This book investigates how texts work to achieve their purposes. Venturing into structure and language features of various genres, the book aims to find useful ways of talking about language in the classroom and to use these shared understandings in the construction of effective texts.This book investigates how texts work to achieve their purposes. Venturing into structure and language features of various genres, the book aims to find useful ways of talking about language in the classroom and to use these shared understandings in the construction of effective texts.

This guide for teachers describes strategies for helping children in grades K-8 to become comfortable with and get the most out of nonfiction texts. Written by teachers and teacher educators, 25 contributions discuss such topics as the use of informational texts in daily instruction and the role that features such as captions and headings play in learner understanding. A number of guided reading and writing exercises also are presented.

In this book Vernon K. Robbins provides an accessible introduction to socio-rhetorical criticism, illustrating the method by guiding the reader through the study of specific New Testament texts and stories. An opening chapter outlines this new approach and its focus on values, convictions, and beliefs both in the text we read and in the world in which we live. Then follow studies and exercises dealing with specific textural features: inner texture, intertexture, social and cultural texture, ideological texture, and sacred texture.

An interactive, multimedia text that introduces students to reading and writing at the college level.

There is a big difference between assigning complex texts and teaching complex texts No matter what discipline you teach, learn how to use complexity as a dynamic, powerful tool for sliding the right text in front of your students’ at just the right time. Updates to this new edition include How-to’s for measuring countable features of any written work A rubric for analyzing the complexity of both literary and informational texts Classroom scenarios that show the difference between a healthy struggle and frustration The authors’ latest thinking on teacher modeling, close reading, scaffolded small group reading, and independent reading

Selected as an Outstanding Academic Title by Choice Magazine, January 2010 Classroom talk, by which children make sense of what their peers and teachers mean, is the most important educational tool for guiding the development of understanding and for jointly constructing knowledge. So what practical steps can teachers take to develop effective classroom interaction? Bringing together leading international researchers and drawing on the pioneering work of Douglas Barnes, this book considers ways of improving classroom talk. Chapters cover: - classroom communication and managing social relations; - talk in science classrooms; - using critical conversations in studying literature; - exploratory talk and thinking skills; - talking to learn and learning to talk in the mathematics classroom; - the ′emerging pedagogy′ of the spoken word. With an accessible blend of theory, research and practice, the book will be a valuable resource for teachers, teacher-trainers, policy makers, researchers and students.

This textbook provides an innovative introduction to core areas of grammar: a systematic guide to the structure of English, arranged hierarchically from the word to the sentence to the paragraph level. Using a linguistic framework, activities and exercises, and diverse authentic texts, the book connects grammar knowledge to writing development, strengthening student understanding of language as a tool for text construction. Students of linguistics and English language will develop foundational knowledge about grammar and texts, as will writing students. Aligning with state curricular standards around the world, the book will be particularly useful for students of English Education.