I’ve been pretty busy on the book-writing “front,” and thought I’d post an update.

Building Parent Engagement In Schools:

Building Parent Engagement In Schools, my first book (written with Lorie Hammond), was published earlier this month. You can learn how readers of this blog can get a discount by reading this.

You can read two “previews” of the book:

One is an article I wrote for Public School Insights in April titled Parent Involvement or Parent Engagement?

The other is one I wrote for the Library Media Connection. It was published last month and is titled Family Literacy, English Language Learners, and Parent Engagement.

You can read the first review of the book at The Tempered Radical by Educational Leadership columnist Bill Ferriter.

In September, Joyce Epstein and I were guests at Education Week’s “edchat” on engaging parents. If you’re interested, you can read the chat transcript.

I was interviewed on the Parents as Partners webcast a few weeks ago, and you can read about about the conversation at Irritate or agitate – what’s your parent engagement like? You can also listen to the webcast at the EdTechTalk site.

And, of course, I have begun a blog, Engaging Parents In School, directly in support of this book.

Teaching English Language Learners: Strategies That Work:

I’m finishing up a few loose ends,  and Linworth Publishing will have the final version of the manuscript by November 15th for “Teaching English Language Learners: Strategies That Work.”  It should be published by next summer.

This book, which should be nearly twice the length of the parent engagement book, shares how I’ve implemented in the classroom much of what I learned during my community organizing career.  It will be a very practical book for teachers of ELL’s.

My Third Book:

I’ve just signed a contract to write a book on classroom management and instructional strategies that will be published in early 2011.  I’ll be sharing more about this project in the near future, and plan on experimenting with using the blog as part of an interactive process with readers to develop portions of it.