Analyze, argue, compare/contrast, describe, determine, develop, evaluate, explain, imagine, integrate, interpret, organize, summarize, support, and transform . . .
Can a mere fifteen words turn today’s youth into the innovative, ambitious thinkers we need? Yes, contend Jim Burke and Barry Gilmore, coauthors of Academic Moves for College and Career Readiness, because these are the moves that make the mind work and students must learn if they’re to achieve academically. It’s that simple.
Or is it? To arrive at these fifteen critical reading, writing, and thinking processes, Jim and Barry combed through the standards, research, and secondary curriculum—and that’s for starters. Then, for each of these powerhouse processes, they developed a lesson structure, assignments, and activities so you can teach with potency, right away, and immediately cultivate in students discipline-specific habits of mind.
Here’s the best part yet: Jim and Barry distill each intellectual process into a potent concision that nevertheless spans subject areas:
- Before, during, and after sections offer essential questions, lesson ideas, and activities to assist you in instruction.
- Two sample student pieces illustrate not only what to look for but the process for getting there.
- Culminating tasks include producing an analytic essay, visual text, argument, narrative and informational writing, poetry, descriptive science writing, and explanatory writing in math.
- Every chapter has a correlation chart to Webb’s Depth of Knowledge to deepen understanding and a reproducible rubric to aid in assessment.
At the end of the day, what we want is for our students to know how to think at high levels in any discipline in school or any arena in life. In Academic Moves for College and Career Readiness, Jim and Barry translate these processes into remarkable instructional protocols. Use the book and you’ll know for yourself what a revolution they’ve created.
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Author Bio
Jim Burke is a teacher with over twenty years of experience, an author of numerous bestselling titles, founder of the English Companion Ning, and a member of several national committees related to adolescent literacy and standards. Through his work in the class and on such commissions, he seeks to reimagine what English should be, honoring the past even as he works with others to create the future of the discipline.
Barry Gilmore is the Middle School Head at Hutchison School in Memphis, Tennessee. A National Board Certified Teacher, he taught English and social studies for nearly twenty years. Awards for his teaching have come from NCTE, TCTE, the U.S. Department of Education, and the Tennessee Holocaust Commission.