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Stenhouse Newslinks
May 25, 2006

C O N T E N T S

1) More uncommon sense for teaching ELLs
2) Zooming in and out of contexts to teach grammar
3) Get ready for summer reading
4) Schools to Watch

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1) More uncommon sense for teaching ELLs
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What works when teaching writing to English language learners? 
Juli Kendall and Outey Khuon have collaborated for more than 
fifteen years in helping ELL students improve their writing. Their 
new book, Writing Sense, presents a series of small-group lessons 
for both younger and older ELLs at each stage of language 
proficiency.

Structured the same way as in their previous book, Making Sense, 
the lessons in Writing Sense focus on strategies used by 
proficient writers: using schema, asking questions, visualizing, 
inferring, determining importance, synthesizing, fix-up 
strategies, and monitoring meaning and comprehension.

Writing Sense is now available in print and you can also browse 
the entire text online:

http://www.stenhouse.com/0442.asp?r=n90

Writing Sense: Integrated Reading and Writing Lessons for English 
Language Learners * Juli Kendall and Outey Khuon
222 pp/paper * $20.00
http://www.stenhouse.com/0442.asp?r=n90

Several of the lessons in Writing Sense can be integrated with 
lessons in Making Sense--they call on the same text or related 
texts for teaching strategies in reading and writing (see the 
Appendix of Writing Sense for details).

For more on Making Sense, including Chapter 1 with advice on 
creating the right classroom conditions, snapshots of students at 
each proficiency level, tips on assessment, and book selection 
strategies, follow this link:

http://www.stenhouse.com/0409.asp?r=n90

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2) Zooming in and out of contexts to teach grammar
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"If I facilitate experiences for student writers, zooming in on 
important patterns and applying those with scaffolds of support, 
they will see grammar as a creational facility rather than a 
correctional one."

In the May issue of NCTE's English Journal, Jeff Anderson 
describes how he uses various contexts--from whole texts to 
sentences and words--to teach grammar. "Zooming In and Zooming 
Out: Putting Grammar in Context into Context" features a lesson on 
verb tense and subject-verb agreement, and illustrates how Jeff's 
teaching ties to key components of effective instruction:

http://www.stenhouse.com/pdfs/EJ0955Zoom.pdf
Copyright 2006 by the National Council of Teachers of English.
Reprinted with permission.

Jeff is the author of Mechanically Inclined: Building Grammar, 
Usage, and Style into Writer's Workshop. You can read Chapter 1 
here:

http://www.stenhouse.com/0412.asp?r=n90

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3) Get ready for summer reading
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For an excellent starting point in your quest for student summer 
reading resources, check out the Summer Reading page at the 
Reading Rockets website. It offers a collection of articles on 
summer reading and summer learning loss, and several book lists:

http://www.readingrockets.org/xarpages/calendar/summer

The June 21 entry of the ReadWriteThink Calendar provides several 
activity and lesson suggestions, and links to more summer reading 
lists:

http://www.readwritethink.org/calendar/calendar_day.asp?id=656

The Children's Book Council recently published its "Summer Reading 
Extravaganza" book list for 2006, with separate sections for 
picture books and younger readers, middle readers, young adult, 
and graphic novels:

http://www.cbcbooks.org/cbcmagazine/showcase/summer2006.html

"Must our youth visit bookstores with their heart full of 
unnecessary dread? Can revising middle and high school summer 
reading assignments help reduce the declining level of active 
readership among young people?"

Read the rest of this opinion piece by Sarah Pishko, bookstore 
owner and member of the American Booksellers Association:

http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/printDS/126789

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4) Schools to Watch
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What makes a middle-grades school great? The National Forum to 
Accelerate Middle-Grades Reform identified key traits of high-
performing schools: they are academically excellent, 
developmentally responsive, socially equitable, and establish 
norms and organizational structures to sustain their performance.

The Forum conducted a nationwide search for model schools that 
exhibited these traits, and selected four schools as "Schools to 
Watch" in 1999. Since 2002, new Schools to Watch have been 
identified through the Forum's state program. Visit the 
initiative's website for in-depth case studies of the four 
national Schools to Watch and links to 86 state Schools to Watch--
a refreshing alternative to those "other" lists of schools that 
make the headlines annually:

http://www.schoolstowatch.org/what.htm



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