May Book Stack: Writing and Critical Thinking
Cultivating Curiosity: Teaching and Learning Reimagined by Doreen Gehry Nelson (2022)
Cultivating Curiosity outlines The Doreen Nelson Method of Design-Based Learning which is a K-12 backwards design strategy of structuring learning experiences using 6 1/2 Steps of Backward Thinking. The method may be most effective if implemented system-wide or if an entire department has buy-in. Teaching and learning are most effective when there are partnerships, but it can’t always happen that way and ultimately, teachers must find a way to thrive in their classroom regardless of circumstances whether that is rethinking how they view teaching and learning or how what and how they teach.
The Writing Revolution: A Guide to Advancing Thinking Through Writing in All Subjects and Grades by Judith C. Hochman and Natalie Wexler (2017)
This text is a workbook for teachers on how to teach writing skills for students in grades K-12. It begins with the most elementary written component: the sentence. It advances to multiple paragraph compositions. It includes an index of supplemental handouts that teachers would be able to copy and go. This book is ideal for the novice teacher, the non-ELA teacher, or the non-credentialed teacher. It would equip the novice teacher or writing student with a rudimentary understanding of how to write compositions to pass state exams. It’s worth mentioning some of the basic principles in the book that we often forget about include pointing out the problem that teachers assign writing but rarely teach writing, and writing instruction should occur in context.
Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom by John C. Bean and Dan Melzer (2021)
Engaging Ideas is written for the college writing instructor. The line between high school and college is blurring with more students taking college writing classes while still in high school. Often these courses are taught by high school teachers. Engaging Ideas is thorough and certainly a high school writing instructor can glean strategies from this text, but it doesn’t address the issue of teacher morale or how to reinvent writing instruction for those non-college bound students.
