Analyze, argue, compare/contrast, describe, determine, develop, evaluate, explain, imagine, integrate, interpret, organize, summarize, support, and transform . . .
Can a mere fifteen words turn today’s youth into the innovative, ambitious thinkers we need? Yes, contend Jim Burke and Barry Gilmore, coauthors of Academic Moves for College and Career Readiness, because these are the moves that make the mind work and students must learn if they’re to achieve academically. It’s that simple.
Or is it? To arrive at these fifteen critical reading, writing, and thinking processes, Jim and Barry combed through the standards, research, and secondary curriculum―and that’s for starters. Then, for each of these powerhouse processes, they developed a lesson structure, assignments, and activities so you can teach with potency, right away, and immediately cultivate in students discipline-specific habits of mind.
Here’s the best part yet: Jim and Barry distill each intellectual process into a potent concision that nevertheless spans subject areas:
- Before, during, and after sections offer essential questions, lesson ideas, and activities to assist you in instruction.
- Two sample student pieces illustrate not only what to look for but the process for getting there.
- Culminating tasks include producing an analytic essay, visual text, argument, narrative and informational writing, poetry, descriptive science writing, and explanatory writing in math.
- Every chapter has a correlation chart to Webb’s Depth of Knowledge to deepen understanding and a reproducible rubric to aid in assessment.
At the end of the day, what we want is for our students to know how to think at high levels in any discipline in school or any arena in life. In Academic Moves for College and Career Readiness, Jim and Barry translate these processes into remarkable instructional protocols. Use the book and you’ll know for yourself what a revolution they’ve created.
A longtime English teacher, Jim Burke is the author of more than 20 books and senior consultant for the Holt McDougal Literature program. Jim has received several awards, including the 2000 NCTE Exemplary English Leadership Award. In 2009, he created the English Companion Ning―the largest online community of English teachers in the world. More recently, Jim has served on the AP English Course and Exam Review Commission and the PARCC Consortium.
Barry Gilmore was the Middle School Head and later the Assistant Head of School for Teaching and Learning at Hutchison School in Memphis, Tennessee. A National Board Certified Teacher, he taught English and social studies for nearly twenty years. Barry is the author of seven education books and the former president of the Tennessee Council of Teachers of English. Awards for his teaching have come from NCTE, TCTE, the U.S. Department of Education, and the Tennessee Holocaust Commission. He passed away in 2019 at the age of 50 and is dearly missed by his students, family, friends and fellow faculty.
