Reading & Writing Together: Collaborative Literacy in Action

Rating:
Summary: Teach them to work together and they will
Review: I stumbled across Nancy's book very close to the beginnning of the new school year and boy has it caused me nothing but sleepless nights! Sleepless because I have spent late nights creating new handouts, student guides, and materials. In addition, student work of high quality takes much longer to score.

Nancy's approach is very refreshing. I do not consider myself a "gifted" teacher but more of a "grunt;" I do not have a master degree in literature, but I feel I can help my students to learn through my sheer tenacity. Nancy shows how it can be done. Rather than focus on exemplary work by students, she shows the reader how she has adapted collaborative learning into her classroom and even goes so far as to include actual mistakes she has made. That was very comforting for someone who is always trying to "get it right;" sometimes it'll blow up in your face.

For those of you who need all of the theory to find validity in "teacher" book findings, Nancy takes the time to show how Johnson and Johnson's collaborative learning theories apply to specific activities she has developed.

I am amazed by what my students are able to do (the opportunity to shine made possible by new approaches presented in Nancy's book)! They read weekly and write more than I have ever been able to expect of them. This, combined with new 6 Traits writing activities I have developed myself, have my "regular" senior English students operating at a high level.

You will not be disappointed in this book. Like me, you can get some elements up and running on just a few days notice and then work the rest of the year to continue to add more features. Soon you will have an active learning classroom where students are having fun and demonstrating newfound knowledge in ways you never thought possible.

Rating:
Summary: Teach them to work together and they will
Review: I stumbled across Nancy's book very close to the beginnning of the new school year and boy has it caused me nothing but sleepless nights! Sleepless because I have spent late nights creating new handouts, student guides, and materials. In addition, student work of high quality takes much longer to score.

Nancy's approach is very refreshing. I do not consider myself a "gifted" teacher but more of a "grunt;" I do not have a master degree in literature, but I feel I can help my students to learn through my sheer tenacity. Nancy shows how it can be done. Rather than focus on exemplary work by students, she shows the reader how she has adapted collaborative learning into her classroom and even goes so far as to include actual mistakes she has made. That was very comforting for someone who is always trying to "get it right;" sometimes it'll blow up in your face.

For those of you who need all of the theory to find validity in "teacher" book findings, Nancy takes the time to show how Johnson and Johnson's collaborative learning theories apply to specific activities she has developed.

I am amazed by what my students are able to do (the opportunity to shine made possible by new approaches presented in Nancy's book)! They read weekly and write more than I have ever been able to expect of them. This, combined with new 6 Traits writing activities I have developed myself, have my "regular" senior English students operating at a high level.

You will not be disappointed in this book. Like me, you can get some elements up and running on just a few days notice and then work the rest of the year to continue to add more features. Soon you will have an active learning classroom where students are having fun and demonstrating newfound knowledge in ways you never thought possible.

Rating:
Summary: Oh please...
Review: I was a student in Mrs. Steineke's class while she was writing/having the book published. Although her heart was in the right place in trying to help us all learn, I knew very few people who could stand her system. I personally felt like I was back in first grade. Although this system helped me to somewhat organize my thoughts, it was so rigid that it allowed very little of my own ways of doing things into the system. It also made me focus more on the actual guidelines of discussion rather than the material we were supposed to be covering. It really all comes down to value, do you value understanding of the material, or understanding of guidelines to discussion?

Rating:
Summary: Unlocking the secrets of classroom management
Review: Lets face it, as teachers we know that even highly motivated students rarely know how to work together. In fact, my observation after several years of teaching is that many "gifted" students prefer to work alone rather than in groups. Nancy's book is amazing because it gives you the specific step-by-step building blocks to teach the specific skill of group interaction. Drawing on and enhancing the standard cooperative learning model, Nancy brings it to life with examples that I can use in my own classroom.

At first I was skeptical since it seemed as if too much emphasis was placed on teaching the skills as opposed to teaching the required content. As teachers we always seem to worry about covering the material and by the end of the year we tend to rush through all of it to make sure that "we've done our job". Sadly, the quality of what we teach oft times takes a back seat to the quantity of what we teach. Was I surprised last May when I not only saw my students working closely together and supporting each other, but they actually enjoyed each other's input and in-turn produced higher quality work as a group than few would ever be able to produce on their own. At the end of this last school year I looked back on my notes from the prior year and discovered that we actually covered more material than we had previously using "traditional" methods. I really can't ask for more from a "teacher" book. The methods in this book really do work and as a bonus, the students actually get a lot more out of it. As the students are more engaged there are also fewer discipline problems - bonus #2. All I can say is believe in the method - it works!

The enduring lessons the students learn is one that they probably won't even realize until many years down the road. Hopefully, when they are at their jobs working within a small group of coworkers, they will remember the lessons learned in my classroom and use the skills learned to ask the right questions, not monopolize conversations and to value everyone's contribution.