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A question being asked by teachers across the country is, How can I teach students to acquire both the skills and knowledge demanded by the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) while simultaneously guiding them to read challenging texts such as those presented in Appendix B of the CCSS? Answering this invites the integration of ideas and the innovation of novel instructional plans. Illustrating close reading procedures in two classrooms- one 1st grade and one 5th grade- this article provides an answer by detailing the manner in which a student might approach a challenging science text using annotated reading, partner talk, text-based questioning and reflective writing to build competence and a capacity for reading, writing, listening, and speaking about informational texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A group of elementary school reading teachers used their time in a Professional Learning Community to develop a systematic intervention to address the needs of struggling readers in grades 3 to 5. Working as a team, they identified a collection of books that was culturally diverse, high interest, appealing to boys and girls, aligned with curriculum across the grades, and equally representative of fiction and non-fiction. Using the collection of books as a starting place, the group wrote lessons that addressed decoding, vocabulary development, comprehension strategies, and responding to standardized test question stems. The resulting intervention led to growth in reading level as well as accelerated progress on the state mandated end of grade test in reading. The PLC offered this group of experienced reading teachers a district-supported framework for working together to create a locally relevant solution for the students they teach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes how one teacher implemented a memoir genre study in her sixth grade classroom using a writing workshop approach. It begins by outlining the author's philosophy and rationale for teaching writing in this manner. This is followed by a discussion of how one could organize one's classroom for a memoir genre study. Several significant mini-lessons are then described which focus on brainstorming, planning, developing effective titles, leads and conclusions, structuring a memoir texts, the use of the senses in memoir writing and strategies for revision. The aim of this article is to equip practitioners with the practical knowledge they need if they are seeking to implement a memoir genre study in their elementary school classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anglo-American westward expansion provided a major impulse to the development of the young United States' narrative tradition. Early U.S. writers also looked to the South, that is, to the Spanish New World and, in some cases, to Spain itself. Washington Irving's "A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus" (1828), the first full-length biography of the admiral in English, inaugurated the trend, and Mark Twain's "Life on the Mississippi" (1883) transformed it by focusing on the life and lives of the Mississippi River Valley and using an approach informed by Miguel de Cervantes's "Don Quijote de la Mancha." From Irving's "discovery of America" to Twain's tribute to the disappearing era of steamboat travel and commerce on the Mississippi, the tales about "western waters," told via their authors' varied engagements with Spanish history and literature, constitute a seldom acknowledged dimension in Anglo-America's nonfictional narrative literary history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews web sites related to U.S. history, including "Heading West" and "Touring West" by the New York Public Library (www.nypl.org/west/), sites containing digital versions of Sanborn fire insurance maps, and "Chronicling America" by the National Digital Newspaper Program (www.loc.gov/chroniclingamerica/index.html).

Presents a study which investigated the use of nonfiction trade books in primary education in the U.S. Rationale for using nonfiction trade books; Observations on inappropriateness of reading level materials in primary education; Factors which kept teachers from using more informational texts in their classrooms.

The article focuses on the work of Langston Hughe's "Jesse B. Semple" columns as literary journalism in the U.S. Tom Wolfe's definition of literary journalism, contains five characteristics common to novel writing including intensive interviewing and observation, extensive use of dialogue, varied point of view. Therefore, recent scholars believed that Langston Hughes column featuring a literary character known as Jesse B. Semple falls under this given criteria. His Simple columns aimed to encourage his fellow blacks to support the World War II despite of the unequal treatment of afforded to them.