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Stenhouse Newslinks
August 7, 2003

C O N T E N T S

1) Free shipping on these back-to-school books
2) PD Corner: Reconsidering Writing Instruction
3) Progressivism lives on in NYC
4) Getting Grants, Part IV

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1) Free shipping on these back-to-school books
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Looking for some fresh ideas for starting the new school year? 
Here is a selection of Stenhouse books spanning K-12 that will 
help you hit the ground running and introduce new teaching 
strategies throughout the year.

Order one or more of these books on our Web site by August 31, 
and we will waive the shipping charge! Just enter coupon code 
BSF3 at the first check out screen on our Web site.

GREAT BEGINNINGS: Creating a Literacy-Rich Kindergarten
Resi J. Ditzel * 112 pp/paper * $14.00
http://www.stenhouse.com/0322.asp
Will help you plan and organize your full-day kindergarten 
curriculum, with a special emphasis on literacy instruction. 
Half-day kindergarten teachers will also find many new ideas.

LITERACY WORK STATIONS: Making Centers Work
Debbie Diller * 192 pp/paper * $20.00 * Grades K-3
http://www.stenhouse.com/0353.asp
Transform your traditional learning centers with a new approach 
that better meets the needs of all students. See how to set up 
over a dozen work stations and keep them going all year.

THE FIRST SIX WEEKS OF SCHOOL
Paula Denton & Roxann Kriete * 240 pp * $19.95 * Grades K-8
http://www.stenhouse.com/8904.asp
Discover how taking the time to build a solid foundation in the 
early weeks of school can pay off all year in increased student 
motivation, cooperation, responsibility, and self-control.

DAY ONE AND BEYOND: Practical Matters for New Middle-Level 
Teachers
Rick Wormeli * 208 pp/paper * $19.50 * Grades 4-8
http://www.stenhouse.com/0355.asp
Veteran teacher and popular speaker Rick Wormeli gives you the 
lowdown on starting the year, discipline, teaming, parents, 
homework, record keeping, and much more.

WRITING FOR REAL: Strategies for Engaging Adolescent Writers
Ross M. Burkhardt * 312 pp/paper * $21.00 * Grades 4-12
http://www.stenhouse.com/0358.asp
A master teacher's strategies; includes "The First Five Weeks" 
for developing a community of writers; this book can be used as a 
complete school year curriculum for teaching writing.

READING REASONS: Motivational Mini-Lessons for Middle and High 
School
Kelly Gallagher * 192 pp/paper * $19.50 * Grades 4-12
http://www.stenhouse.com/0356.asp
These 40 easy-to-use motivational lessons serve as weekly reading 
"booster shots" that help maintain reading enthusiasm in your 
classroom throughout the school year.

THE BRIDGE TO SCHOOL: Entering a New World
Liz Waterland * 88 pp/paper * $10.00
http://www.stenhouse.com/0020.asp
This fictionalized diary of what starting school feels like to 
young children, their parents, and teachers is "a beautiful book, 
suffused with humor and humanity" (School Librarian).

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2) PD Corner: Reconsidering Writing Instruction
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*August Quote of the Month*

"As teachers, we seem to find comfort in clearly delineated 
steps, formulas that we can outline and evaluate. Maybe it is 
this need for control that has led so many of us to mold a messy 
creative phenomenon into a checklist."
--Orlean Anderson, teacher-consultant, Northern Virginia Writing 
Project

This quote is from the essay "The Writing Process Rejected," a 
fine starting point for any teacher discussion group considering 
how to reenergize writing instruction in its schools. Anderson 
not only rejects simple, lockstep methods of teaching writing, 
but presents tools for helping students develop awareness of 
their own writing quirks:

http://www.writingproject.org/cs/nwpp/print/nwpr/150

If you and your colleagues are revamping your writing curriculum, 
you might also consider forming a study group this fall around 
the book KNOWING HOW by Mary McMackin and Barbara Siegel. This 
book focuses on strategies for teaching students how to write 
nonfiction texts and research reports that tap kids' interests, 
and uses high quality children's literature as writing models:

http://www.stenhouse.com/0340.asp
(Click on the "Study Guide" link.)

Before beginning another year of helping students write well, 
it's always fun to take a moment to consider what makes for truly 
wretched writing. The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest has awarded 
prizes each summer to the opening sentences of "the worst novels 
never written" for over twenty years. This year's awards have 
just been announced, after the judges combed through thousands of 
entrants from across the globe. Many a fun writing mini-lesson 
begins with using some of these sentences as models of bad 
writing:

http://www.bulwer-lytton.com

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3) Progressivism lives on in NYC
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"I think it's a 'less filling/tastes great' debate. I don't 
believe curriculums are the key to education. I believe teachers 
are."
--New York City Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein on traditional 
vs. progressive education

Last Sunday's New York Times Education Life Magazine describes 
the new New York City Schools curriculum as "one of the greatest 
experiments ever attempted in progressive education." This 
article hits upon many familiar issues in literacy education 
today, including the chilling effect that the federal government 
can have on a program judged to be lacking a research base:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/03/edlife/03EDTRAUB.html
(free registration required)

Another Times article focuses on intensive summer training for 
the National Center on Education and the Economy's America's 
Choice Program, and how it is being received by teachers and 
administrators in New York City:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/06/education/06SCHO.html

For details on the America's Choice school reform program, visit 
NCEE's Web site:

http://www.ncee.org/acsd/index.jsp

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4) Getting Grants, Part IV
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In this last installment of our four-part series on writing 
successful grants, we start with a recent article from Education 
Week that describes several innovative summer professional 
development programs, and (at the end of the article) how they 
were funded:

http://www.edweek.org/ew/newstory.cfm?slug=42summer.h22

One of the sources mentioned in this article is the National 
Endowment for the Humanities. For more information on their 
education-related grants, follow this link:

http://www.neh.fed.us/grants/grantsbydivision.html#education

What do winning proposals have in common? To increase your 
chances, be sure to check the following list as you write your 
grant:

http://teacher.scholastic.com/professional/grants/WinningProposals.htm

In this series we've presented a broad range of Web-based 
resources on grant writing, but of course there are also many 
good old-fashioned books on the subject. Here are just a few that 
may be of interest to educators.

>From Corwin Press:

SIMPLIFIED GRANTWRITING
THE FIRST-TIME GRANTWRITER'S GUIDE TO SUCCESS
FINDING FUNDING: Grantwriting From Start to Finish, Including 
Project Management and Internet Use
THE GRANTWRITER'S INTERNET COMPANION: A Resource for Educators 
and Others Seeking Grants and Funding

>From Jossey-Bass:

THE TEACHER'S GUIDE TO WINNING GRANTS
THE PRINCIPAL'S GUIDE TO WINNING GRANTS
WINNING GRANTS: Step by Step
DEMYSTIFYING GRANT SEEKING: What You REALLY Need to Do to Get 
Grants
GETTING SCIENCE GRANTS: Effective Strategies for Funding Success
SUCCESSFUL GRANTS PROGRAM MANAGEMENT
HOW TO WRITE A GRANT PROPOSAL (E-Book)

>From Allyn & Bacon:

HOW TO GET GRANTS AND GIFTS FOR THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
http://www.ablongman.com/catalog/academic/product/0,4096,0205308872,00.html

And the list would not be complete without mentioning

GRANT WRITING FOR DUMMIES
http://www.dummies.com/WileyCDA/DummiesTitle/productCd-0764584162.html

Note that you can access the entire "Getting Grants" series from 
the following page on the Stenhouse Web site:

http://www.stenhouse.com/pdgrants.asp

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