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1. Introducing the Envisionment-Building Classroom
In this program, Dr. Langer describes the hallmarks of an envisionmentbuilding classroom a place where students, working at the highest levels of their ability, can experience literature and make meaning for themselves. Her comments are illustrated by classroom examples. Go to this unit.
2. Building a Literary Community
In Joe Bernhart's diverse seventhgrade language arts classroom in Houston, Texas, students work in small groups with a variety of texts in contemporary young adult literature. Bernhart demonstrates how he encourages students to develop deeper understandings of the text. Go to this unit.
3. Asking Questions
In a seventhgrade gifted and talented language arts class in Miami, Florida, Ana Hernandez prompts students to pose their own questions as they read Sharon Draper's Tears of a Tiger. As they discuss major issues of the text and consider the actions of the characters, the students immerse themselves within the story. Go to this unit.
4. Facilitating Discussion
Students in Tanya Schnabl's sixthgrade language arts class in rural Sherburne, New York, become involved with Among the Hidden, Margaret Peterson Haddix's futuristic text. As Schnabl encourages discussion of the text on many levels, the students move beyond their first impressions of the book to internalize lessons and make them their own. Go to this unit.
5. Seminar Discussion
Dorothy Franklin's diverse seventhgrade language arts classroom in the heart of Chicago focuses on Langston Hughes's short story, "Passing." Franklin encourages her students to take on the perspective of the characters in the text, with some surprising and satisfying results. Go to this unit.
6. Dramatic Tableaux
This program features the seventhgrade Berlin, Maryland, classroom of Dr. Jan Currence. Currence and her students delve into Christopher Paul Curtis's The Watsons Go to Birmingham 1963. Currence first models and then engages students in tableau activities, in which students draw on their experiences to bring the text to life for others. Go to this unit.
7. Readers as Individuals
This program visits Flora Tyler’s sixthgrade language arts class in Las Cruces, New Mexico, to show how one teacher, using writing and reading workshop models, works with students who are each reading a different literary text. Go to this unit.
8. The Teacher’s Role in a Literary Community
Barry Hoonan's fifth and sixthgrade language arts class on Bainbridge Island in Washington are studying a variety of contemporary young adult fiction titles. As students meet in small groups to focus on each text, Hoonan demonstrates how teachers can tactfully and effectively guide these discussions. Go to this unit.
9. Whole-Group Discussions
Witness an effective literary community as Linda Rief's eighthgrade language arts class in Durham, New Hampshire discusses Lois Lowry's The Giver. Here, the students work as a group to examine the text and discern the ways its themes relate to their lives.
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