Cris tovani biography of albert

Though there's repetition from Tovani's earlier books, this book focuses squarely on assessment, an Achille's heel for more than one English teacher, and shows you how Tovani's thinking has evolved over the years. It incorporates the reading strategy approach see Pearson et al. I like how Tovani shows a workshop being used for reading and how writing plays a key role in it.

She gives a nod to Samantha Bennett That Workshop Book and shows how you can divide the time of a workshop, starting with essential question, followed by mini-lesson, work time, "catch and release" break, more work time, and debriefing. Tovani shows the importance of conferring and gathering data. THIS is assessment, and it not only drives the next lesson, it often determines the "catch and release" pause that very day.

Formative assessment rules the day in this book. If you're a big summative assessment English teacher, you're wasting your weekend grading and writing all of those comments. By then it's too late and it's all for naught. Comments should help students to get smarter and are best used to give them another shot at it along the way. Thus Tovani endorses conferring notes, conversation calendars, annotated texts, double-entry diaries, students' surveys and responses, exit tickets, inner voice sheets, writing samples and drafts, silent reading response sheets, work folders, discussion records, and response journals.

Most, though not all, are shown in this book. Overall, it's a smart blending of much of the latest thinking in reading research. Furthermore, if assessment has been a bear and I don't mean Yogi for you, you owe it a look. This book had some great ideas that are easy to implement. I definitely feel like some logistics are missing especially in the grading section , but I found some things I want to use I love the inner voice sheet.

A lot of this wasn't super revolutionary to me, but it was a good reminder to use assessment in small ways to guide your teaching. I gave this book three stars only because I didn't find her message to be that provocative or particularly earth-shattering. Though after typing that I realize that perhaps that is why it should earn higher scores.

This book features good solid advice, but not enough variations on that theme. Essentially, she discusses how to structure a class so that you can find out what a kid knows right then and there and react. I think this is something that good teachers do or strive to do. The workshop division of time in a class period was interesting, but for a block schedule.

No discussion of how it might change in a regular class period. Or whether it would change at all. I felt this was a major shortcoming of this book. Another slight concern: This was written in and all the activities are paper-based. NOT a problem, but I find that I am moving towards a paperless classroom. I think that this poses a new challenge for collecting annotations--a challenge that I have not solved yet.

Barb Novak. This was a refreshing and empowering read. Nothing in it was completely earth-shattering, but I enjoyed the student examples especially a text-conversation between student and teacher about the Great Gatsby and practicality. Highlights: Discussion of workshop model and where to embed assessment Great examples of how annotation is formative assessment Examples of how annotation can be used in all disciplines Learning targets with formative assessment techniques Clarification of "Hard vs.

Rigorous" Issues: Tovani's workshop and intervention centers on whole-class novels three per year. There is still plenty of choice non-fiction articles and choice novels. Many of the examples, though, are from whole-class novels. Discussion of grading is from a points-based mindset instead of proficiency scoring or standards-based grading.

Tovani believes students "won't engage in the process" if points aren't attached to the work. Cris provides some great teaching and assessment strategies from her own real-world classroom. The focus here is on reading, not writing bummer , and the students are mainly lacking basic skills. At times, I thought, My students wouldn't need to do this! I guess I should be grateful to have the student I do have.

Anyway, there's still lots of good stuff here, and I'll be returning to my copy, which I marked up er I think Cris would be proud of me. Still, Tovani loses a point for not revealing how she actually grades all the essays she assigns her students. She never really talks about that process, except that she and her students look at early drafts a lot in class, so she doesn't have to spend as much on the final draft.

But I wants the deets, Cris. I want the deets! Tovani is a teacher-practitioner, so her advice and expertise is grounded in experience in actual literacy classrooms. I read selections from this book on how to establish classroom community and culture, how to assess adolescent motivation, and how to run conferences within a workshop model.

Each chapter is supplemented with real-world artifacts to illustrate Tovani's recommendations. An Appendix features some of the tools and strategies mentioned in the book, including the Conversation Calendar, which I have implemented in my undergraduate courses. My only complaint is the lack of an index, a problem I have noticed in many practitioner-oriented volumes from publishers like Stenhouse.

Teachers need a way to quickly locate a concept or strategy after-the-fact. I love it when I read a book that forces me to look at what I do in my classroom, and I say to myself: I gotta make some changes. Tovani has simple solutions to some of the things I struggle with on a daily basis. My favorite chapter is five: Annotations: a Trustworthy Source of Data.

Getting students to show me their thinking is my new challenge. Most of my kids hate to annotate, but if I frame the request differently-- asking for "pieces of thinking," I am pretty sure I can get better information about where my students are at, and I can more effectively plan mini-lessons that will help move my students' learning forward.

Barb Keister. Great book on developing and using formative assessment. Many of the classroom examples are high school, but the processes hold true for teachers of all levels. I love how Cris reminds us that good assessments help us to gather data about our students as learners AND as people. My favorite line of many : "Teaching them how to become better readers, writers, and thinkers depends upon creating a positive environment where kids are willing to do the work.

I know I'll be referring to this book again and again in my work with teachers and kids. Alex Templeton. Off the Field and Into the Classroom. Annotations A Trustworthy Source of Data. Feedback That Fortifies. Grading Is Killing Me. In In addition to teaching full-time, full-time, she is a nationally known known consultant focusing on issues of reading and content comprehension in in the high school classroom.

Cris has also worked for many years as a staff developer for the Denver-based-based Public Education and Business Coalition PEBC , the consortium that that has received national acclaim for its work in in r reading comprehension reform.

Cris tovani biography of albert

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Cris Tovani Biography Cris Tovani is an accomplished educator, having spent 31 years teaching students from first grade to seniors. Contact a speaker booking agent to check availability on Cris Tovani and other top speakers and celebrities. Participants will work toward meeting for the following learning targets: I can describe what full engagement looks like.

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