Reviews are in alphabetical order by title.  Click on the title or hyperlink to read the review.

 FEATURED REVIEWS

How to Teach so Students Remember
by Merilee Sprenger. Reviewed by Todd Finley and Anthony Dralle.

Literacy and Imagination: A Teacher's Search for the Heart of Learning
by Karen Gallas. Reviewed by Christopher Godish.

Couldn't Keep it to Myself
by Wally Lamb.  Reviewed by Frances Sawyer.

I am a Pencil
by Sam Swope.  Reviewed by Kimberly Popovich.

Writing Fiction
by Janet Burroway.  Reviewed by Brian Fogt.

The Teaching of High School English
by J.N. Hook.  Reviewed by Della Warren.

The Tech-Savvy English Classroom
by Sara Kajder.  Reviewed by Andrea Beatty.

Additional book reviews by title

The Art of Fiction
John Gardner’s name is synonymous with a reputation of respectability, and is one that deserves admiration.  For, even as I have so heartily condemned books on the teaching of creative writing, I myself can only hope to achieve what John Gardner did within his lifetime... Read this review.

 Assessment in the Classroom
Assessment is often thought of as the process of assigning grades to written test material.  However, “assessment is the process of collecting, synthesizing, and interpreting information to aid in decision making,” according to Peter W. Airasian, author of Assessment in the Classroom. Read this review. 

Bridging English
Bridging English is a must read for anyone who plans on teaching English in a secondary school system. Not only does it throw out a numerous amount of ideas and teaching strategies, but it also details means by which to implement them into your own personal classroom. Read this review. 

Errors and Expectations
Mina Shaughnessy’s book, Errors and Expectations, has become a seminal work in the field of teaching of writing to under-prepared students. Since it was published in 1970, teaching methods have changed and incorporated some of her ideas.  Read this review.

Expressions: Multiple Intelligences in the English Class
Multiple Intelligences have become a hot topic for debate in recent years.  Gardener’s research, which is fairly new and very cutting edge has great potential to forever alter the way in which we teach our youth. Read this review. 

Family in Focus: Thematic Units Dealing with Family for Grades Six Through Twelve
Family in Focus provides six thematic units all dealing with the family for grades six through twelve.While definitions and descriptions of family varies, the idea itself does not. Thus, the family is an excellent topic for a thematic unit in the study of literature. Read this review.

Going Bohemian
Reviewed in Voices from the Middle.
"Lawrence Baines and Anthony J. Kunkel know what kind of teacher makes a difference in children's lives.  It is the gregarious guru whose name falls off the lips of smiling students as they bound down the hall...." 

Journalism: Who, What, When, Where, Why and How
There are not many textbooks today written by senior full professors at the top of their game and intellectual insight. This book is one of them, and that is one of the reasons this book works so well.  Read this review.  Read an interview with the author Jim Stovall.

Making the Journey
Making the Journey encompasses many areas of the classroom. Some major areas I found insightful were the author’s views on tracking, fifty-minute periods, YA literature, teaching writing, and rules of discussion. Read this review.

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
 Follow the story, and tell the truth as you go. That’s the gist of Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.  It’s as simple a premise as you might expect to find in a middle school creative writing class, and yet elusive enough to inspire a 288-page book attempting to explain how to do it. Read this review.

Response and Analysis
For Rosenblatt and Probst, the literature class is based upon a student-centered learning environment where the student interacts with literature personally – responding, analyzing and making meaning in a transactional process. Their approach locates the teacher in a much different role than a dispenser of knowledge who helps students find a correct meaning in the text. The teacher becomes a counselor of sorts helping the students to navigate their own thinking, make their own meaning.  Read this review.

Socratic Circles
Books on teaching ideas come and go, but truths are eternal. Socrates discovered an approach to epistemology a long time ago that works, and Matt Copeland has taken this idea and made it his own. He has discovered a way of using Socratic circles to successfully engage middle and high school English students with texts they are reading.

Teaching Adolescents to Write: The Unsubtle Art of Naked Teaching
"If this text doesn't change the way that essay assignments are meted out in secondary schools, nothing ever will."  Professor Sara Tyler, Tarleton State University, Texas.

Thinking Through Genre: Units of Study in Reading and Writing Workshops 4-12.
Studying genre forces teachers to understand what they are teaching and helps them to avoid the typical “answer the five questions after you have read” approach. By having students read, analyze, and write, students see that they can do something with what they have read. They see how useful writing is, even beyond the novel format.  Read this review.

Web Journalism
We all use the Web more than we did a few years ago, and we are going to depend on it more in the future. From a journalistic standpoint, such a move in web use signals a change in how journalists work and get us information. Read this review.

 Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular
Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular by Rust Hills is an informal textbook and an excellent guide for teachers who want a firm grasp of the elements of short story to teach their students.   Although not designed specifically for teachers, Hills breaks the short story down into several key components and dedicates a succinct chapter to each one.  Read this review.