Reflective Teaching, Reflective Learning: How to Develop Critically Engaged Readers, Writers, and Speakers

How do you measure greatness in education? Neither the length of a vita nor the number of citations can tell the full story of an important figure like George Hillocks, Jr. The best way to understand his ideas and influence is to go inside classrooms where followers channel his passion for inquiry-based learning into dynamic language-arts lessons that support student success.

In Reflective Teaching, Reflective Learning twenty-one of Hillocks' former graduate students share how they apply his principles to encourage adolescents to become critically engaged readers, writers, and speakers. But far from a simple celebration of a master educator's work, Reflective Teaching, Reflective Learning describes specific, practical activities that create authentic, active learning through inquiry, meaningful peer interaction, and reflection. These activities can be put to immediate use as either additions to your existing lessons or as patterns for building new curricular and instructional models.

In an era when teachers face more pressures and scrutiny than ever, Reflective Teaching, Reflective Learning provides compelling testimony to what thoughtful, reflective language-arts teachers can accomplish. Read Reflective Teaching, Reflective Learning and discover that greatness in education is measured one student success at a time.

Thomas M. McCann, Larry R. Johannessen, Elizabeth Kahn, Peter Smagorinsky, and Michael W. Smith were all graduate students of George Hillocks, Jr. at the University of Chicago. They have explored ways to engage critical readers, writers, and speakers in more than 30 books, in over 300 articles, and in hundreds of presentations all over the world. Together, they have over eighty years experience as secondary English teachers, and as university faculty they have taught hundreds of preservice and practicing teachers. They've been friends and collaborators for years.

Peter Smagorinsky is the coauthor of The Dynamics of Writing Instruction (2010) and author of Teaching English by Design (2007). Peter taught high school English from 1976 to 1990 in public schools outside Chicago and now teaches in the program in English Education at The University of Georgia. In 2007 he was presented with the UGA Graduate School Outstanding Mentoring Award in Humanities and Fine and Applied Arts. Peter is the author or coauthor of numerous books and articles, including the Heinemann title Reflective Teaching, Reflective Learning, which he coedited in 2006.

Michael Smith is coauthor with Jeffrey Wilhelm and Michael Smith of Get It Done!; Oh, Yeah?!; and So, What's the Story?. Michael, a professor in Temple University's College of Education, joined the ranks of college teachers after 11 years of teaching high school English. He has won awards for his teaching at both the high school and college levels. His research focuses on understanding how experienced readers read and talk about texts as well as what motivates adolescents' reading and writing out of school. He uses that understanding to think about how to devise more effective and engaging reading and writing instruction for adolescents in school. Michael has cowritten or coedited three other Heinemann books, Going with the Flow; Reflective Teaching, Reflective Learning; and "Reading Don't Fix No Chevys". For Chevys he and coauthor Jeff Wilhelm received the NCTE David H. Russell Award for Distinguished Research in the Teaching of English. When he's not working, Michael's likely to be watching or talking about sports, reading, or playing with his granddaughter.