Teaching English by Design
The Teaching English by Design Instructor’s Guide presents a flexible framework for an English Methods course. Its week-by-week suggestions for in- and out-of-class activities support students as they learn to design units for use in their first classrooms. Peter Smagorinsky, the leading scholar and researcher of his generation in the field of English education, shows English teachers how to turn every hour of classroom instruction into an authentic and powerful learning experience in his inspiring new book, Teaching English by Design. It’s a wonderful book and represents a challenge to all of us to teach better than we usually do. -Sheridan Blau Author of The Literature Workshop Peter Smagorinsky, a highly respected figure in English Education, here offers new teachers principled and practical ways of authoring curriculum, even in traditional settings. -Randy Bomer Author of Time for Meaning Many books on English/language arts instruction describe the teaching of units, but how many
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L. A. Potter · May 29, 2010 at 6:32 am
Review by L. A. Potter for Teaching English by Design
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I used this book in a Secondary Education 5000 class that I was required to take while earning my M.Ed. The author gives wonderful insights and examples into how to teach a class that is designed for its students. I found the book to be extremely helpful and will use many of Smagorinsky’s ideas in my teaching this year. I particularly liked his chapter on addressing the emotional issues surrounding writing and the section that discusses using focus correction areas rather than overwhelming students with ALL grammar and writing issues at once. It was good for me, with my background as an editor, to consider the importance of teaching writing a step at a time rather than overwhelming students with hundreds of corrections each time they turn in a paper.
Smagornisky also details how to create unit rationales, stances, strategies for teaching, and effective essay assignments. I have no complaints about the book and would recommend it to all teachers.
Great discussion on modeling and scaffolding in chapter 6. I wish more of my English teachers had used this method when I was in high school.
J. Whitney · May 29, 2010 at 6:34 am
Review by J. Whitney for Teaching English by Design
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This book has a terrific and accessible overview of educational theory, and it helps students set goals and plan units with sound rationales and instructional methods. But the real gem here is the website that goes with it, loaded with thoughtful unit plans that are consistent with the methods outlined by the book. A one star review I just read is way off the mark. He read a page off amazon, and he took something out of context. Smagorinsky was talking about how the belief persists that there is one fixed body of knowledge, and he shows how there are other ways of knowing things than that, and that they are valid and help the teacher co-create knowledge based on the understandings that they (the teacher and student) both bring to any given subject. Smagorinsky is nothing if not hip. He brings a Writing Project sensibility to the book, and you’ll recognize proven approaches in each chapter.
amorteur · May 29, 2010 at 7:21 am
Review by amorteur for Teaching English by Design
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I read the excerpt Amazon.com provides, and found it full of inane comments and bizarre examples. The author claims that a teaching models that emphasize “transmissionism” ask questions, on final exams, such as the following:
***Who was Bucephalus? (The creature was Alexander the Great’s horse, by the way, and the author claims that this question was asked on a final in a Mediterranean civilization course.)
***Was Huck Finn a good boy?
Now, have you ever seen such stuff on a test? What in the world does it have to do with “transmission” vs. “constructivism,” the author’s weird false alternative? The truth is, every good teacher both transmits key knowledge (such as the facts of Alexander’s life, and the key things Huck did) as well as helps the students construct their own understanding and test their “models.” Why the false dichotomy?
The author also rakes a teacher over the coals for asking for a copy of a test that another teacher had devised for a book that both used in their classes. The author faults the teacher because, so the author claims, the teacher must presumably have made numerous assumptions about the nature of the test. (For example, that all classes dealing with a book are fundamentally the same, so teachers can exchange tests without a glitch.) It never seems to occur to the author that the teacher might have asked for the test because it could stimulate thought or provide him with some useful items.
So, when I read four pages into a book and find it chock full of what
Bucephalus left in his stall, I pass.