Synopses & Reviews
Language Arts: Patterns of Practice has long been a highly valued resource to pre-service teachers. Built on a solid research base, this exceptionally applied and teacher-friendly text addresses all six language arts, modeling their integration into the curriculum through authentic student artifacts, classroom vignettes, and footage of master teachers in their language arts classrooms. The seventh edition of the text, streamlined to provide a succinct, manageable model of language arts instruction, retains the rich classroom orientation, accessible writing style, and numerous features that have been the text’s hallmark, adding a sharpened focus on English Learners, deepened classroom application of the four patterns of practice, and integrated treatment of the almost limitless resources of the Teacher Prep website. These new ideas and revisions have been crafted to help you prepare for, plan for, and implement successful language arts instruction.
Preparing for the Language Arts Classroom
- New!Patterns of Practice features pinpoint the ways to use the four patterns of practice — literature circles, literature focus units, reading and writing workshop, and thematic units — with each chapter’s topic.
- Full color inserts identify the Patterns of Practice — the four instructional approaches most appropriate for integrating the six language arts. The insert details procedures and processes for using each instructional approach.
- Chapter opening vignettes describe how individual teachers use the different instructional approaches to develop language arts skills. These features set the tone for each chapter, clearly illustrating chapter concepts as they are played out in successful language arts classrooms.
Planning for the Language Arts Classroom
- New! How to Plan for Instruction features throughout the text help you prepare for teaching with three elements. First, a list of concepts, strategies, and topics help you plan meaningful minilessons. Second, a detailed minilesson example models effective instructional practice. Finally, the Teacher Prep connection leads you to one or two video clips on our Teacher Prep website that illustrate a minilesson from the topic list as it plays out in an authentic classroom.
- New!Meeting the Needs of English Learners features help prepare you for the diverse needs of today’s students with concrete advice for providing the instruction each student needs.
Tools for the Language Arts Classroom
- LA Essentials provide guidelines, lists, tools, and resources ready to take right into the classroom.
- Step by Step features provide detailed instructions for preparing and carrying out specific instructional strategies.
- Weaving Assessment into Practice features present authentic artifacts and guidelines for assessing language arts skill development.
Synopsis
Why is Language Arts: Patterns of Practice, Sixth Edition, the superior language arts text? Because it models the integration of the six language arts into the curriculum.
- Patterns of Practice highlight Literature Circles, Literature Focus Units, Reading and Writing Workshop, and Theme Cyclesthe four instructional approaches best suited to integrate the six language arts.
- Full-color inserts identify procedures and processes for using each instructional approach.
- Chapter-opening vignettes describe how individual teachers use the different instructional approaches to develop language arts skills.
Because it provides teachers with a seamless presentation of methods for developing and assessing specific skills.
- Piecing a Lesson Together features list lesson concepts, strategies, and topics to help teachers plan meaningful minilessons.
- Weaving Assessment into Practice features present authentic artifacts and guidelines for assessing language arts skill development.
- Step by Step features provide detailed instructions for preparing and carrying out specific instructional strategies.
- LA Essentials provide guidelines, lists, tools, and resources ready to take right into the classroom.
Because it grounds teaching in real, contemporary classrooms.
- Authentic student artifacts help preservice teachers learn what to expect from young readers and writers.
- Meeting the Needs of Every Student features help prepare preservice teachers for the diverse needs of today's students.
- Free CD-ROM, allowing users to interact with and analyze video footage of master teachers covering minilessons and skill development, is integrated into the text through margin notes and a colorful insert.
About the Author
Gail Tompkins I’m a teacher, first and foremost. I began my career as a first-grade teacher in Virginia in the 1970s. I remember one first grader who cried as the first day of school was ending. When I tried to comfort him, he sobbed accusingly, “I came to first grade to learn to read and write and you forgot to teach me.” The next day, I taught that child and his classmates to read and write! We made a small patterned book about one of the stuffed animals in the classroom. I wrote some of the words and the students supplied the others, and I duplicated copies of the book for each child. We practiced reading it until everyone memorized our little book. The children proudly took their books home to read to their parents. I’ve never forgotten that child’s comment and what it taught me: Teachers must understand their students and meet their expectations.
My first few years of teaching left me with more questions than answers, and I wanted to become a more effective teacher so I started taking graduate courses. In time I earned a master’s degree and then a doctorate in Reading/Language Arts, both from Virginia Tech. Through my graduate studies, I learned a lot of answers, but more importantly, I learned to keep on asking questions.
Then I began teaching at the university level. First I taught at Miami University in Ohio, then at the University of Oklahoma, and finally at California State University, Fresno. I’ve taught preservice teachers and practicing teachers working on master’s degrees, and I’ve directed doctoral dissertations. I’ve received awards for my teaching, including the Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching at California State University, Fresno, and I was inducted into the California Reading Association’s Reading Hall of Fame. Throughout the years, my students have taught me as much as I taught them. I’m grateful to all of them for what I’ve learned.
I’ve been writing college textbooks for more than 20 years, and I think of the books I write as teaching, too. I’ll be teaching you as you read this text. As I write a book, I try to anticipate the questions you might ask and provide that information. I also include students’ samples so you can see concepts that I’m explaining, and I include lists of trade books that you can refer to as you work with students.
When I’m not teaching, I like to make quilts, and piecing together a quilt is a lot like planning effective language arts instruction. Instead of using pieces of cloth, teachers use the patterns of practice and other instructional procedures described in this text to design instruction for the diverse students in today’s classrooms. That’s why I like to use quilts on the cover of Language Arts. I want to thank quilter Cher Cartwright and illustrator Linda Bronson for their superb artistic contributions. You’ll see their art on the cover and inside this book.
Table of Contents
Language Arts: Patterns of Practice, 6e
1. Learning and the Language Arts.
2. Teaching and Assessing Language Arts.
3. The Reading and Writing Process.
4. Emerging Into Literacy.
5. Looking Closely at Words.
6. Personal Writing.
7. Listening to Learn.
8. Sustaining Talk in the Classroom.
9. Reading and Writing Stories.
10. Reading and Writing Information.
11. Reading and Writing Poetry.
12. Learning to Spell Conventionally.
13. Learning about Grammar and Usage.
14. Developing Legible Handwriting.
15. Putting It All Together. Writing Workshop CD-ROM
STUDY 1: WITH YOUNG CHILDREN. (First Grade) Introduction
Daily News
MiniLesson
Knee to Knee
Writing
Conferencing
Authors Chair
Publishing
Interactive Writing
STUDY 2: WITH ENGLISH LEARNERS. (Second Grade) Introduction
MiniLesson
Independent Writing
Monitoring
Group Conference
Student Editors
Final Copy
Authors Chair
Independent Reading
STUDY 3: TO PEN PALS. (Third Grade) Introduction
Receiving Letters
MiniLesson
Writing
Group Share
Revising Groups
Editing Partners
Authors Chair
Making Words
STUDY 4: ABOUT BIOGRAPHIES. (Sixth Grade) Introduction
Research
MiniLesson
Writing
Special Needs
Peer Revising
Peer Editing
Teacher Conference
Sharing