We're delighted to announce that our next book will be published in late 2023 by Teachers College Press. We've coauthored this book with "Classroom Bookshelf" colleagues Katie Egan Cunningham and Grace Enriquez. All four of us are graduates of Teachers College, so it's particularly rewarding to publish this book with them. You can find out more and order the book via the Teachers College Press website.
Book Description:
From the authors of the popular blog and resource for teachers, The Classroom Bookshelf, this book offers a framework and teaching ideas for using recently released children’s and young adult literature to build a culture of inquiry and engagement from a text-first approach. Reading With Purpose is designed to help K–8 teachers tap into their inner reader, to make intentional text selections for their students, and to create joyful and purpose-driven literacy learning experiences. The heart of the book is organized according to four purposes for selecting and using literature: care for ourselves and one another, connect with the past to understand the present, closely observe the world around us, and cultivate critical consciousness. Each chapter includes classroom stories, accessible research, reasons for why this matters now, and criteria for selecting for this purpose. A final section provides teaching invitations that pair with suggested books but can also be used with any high-quality book teachers may already have in their classrooms.