Allyn & Bacon / Merrill Professional Development :: Blogs

Blog :: Language Wizards

Mon, 25 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT

This blog is a brief introduction to the fundamental concept that underlies Unleashing Your Language Wizards.

Blog :: Ideas for Teaching Persuasive Writing Selections

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

What is a Persuasive Writing?

Persuasive Writing is fun for students because they get to use their best arguments to convince their audience to change their minds while also informing them. These types of writings are on a single issue and authors select a stand or position. This type of writing includes a thesis or an opinion clearly stated, sound reasoning supported by strong evidence, recognition of counter arguments and strong conclusions.

Many types of writing can be found under the large umbrella of persuasive writing. These include editorials, advertisements and commercials, pamphlets, petitions, political propaganda, and persuasive letters—to name only a few.

Blog :: Substitute Teaching

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

I need some advice for a new text I am writing, The Substitute Teacher's Guide to Success.

Blog :: Expressive Writing for Young Authors

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Lunch Time Stories for Young Authors

By Lori Demski &

Jennifer Fontenot

Are you looking for a way to motivate young authors to write creative personal narrative stories? Do your students need interesting, captivating themes to write about? All children young and old do indeed have a story to tell. Everyone enjoys a great story. Think about it! What’s the first thing your students do when they walk into your classroom on Monday morning? If you say, “My students want to tell me everything they did over the weekend,” then you know exactly what I’m talking about! Children want to tell you THEIR stories. Capture your students’ interest and excitement by selecting a theme that every student can relate to and write about—Lunch Bag Stories.

Blog :: Expressive Writing

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT

iPods: A Key to Improving High-Stake States Scores

In order to become proficient writers your students must first understand the concept of genres! Genre comes first, whether you’re teaching beginning writers, such as kindergarten students, or more experienced writers like 8^th grade students. Genre can be taught as early as kindergarten and should be expanded upon throughout a student’s entire school career. Keep in mind that all literature is categorized according to its genre. For instance, your literacy curriculum more than likely gives your students examples of short stories, poems, letters, research reports and biographies to name only a few.

Blog :: Powerful Ideas?

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT

What’s the “big deal” about the five powerful ideas around which this book is built? What is a powerful idea anyway? Chapter two in the book presents an in-depth examination of these questions, but I’d like to devote this blog post to a bit of reflection on the idea of powerful ideas.

Blog :: Helping Middle and High School Students Understand and Use Scence Knowledge

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT

How can we help our students in Middle and High School understand and use the science that they learn in school?

Blog :: Expressive Writing

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Do your students need improvement at writing attention-grabbing, detailed sentences for every genre? Try this simple five-step “Focus-in” teaching strategy, and you’ll be amazed at their speedy progress!

Blog :: Checking the Understanding of English Language Learners with Signals

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Introduction

English Language Learners (ELLs) may not ask questions in the classroom to clear up misunderstandings or improve their comprehension of the topic. Because of this, teachers need to check the understanding of these learners frequently using a variety of methods.

Blog :: Welcome

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Writing a blog to accompany my book is an idea that I’ve toyed with for a long time. In fact, when I first began writing the book, way back in January, 2004, I had the idea of an interactive website on which readers and I would interact over the concepts and ideas in the book. At that time...

Blog :: I Never Thought I'd Be a Teacher

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

For my very first blog, I’d like to tell you the tale of how I got into teaching. I always knew I would never be a teacher.

I believe there are certain professions where your heart should quicken with excitement as you get ready for your work day. Among those are trial lawyers, surgeons, and teachers. On my first day of teaching (actually, probably more like my first whole year), my heart quickened – with fear.

Blog :: About the authors and artists

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Interesting details about authors Libby Cohen and Loraine Spenciner and the artists whoses paintings are on our book covers.