Engaging in the Language Arts: Exploring the Power of Language, 2nd edition

·         Includes and carefully explains classroom-based assessments for all areas of language arts development, giving teachers a solid handle on how to determine what their students are able to do and how they respond to instruction.

·         The book helps teachers integrate all of the language arts into their teaching.

·         The focus on visual literacy helps teachers develop a language for talking about visual forms of communication by both analyzing visuals and by helping students create their own.

The book’s rich pedagogy makes understanding and then incorporating the concepts in the classroom much simpler. Included are:

·         Classroom Challenge. Chapters open with a narrative vignette that shares a language arts teacher’s experience in an active classroom. Each vignette models key concepts and demonstrates the challenges of today’s classrooms and considerations for addressing the needs of diverse students.

·         Questions for Reflection. Students are asked to reflect on their knowledge of the subject matter before reading and to connect their experiences to those within the chapter-opening Classroom Challenge.

·         Focus Questions. Each chapter begins with a series of key questions that guide students’ reading of the chapter and outline important topics.

·         Anticipating the Chapter sections are expanded and prominently displayed in an opening spread to help provide structure for the chapter.

·         Revisit the Classroom Challenge. Each chapter concludes with a return to the chapter opening Classroom Challenge section that encourages students to monitor their learning of key concepts in relation to the development of the teacher and student scenarios.

·         Chapter Review. Each chapter closes with a review section that is presented in a question and answer format so that students can revisit chapter materials and assess their understanding of key topics.

The text include feature boxes that appear in each chapter, which enhance student understanding and include:

·         Engaging in Visual Literacy shows how to incorporate viewing with lessons in reading and writing. This feature provides examples and ideas for reading visual images, developing strategies for interpreting visual information, drawing and visualizing, and connecting visual and narrative information.

·         Engaging in Oral Language gives ideas for in-class activities, assessments, and lessons that connect students’ use of oral language with the other language arts.

·         Exploring Children’s Literature features are a resource for teachers, providing an annotated list of materials to use in the classroom, organized by theme and also by grade level. These features include books, journals, newsletters, magazines, Manga, dictionaries, and web-based resources for classroom teachers.

·         Exploring Diversity gives readers examples of how to consider factors of diversity, differentiate classroom activities, and help students access their language strengths as they relate to academic instruction and management.

·         Engaging in Assessment illustrates practical applications or brief “case studies” that build on and enhance each chapter’s coverage of assessment.

·         Exploring Technology provides readers with information about assistive and instructional technologies that can be employed with all students.

·         NEW! Key Teaching Strategy with rubrics appears in all of the instructional chapters and present an effective language arts strategy that can be used in the classroom with a corresponding rubric to help teachers evaluate their own success in teaching with the strategies. Examples include Language Experience, DR-TA, K-W-L, Shared Writing, and more.

·         NEW! Discussions of Response to Intervention (RtI) and applications of RtI throughout the instructional chapters and in introduction to RtI in the introductory section.

·         NEW! The new common core standards being implemented across the US are included so that students will be able to know and use the standards in all of the language arts.

·         NEW! The newly revised NCTE/IRA standards are included and referenced throughout the book.

·         NEW! Sections on Children Who Struggle are included in all instructional chapters, providing clear guidelines for teaching these students effectively.

·         NEW! Exploring Technology boxes are included within the instructional chapters, making them accessible for teachers.

·         NEW! Marginal A+RISE® Teaching Strategies align with relevant concepts in the main body of the text and give teachers in grades K-12 quick, research-based strategies to get to the “how” of targeting their instruction and making content accessible for all students, including English language learners.