This volume examines how oral and written language function in school learning , and how oral texts can be successfully inter-connected to the written texts that are used on a daily basis in schools. Rather than argue for the prominence of one over the other, the goal is to help the reader gain a rich understanding of how both might work together to create a new discourse that ultimately creates new knowledge. Talking Texts: Provides historical background for the study of talk and text Presents examples of children’s and adolescents’ natural conversations as analyzed by linguists Addresses talk as it interfaces with domains of knowledge taught in schools to show how talk is related to and may be influenced by the structure, language, and activities of a specific discipline. Bringing together seminal lines of research to create a cohesive picture of discourse issues germane to classrooms and other learning settings, this volume is an essential resource for researchers, graduate students, classroom teachers, and curriculum specialists across the fields of discourse studies, literacy and English education, composition studies, language development, sociolinguistics, and applied linguistics.

Talking Texts is a guide for teachers to the steps and strategies of implementing text clubs in many forms— fiction and nonfiction book clubs, textbook clubs, article clubs, and even poetry clubs—in the classroom. All strategies presented are applicable to any discipline so that text clubs can be employed across the curriculum in any grade level.

Tough Talk, Tough Texts is a catalyst for reminding all of us who work with young people about the danger of throwing away the lifeblood of our students' interior worlds and our own dreams of changing the world for the better.... Tough Talk, Tough Texts insists that we offer students books that are not simply larger, bulkier Hallmark cards but that instead challenge them to consider difficult issues, pushing them to think deeply and grow. Jimmy Santiago Baca Strategic reading, critical examination, and civil discourse aren't just for college preparedness-they are life skills. In Tough Talk, Tough Texts Cindy O'Donnell-Allen shares small-group instruction whose goal is to give kids the ability not merely to succeed academically, but to change their world. This isn't impractical idealism. Cindy shows step-by-step how to leverage challenging texts on challenging issues to maximize engagement and increase students' agency in reading and in life. Best of all, she shares all the know-how and nitty-gritty you'll need: scaffolds for whole-class and small-group discussions methods for grouping students, setting norms, and using response tools strategies that sustain independent discussions and document them multiple techniques for summative assessment reproducible resources such as handouts, assignment sheets, and scoring guides. Tough Talk, Tough Texts is about helping students grow as readers as they use texts to answer the big questions about themselves, their peers, and their world. "With careful preparation," writes Cindy O'Donnell-Allen, "students can learn to pose and discuss such questions, to listen and respond with empathy, and to implement strategies that will allow them to become more critical and strategic readers, writers, and thinkers."

Reading for pleasure urgently requires a higher profile to raise attainment and increase children’s engagement as self-motivated and socially interactive readers. Building Communities of Engaged Readers highlights the concept of ‘Reading Teachers’ who are not only knowledgeable about texts for children, but are aware of their own reading identities and prepared to share their enthusiasm and understanding of what being a reader means. Sharing the processes of reading with young readers is an innovative approach to developing new generations of readers. Examining the interplay between the ‘will and the skill’ to read, the book distinctively details a reading for pleasure pedagogy and demonstrates that reader engagement is strongly influenced by relationships between children, teachers, families and communities. Importantly it provides compelling evidence that reciprocal reading communities in school encompass: a shared concept of what it means to be a reader in the 21st century; considerable teacher and child knowledge of children’s literature and other texts; pedagogic practices which acknowledge and develop diverse reader identities; spontaneous ‘inside-text talk’ on the part of all members; a shift in the focus of control and new social spaces that encourage choice and children’s rights as readers. Written by experts in the literacy field and illustrated throughout with examples from the project schools, it is essential reading for all those concerned with improving young people’s enjoyment of and attainment in reading.

Dialogic Readers: Children talking and thinking together about visual texts celebrates the sophisticated and dynamic discussions that primary-aged children can have as they talk together to make meaning from a variety of texts, and it highlights the potential for talk between readers as a tool for critical and creative thinking. It proposes a new dialogic theory of reading comprehension that incorporates multi-modal media and adds further weight to the argument that talk as a tool for learning should form a central part of primary classroom learning and teaching. The book explores: • the language of co-construction • children’s critical and creative responses to text • the dialogic transaction between text and readers • the use of language as a tool for creating a social cohesion between readers. This significant work is aimed at educational lecturers, researchers and students who want to explore an expanded notion of reading comprehension in the twenty-first century, realizing how opportunities for children thinking creatively together might transform the potential for learning in the classroom. It provides a framework for analyzing co-constructive talk with suggestions for promoting children’s critical and creative thinking.

This book explores the crucial role of text selection, close reading, task construction, classroom discussion, and collaboration in aligning instruction with the CCSS (Common Core State Standards).

Help students comprehend text through purposeful dialogue. The best way to understand text is to think and talk about it. This professional guide defines what purposeful talk is, why it is important, and how it increases comprehension. Students will be e.