Here are some new books I’d highly recommend:
Teaching the New Writing:Technology, Change, and Assessment in the 21st-Century Classroom
Kevin Hodgson, one of the people I nominated for the Edublog Awards last year, is co-editor of a new book on writing. I’ve just begun reading it (and hope to write a more extensive review). It seems really exceptional. Also, I’m regularly seeing it recommended as summer reading by others I respect.
It’s titled Teaching the New Writing:Technology, Change, and Assessment in the 21st-Century Classroom.
It’s described this way:
How has the teaching of writing changed in the 21st century? In this innovative guide, real teachers share their stories, successful practices, and vivid examples of their students’ creative and expository writing from online and multimedia projects, such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, electronic poetry, and more. The book also addresses assessment: How can teachers navigate the reductive definitions of writing in current national and statewide testing? What are teachers’ goals for their students’ learning—and how have they changed in the past 20 years? What is “the new writing”? How do digital writers revise and publish? What are the implications for the future of writing instruction?
The contributing authors are teachers from public, independent, rural, urban, and suburban schools. Whether writing instructors embrace digital literacy now or see the inevitable future ahead, this groundbreaking book (appropriate for the elementary through college level) will both instruct and inspire.
The Teacher as Assessment Leader, The Principal as Assessment Leader, & Building a Professional Learning Community at Work
Bill Ferriter, the author of one of my favorite blogs (The Tempered Radical) and a colleague in the Teacher Leaders Network, is going to be having two chapters published in some anthologies on assessment, and a new book.
Here’s how Bill describes his book:
Titled Building a Professional Learning Community at Work, our title—built from our extensive experiences working with learning teams as members, supervisors, and consultants—serves as a guide to the common pitfalls that cause professional learning communities to stumble.
We work to show readers how effective mission and vision statements can provide a solid foundation for decision-making in buildings. We detail the kinds of action steps that teams take to work through conflict and to make communication efficient. We wrestle with data, push against assumptions about leadership, and share interesting and approachable research on the nature of human organizations.
You can read his post explaining more about his pieces. I”ll post again when his book is available for ordering.
