Latest Book Published

Corwin Press this month published my latest book, Writing for Understanding: Strategies to Increase Content Learning. It is intended for upper elementary, middle school, and high school teachers of subjects other than language arts. The goal is to help teachers use writing as a tool to improve their students' acquisition of content knowledge and understanding. Writing often is neglected as a learning tool, even in some English/language arts classes because teachers fear that it will be more work and may demand more expertise than they possess. This book shows teachers how to use writing as a teaching/learning tool, rather than expecting all teachers to become teachers of writing. (More about this book at http://www.corwinpress.com/booksProdDesc.nav?prodId=Book232389&)

From the Introduction: "The goal of effective instruction is more than acquisition of information. We want our students to be able to use the information they gain, to apply it in both familiar and unfamiliar contexts, to manipulate it, to distill it, to roll in it mentally until it becomes part of the fabric of their minds. Until this higher level of understanding is reached, students cannot truly use content knowledge."