Less Is More

Teaching Literature with Short Texts, Grades 6-12

Kimberly Hill Campbell
Year: 2007
Media: 232 pp/paper
ISBN: 978-157110-710-7
Grade Range: 6-12

Tracking Code: WEB0710
Foreword by Leila Christenbury

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Table of Contents | Reviews | About the Author | Related Titles

This title is also available in e-book format

Less Is More is full of powerful ideas for teaching with short, provocative text. This book broadens and extends our available teaching tools and materials, and can help engage all students. It is a valuable resource for language arts teachers.
—Cris Tovani

Language arts teachers want all of their students to love literature and embrace the novels they assign. The classroom reality is that many students are not ready or motivated to immerse themselves in an entire novel. In order to reach and engage all students, teachers need to look beyond novels alone and embrace a richer variety of literature.

In Less Is More Kimberly Hill Campbell draws on research as well as her own classroom experiences to show how short texts engage a wide range of middle and high school students. She shares her discovery of the power of short texts to support her students' skills as readers, writers, and students of literature.

Kimberly shows how short texts can be integrated into the curriculum, without sacrificing required novels. Chapters examine different genres of short text, such as short stories, essays, memoir, and graphic novels. Each chapter provides reading, writing, and response strategies as well as a broad selection of short text resources that have proven effective with a wide range of students.

Contents
Foreword by Leila Christenbury
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: Teaching Literature with Short Texts
Chapter 2: Structures and Strategies That Support the Teaching of Short Texts
Chapter 3: Short Stories
Chapter 4: Essays
Chapter 5: Memoir
Chapter 6: Poetry
Chapter 7: Children's Literature and Picture Books
Chapter 8: Graphic Novels
Index

Reviews

"Less Is More offers an innovative change for those teachers who still vehemently believe that real literature can only be taught through the study of novels. After two introductory chapters on the art of teaching with short texts, Campbell divides the remaining chapters by literary genre -- short stories, essays, memoir, poetry, children's literature and picture books, and graphic novels -- and offers varied instructional strategies that correlate with each genre."
Teacher Leader Network, February 2008
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"Campbell writes a teacher-friendly book in that she explains how she would teach in narrative form, describing specific examples from her own classroom experiences; this is especially effective for novice teachers and/or for teachers getting used to the idea of using short texts."
Education Book Reviews, April 2008

About the Author

Kimberly Hill Campbell had a bit of a bumpy start as a beginning teacher. She taught language arts at Estacada Junior High School from 1979 until 1982."Then I became the statistic: a beginning teacher who left the profession."
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