Adolescent Literacy: Turning Promise Into Practice

G. Kylene Beers

Heinemann, 2007 - Education - 411 pages

A study guide is available for this title. Click here to download (PDF, 117KB).

This is the time to think boldly about adolescent literacy. So much of what we know about adolescents and their learning has changed in the last decade, and since then both the world of education and the world at large have become very different places. Adolescent Literacy convenes a conversation among today's most important educational thinkers and practitioners to address crucial advances in research on adolescent learning, to assess which of our current practices meets the challenges of the twenty-first century, and to discover transformative ideas and methods that turn the promise of education into instructional practice.

In Adolescent Literacy renowned educators Kylene Beers, Bob Probst, and Linda Rief lead twenty-eight of the most important and widely read educators across the country in a conversation about where we are in the teaching of literacy to adolescents and how best to move forward. From researchers to classroom teachers, from long-treasured voices to important new members of the education community, Adolescent Literacy includes the thoughts of central figures in the field today. Adolescent Literacy discusses the most provocative issues of our time, including:

• English language learners
• struggling readers
• technology in the classroom
• multimodal literacy
• compelling writing instruction
• teaching in a "flat world"
• young adult literature.

Each of its chapters builds on the previous to create a unified story of adolescent literacy that will help all middle and secondary teachers and administrators envision literacy instruction in exciting new ways. In addition Adolescent Literacy'sassessment rubrics for teachers, administrators, and staff developers make it an ideal resource for schoolwide and districtwide professional development, while its accompanying study guide is perfect for small-group discussions. Now is indeed the time to create a powerful vision of how to teach adolescents. The research on their learning has reached a critical mass, modern technology has allowed them to engage in a far wider range of literate behaviors than ever before, and their world has become increasingly connected, increasingly competitive, and increasingly polarized. Read Adolescent Literacy, consider the thoughts of leading educators, and join a conversation about what it means to teach and learn in this dynamic new environment. And do it soon, because the need to turn education's promise into classroom practice has never been more urgent.

Contents

• TEACHING ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS IN A FLAT WORLD: 10
• FLYING BLIND: 15
• EFFECTIVE TEACHERS EFFECTIVE INSTRUCTION: 18

About the author

Linda Rief left the classroom in June of 2019 after 40 years of teaching Language Arts with eighth graders. She misses their energy and their apathy, their curiosity and their complacency, their confidence and their insecurities. But mostly, she misses their passionate, powerful voices as writers and readers. She is an instructor in the University of New Hampshire's Summer Literacy Institute and a national and international presenter on issues of adolescent literacy. She is the author of Whispering in the Wind: A Guide to Deeper Reading and Writing Through Poetry (2022), The Quickwrite Handbook: 100 Mentor Texts to Jumpstart Your Students' Thinking and Writing (2018), Read Write Teach: Choice and Challenge in the Reading-Writing Workshop (2014), The Writer's-Reader's Notebook (2007), Inside the Writer's-Reader's Notebook (2007), 100 Quickwrites (Scholastic, 2003), Vision and Voice: Extending the Literacy Spectrum (1999), and Seeking Diversity: Language Arts with Adolescents (1992); she is co-editor (Beers, Probst, and Rief) of Adolescent Literacy (2007). For five years she co-edited with Maureen Barbieri Voices from the Middle, a journal for middle school teachers published by the National Council of Teachers of English. In 2021 she was honored with the Distinguished Service Award from NCTE and in 2020 received the Kent Williamson Exemplary Leader Award from the Conference on English Leadership, in recognition of outstanding leadership in the English Language Arts. A recipient of NCTE's Edwin A. Hoey Award for Outstanding Middle School Educator in ELA, her classroom was featured in the series Making Meaning in Literature produced by Maryland Public Television for Annenberg/CPB. For three years she chaired the first Early Adolescence English/Language Arts Standards Committee of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. In 1988 she was the recipient of one of two Kennedy Center Fellowships for Teachers of the Arts. She spent a month at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, writing prose and poetry based on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. She read her writing in performance at the Kennedy Center, a program later broadcast on NPR.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Adolescent Literacy: Turning Promise Into Practice
• Author: G. Kylene Beers
• Editors: G. Kylene Beers, Robert E. Probst, Linda Rief
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Heinemann, 2007
• Original from: the University of Michigan
• Digitized: Jan 25, 2010
• ISBN: 0325011281, 9780325011288
• Length: 411 pages
• Subjects: Education / Schools / Levels / Secondary; Education / Teaching / General; Education / Teaching / Subjects / Reading & Phonics; Juvenile Nonfiction / Language Arts / General; Language Arts & Disciplines / General; Language Arts & Disciplines / Literacy; Language Arts & Disciplines / Reading Skills