Читать книгу The Common Core Companion: Booster Lessons, Grades 3-5 - Leslie Blauman - Страница 8

How do we help students think strategically about what they are reading and writing? How can we be “sketch artists” as we move from lesson to lesson so students see the connecting lines in terms of craft and ideas? How do we instruct and inspire students to discuss the ideas in fiction and nonfiction, and not just one-up each other with facts? How do we as teachers meet standards, meet our kids, and meet a slew of other demands without becoming manic in our teaching?

These are just a few of the questions that shaped the concept of this book, The Common Core Companion: Booster Lessons, Grades 3–5. I teach fourth grade full time, with more than three decades under my belt, so I come at this book as I have with all my previous books: We teachers have to take care of ourselves first, before we can step into the classroom to teach our kids. It’s a bit like the flight attendant’s instruction to put on the oxygen mask first, before helping others. Without oxygen, we can’t save anyone else.

“Taking care” is not the usual diction of professional books, huh? Rigor, achievement, and accountability, are, alas, more familiar words. For this book, here’s its working definition: Taking care of ourselves means taking the time to know—and focus our teaching upon—the literacy practices that matter most for students and for life. It means recognizing that we can’t teach everything the world seems to want us to teach—but we can teach better, and, like every other professional, it’s our responsibility to continue to hone our skills. And by “better” I mean smarter, leaner, more efficient—planning lessons and units that are as energizing for us as they are for our students because they spring from a less-is-more philosophy. These lessons are booster lessons because they give you a boost of ready-to-go plans, and because they are designed to give students an extra dose of research-based literacy demonstrations, whenever and wherever you see they fit.