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Bestseller!

The Best-Kept Teaching Secret

How Written Conversations Engage Kids, Activate Learning, Grow Fluent Writers . . . K-12

By: Harvey "Smokey" A. Daniels, Elaine Daniels

 "Written in a light conversational style, The Best-Kept Teaching Secret brims with jottings written by children and with an armful of ways you can use letter writing to revitalize your teaching. Readers who have come to trust Smokey's grounding in classrooms will find that once again, he draws upon a rich repertoire of stories and methods drawn from the hurly burl of classrooms."
-Lucy Calkins, Author of Units of Study for Teaching Writing and Coauthor of Pathways to the Common Core

Your fast-track to student engagement
Everywhere Smokey Daniels speaks, there’s one teaching strategy that teachers embrace above all others. That single method for transforming students from passive spectators into active learners . . . for evoking curiosity, inspiring critical thinking, and building powerful writers along the way. Now, that best-kept teaching secret is revealed: Written Conversations. Smokey and coauthor Elaine Daniels describe how to leverage these “silent writing-to-learn discussions” structure by  structure 

  • Mini-memos
  • Dialogue journals
  • Write-arounds
  • Digital discussions

 
. . . with detailed descriptions, lessons, and annotated student samples—making this the most practical teaching book in recent memory.

The author or coauthor of 18 books for teachers, Harvey Daniels, also known as “Smokey,” has been a professor, researcher, consultant, and teacher coach over his 43-year career. These days, he serves as a conference speaker, school district consultant, and demonstration teacher in schools around the U.S. and Canada. In 2012, Smokey was presented with the NCTE  Exemplary Leader Award.

Elaine Daniels began as a high school English teacher at Lake Forest High School, where it was rumored that her former teacher advisor and fellow staff member, Smokey Daniels, gave her a positive recommendation. After 14 years at National-Louis University, Elaine now teaches at Santa Fe Community College. This is her first professional collaboration, with Smokey, already a pretty great partner.






Everywhere Smokey Daniels speaks, there’s one teaching strategy that teachers embrace above all others. Now, that single method for transforming students from passive spectators into active learners is revealed.

Product Details
  • Grade Level: PreK-12
  • ISBN: 9781452268637
  • Published By: Corwin
  • Series: Corwin Literacy
  • Year: 2013
  • Page Count: 248
  • Publication date: October 11, 2013

Price: $32.95

Price: $32.95
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Description

Description

Your fast-track to student engagement
Everywhere Smokey Daniels goes—every school he visits, every workshop he leads, every keynote he gives—there’s one teaching strategy that teachers embrace above all others. That single method for transforming students from passive spectators into active learners . . . for evoking curiosity, inspiring critical thinking, and building powerful writers along the way.

Now, with Elaine Daniels as Smokey’s coauthor, that best-kept teaching secret is revealed to teachers at large: Written Conversations.

Just what make Written Conversations so potent? An ongoing, thoughtful correspondence between students, and between students and their teachers, Written Conversations, above all else, catch and ride the wave of social interaction, which in turn makes school matter to kids. It’s that simple. Structure by structure, from beginning to end, Smokey and Elaine describe four variations of these “silent writing-to-learn discussions,” during which all students in a classroom think and “talk” at once in writing, instead of one at a time out loud.

How Written Conversations Work

  1. It all starts with mini-memos, short student letters that teachers use to introduce, extend, and assess class work.
  2. Then come dialogue journals, where pairs dive deeply into academic subjects.
  3. Next, groups of three or four students join in extended written discussions called write-arounds.
  4. Finally, kids take their thinking online, where they enjoy digital discussions with partners from their own classroom—and with kids from around the world.

. . . all the while, you are supported by detailed descriptions of each structure, lessons, and annotated student samples—making this the most practical teaching book in recent memory.

What kid wouldn’t want to refine written argument skills, clarify a point, or defend another’s viewpoint, when the “audience” is people who matter? And Yes, Written Conversations align with the Common Core Standards for writing, reading, language, and speaking and listening, taking students well beyond the standards themselves.

See Smokey reveal his best-kept secret to Ellin Keene.
Author(s)

Author(s)

Harvey "Smokey" A. Daniels photo

Harvey "Smokey" A. Daniels

The author or coauthor of 18 books for teachers, Harvey Daniels, also known as “Smokey,” has been a professor, researcher, consultant, and teacher coach over his 43-year career. These days, he serves as a conference speaker, school district consultant, and demonstration teacher in schools around the U.S. and Canada. In 2012, Smokey was presented with the NCTE Exemplary Leader Award.


See Smokey reveal his best-kept secret to Ellin Keene.
Elaine Daniels photo

Elaine Daniels

Elaine Daniels has been a reading and writing teacher and teacher literacy educator throughout her career. A former high school English teacher, she graduated to teaching in college and graduate programs, first at National-Louis University in the Master of Arts in Teaching program, then at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, where she taught literacy education courses. Elaine now teaches in the Developmental Reading and Writing Programs at Santa Fe Community College, where her students teach her new ideas, old ways of being, and places on the map she’s never heard of.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments


Chapter 1. Letters Leverage Learning

     A New Old Idea

     Those Letters Are Cute, But . . .

     Kid-to-Kid Letters About the Curriculum

     Meeting the Common Core State Standards With Letters

     Engagement, Best Practice, and Written Conversations

     How the Book Is Organized

     Let the Student Samples Teach You

Chapter 2. A Community of Correspondents

     We've Got Mail

     Back-to-School Letters

     Parent and Kid Letters

     Message Boards

     Classroom Stationery

     Shields

     Topic Journals

     Classroom and School Mail Systems

     Teacher-Student Friendly Letters

     Student-Student Friendly Letters

     Kid-to-Kid Friendly Letters

     Multi-Age Friendly Letters

INTERCHAPTER: Prompts and Stems for Written Conversations

Chapter 3. Mini Memos

     Definition

     Variations

     Origins

     Quick Look: Exit Notes

     Launching Lesson: Admit Notes

     Morning Message

     General Instructions for Mini Memos

     Start-Up Notes

     Admit Notes

     Writing Breaks

     Exit Notes

INTERCHAPTER: Is There Time for This?

Chapter 4. Dialogue Journals

     Definition

     Variations

     Origins

     Quick Look

     Launching Lesson

     General Instructions for "Live" Dialogue Journals

     Adjustments for "Takeaway" Dialogue Journals

     Teacher-Student Dialogues

     Student-Student Dialogues

     Dialogue Journals Across the Curriculum

     Feedback Loops

     Teacher Response to Student Writing

     Multi-Age Dialogue Journals

     Management Tips for Dialogue Journals

INTERCHAPTER: The Assessment of Written Conversations

Chapter 5. Write-Arounds

     Definition

     Variations

     Origins

     Quick Look

     Launching Lesson

     Drawn Conversations

     General Instructions for a Write-Around

     Silent Literature Circles

     Content-Area Write-Arounds

     Text on Text

     Management Tips for Write-Arounds

Chapter 6. Digital Discussions

     Definition

     Variations

     Origins

     Quick Look: Texted Discussions

     Launching Lesson: Photo Journals

     General Instructions for Digital Discussions

     Lab Letters

     Blogs

     Online Partnerships

     Email and Farewell

     Management Tips for Digital Discussions

Works Cited


Index


Reviews

Reviews