This popular text articulates a powerful theory of critical literacy—in all its complexity. Critical literacy practices encourage students to use language to question the everyday world, interrogate the relationship between language and power, analyze popular culture and media, understand how power relationships are socially constructed, and consider actions that can be taken to promote social justice. By providing both a model for critical literacy instruction and many examples of how critical practices can be enacted in daily school life in elementary and middle school classrooms, Creating Critical Classrooms meets a huge need for a practical, theoretically based text on this topic. Pedagogical features in each chapter • Teacher-researcher Vignette • Theories that Inform Practice • Critical Literacy Chart • Thought Piece • Invitations for Disruption • Lingering Questions New in the Second Edition • End-of-chapter "Voices from the Field" • More upper elementary-grade examples • New text sets drawn from "Classroom Resources" • Streamlined, restructured, revised, and updated throughout • Expanded Companion Website now includes annotated Classroom Resources; Text Sets; Resources by Chapter; Invitations for Students; Literacy Strategies; Additional Resources

This popular text articulates a powerful theory of critical literacy—in all its complexity. Critical literacy practices encourage students to use language to question the everyday world, interrogate the relationship between language and power, analyze popular culture and media, understand how power relationships are socially constructed, and consider actions that can be taken to promote social justice. By providing both a model for critical literacy instruction and many examples of how critical practices can be enacted in daily school life in elementary and middle school classrooms, Creating Critical Classrooms meets a huge need for a practical, theoretically based text on this topic. Pedagogical features in each chapter • Teacher-researcher Vignette • Theories that Inform Practice • Critical Literacy Chart • Thought Piece • Invitations for Disruption • Lingering Questions New in the Second Edition • End-of-chapter "Voices from the Field" • More upper elementary-grade examples • New text sets drawn from "Classroom Resources" • Streamlined, restructured, revised, and updated throughout • Expanded Companion Website now includes annotated Classroom Resources; Text Sets; Resources by Chapter; Invitations for Students; Literacy Strategies; Additional Resources

"Getting Beyond "I Like the Book": Creating Space for Critical Literacy in k-6 Classrooms" (second edition) draws you into life in classrooms where students and teachers together use critical literacy as a framework for taking on local and global issues like racism and gender using books and everyday texts such as school posters and advertisements. This expanded second edition includes the following features: (1) Two additional content areas chapters--science and social studies--to emphasize that critical literacy is not just a part of the literacy curriculum; (2) a new chapter on new technologies such as websites, videos, and podcasts and their impact on critical literacy; and (3) a fresh focus interspersed throughout the book on multimedia literacy and using multimedia text sets. In addition, reflection questions at the end of each chapter can help you connect the ideas in this book with your experiences.

This book introduces Critical Language Awareness (CLA) Pedagogy as a robust and research-grounded framework to engage and support students in critical examinations of language, identity, privilege and power. Starting with an accessible introduction to CLA, chapters cover key topics—including World Englishes, linguistic prejudice, news media literacy, inclusive language practices, and more—in an inviting and thought-provoking way to promote reflection and analysis. Part I provides an overview of the foundations of CLA pedagogy, while Part II highlights four instructional pathways for CLA pedagogy: Sociolinguistics, Critical Academic Literacies, Media/Discourse Analysis, and Communicating Across Difference. Each pathways chapter is structured around Essential Questions and Transferrable Skills, and includes three thematic learning sequences. Part III offers tools and guidance for tailoring CLA pedagogy to the reader’s own teaching context and to students’ individual needs. The volume’s wealth of resources and activities are a pedagogical toolkit for supporting and embracing linguistic diversity in the classroom. The cohesive framework, concrete strategies, engaging activities, and guiding questions in this volume allow readers to come away with not only a deeper understanding of CLA, but also a clear roadmap for implementing CLA pedagogy in the classroom. Synthesizing relevant research from educational linguistics and writing studies, this book is ideal for courses in English/literacy education, college composition, L2 writing instruction, and educational linguistics.

This innovative resource describes how teachers can help students employ "literacy tools" across the curriculum to foster learning. The authors demonstrate how literacy tools such as narratives, question-asking, spoken-word poetry, drama, writing, digital communication, images, and video encourage critical inquiry in the 5-12 classroom. The book provides many examples and adaptable lessons from diverse classrooms and connects to an active Website where readers can join a growing professional community, share ideas, and get frequent updates: http://literacytooluses.pbworks.com

A thinking student is an engaged student Teachers often find it difficult to implement lessons that help students go beyond rote memorization and repetitive calculations. In fact, institutional norms and habits that permeate all classrooms can actually be enabling "non-thinking" student behavior. Sparked by observing teachers struggle to implement rich mathematics tasks to engage students in deep thinking, Peter Liljedahl has translated his 15 years of research into this practical guide on how to move toward a thinking classroom. Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics, Grades K–12 helps teachers implement 14 optimal practices for thinking that create an ideal setting for deep mathematics learning to occur. This guide Provides the what, why, and how of each practice and answers teachers’ most frequently asked questions Includes firsthand accounts of how these practices foster thinking through teacher and student interviews and student work samples Offers a plethora of macro moves, micro moves, and rich tasks to get started Organizes the 14 practices into four toolkits that can be implemented in order and built on throughout the year When combined, these unique research-based practices create the optimal conditions for learner-centered, student-owned deep mathematical thinking and learning, and have the power to transform mathematics classrooms like never before.

Being a critical reader of numerical information is an integral part of being literate in today’s data-drenched world. Uniquely addressing both mathematics and language issues, this text shows how critical readers dig beneath the surface of data to better evaluate their usefulness and to understand how numbers are constructed by authors to portray a certain version of reality. Engaging, concise, and rich with examples and clear connections to classroom practice, it provides a framework of critical questions that children and teachers can pose to crack open authors’ intentions, expose their decisions, and make clear who are the winners and losers – questions that are essential for building democratic classrooms. Explaining and illustrating how K-8 teachers can engage students in developing the ability to be both critical composers and critical readers of texts, Learning to Read the Numbers is designed for teacher education courses across the areas of language arts, mathematics, and curriculum studies, and for elementary teachers, administrators, and literacy and mathematics coaches. Learning to Read the Numbers is a co-publication of The National Council of Teachers of English (www.ncte.org) and Routledge.