offers a wide range of advice to educators on topics such as the scheduling of physical activity, boys' writing, and increasing the involvement of men as fathers and teachers:

http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3750130

Looking for ways to engage boys in writing? Build on their natural interests in action, nonfiction, and graphic novels. Christopher Spence's new book, The Joys of Teaching Boys, will show you how. Preview the entire book online:

http://www.stenhouse.com/8230.asp?r=n149w

Maine-based Boys to Men offers boys a chance to develop their authentic selves by exploring the often distorted masculine images that bombard boys and men. Hundreds of boys, fathers, and other male role models attend their annual conference. Boys to Men also sponsors asset-building workshops and educator conferences such as next week's To a Higher Degree: Effective Strategies for Promoting Boys' Success in School, which features a workshop on boys and writing by Stenhouse author Jen Allen:

http://www.boystomen.info/about_history.html
(Click on "Conference" in the top menu for details about the To a Higher Degree conference.)

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4) EdNews interviews Koepf, Hale, and Buhrow

EdNews recently posted interviews with three Stenhouse authors. Get the inside scoop on how they came to write their books, their major influences, and their takes on common teaching dilemmas.

Maren Koepf (author of Synchronizing Success)
Interview:
http://www.stenhouse.com/rdednewskoepf.htm?r=n149w

Liz Hale (author of Crafting Writers, K-6)
Interview:
http://www.stenhouse.com/rdednewshale.htm?r=n149w

Brad Buhrow (co-author, with Anne Upczak Garcia, of Ladybugs, Tornadoes and Swirling Galaxies)
Interview:
http://www.stenhouse.com/rdednewsbuhrow.htm?r=n149w

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5) Giving formative assessment a bad name

People say, "You're just being picky about a word choice." I think it's more serious than that. The consumers out there...are being told that these [products] satisfy their formative needs. They believe that and purchase it and don't think they have to do anything more for formative assessment.

The September 15 issue of EdWeek examines the debate over the definition of formative assessment, and how testing companies are cashing in by labeling their products as formative. One contrary company, Measured Progress, took to handing out boxes of mints labeled "AssessMints" at a recent conference, telling attendees, "These are the only legitimate formative-assessment products":

http://www.stenhouse.com/rdformative.htm?r=n149w

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