"I submit that the well-told, well-chosen story can tell the most about the qualitative status of both teaching and learning in the classroom." So says Donald Graves, author of this unique new book and one of the field's best-loved and most respected authorities on literacy education. 
 Now, in this eclectic collection of personal stories, Graves recalls with power and clarity the many events-great and small-that have informed his views on how we come to understand the world. In an age when teachers are under constant pressure to find the right pedagogical "method" and when the measure of success is often reduced to a test score, How to Catch a Shark will be both a comfort and an inspiration. 
 Here is a beguiling and thoughtful anthology of autobiographical tales, based on both personal and professional experiences. There are recalled moments of childhood wonder; anecdotes about remarkable and not-so-remarkable students; lessons from the pulpit as well as the ballfield; stories of painful loss, hilarious mishaps, and awesome epiphanies. Each one teaches as it reveals the nature of human learning. Graves' point is clear: the best way to understand effective, responsive teaching is to examine our own learning histories. He invites readers to do the same in a reflection and practical exercise at the end of each story. 
 Sit down with Donald Graves' book. Listen to his tales. Resonate with the truth of your own experiences. And in so doing, you will discover myriad ways to help students access the powers of their own stories. 
 To learn more about Donald Graves, visit www.donaldgraves.org.

How to Catch a Shark: And Other Stories About Teaching and Learning

Education & Teaching

Graves, Donald H.

Schools & Teaching

Heinemann

One of America's most beloved authors on literacy education, Donald Graves has not only revolutionized the way we teach, he has deeply touched the lives of millions of people--educators, parents, policymakers, and students alike. But beyond his groundbreaking observations on reading and writing, it is Graves's deep humanity that has endeared him to readers over the course of two decades. How fitting, then, that this, his nineteenth book, is an eloquent "how-to" for teaching the most important lesson of all: becoming human.
 Graves writes, "It is common in literary circles to discuss character in relation to plot. I want to broaden the discussion . . . to include people wherever they are found, especially in curriculum. Events happen in history because of people. Scientific breakthroughs are made because people observe, formulate hypotheses, and share their results with others. We are surrounded by art because people slowed their lives down to see the world differently and share it with us."
 Teachers will not only resonate with the book's philosophical underpinnings, they will applaud its practicality. Each chapter includes several "Actions" designed to bring the human aspect of various disciplines center stage while teaching essential learning skills. There are sample scripts for historical role plays, charts for delineating characters' motivation, art exercises, interview scripts, lists for recording personal observations on science and nature, and more.
 With its multidisciplinary applications, Bring Life into Learning is broad in scope, but unwavering in its focus: " to ignore people in any field is to lose out on the greatest stake of all, the journey of becoming human ourselves."
 To learn more about Donald Graves, visit www.donaldgraves.org.

Bring Life into Learning: Create a Lasting Literacy

Over the course of a year you and thousands of other teachers will spend countless hours with children and experience the full range of emotion associated with parenting. Every day you will be second-guessed by parents, administrators, and pundits who have never taught. Standardized tests will be mandated that try to govern the teaching transactions you make with children. It's no wonder that many teachers these days are feeling drained and it's no surprise that Don Graves is ready to offer his uncommon insight, unwavering support, and unbounded hope for the future. "The idea for The Energy to Teach," Don relates, "began with the startling contrast I noted between much of the fatigue in the profession and the promised energy in curriculum." This led to eighteen months of extensive interviews, with educators and others across the country, beginning with the questions: What gives you energy, what takes energy away, and what, for you, is a waste of time? Based on these interviews - plus Don's extensive experience as a teacher and researcher - The Energy to Teach offers groundbreaking insight on how highly effective teachers deal with emotional demands, and how they gain help and support from their colleagues and administrators. It explains what gives them energy, how they handle energy-draining situations, and how they cope with this never-ending emotional roller coaster. What's more, Don offers proven-effective techniques. You'll discover how to find out exactly when energy is added, expended, or wasted; conserve more energy; build energy with colleagues; induce an energy surge when it's urgently needed; transform energy-draining situations into energy-giving events; and much more. Just as important, you'll find comfort and encouragement from someone who for two decades has served as a wise and compassionate mentor to thousands of educators. To learn more about Donald Graves, visit www.donaldgraves.org.

The Energy to Teach

In the rush to implement high-stakes testing, narrow standards, and top-down management of public education, the interests of two key stakeholders have been ignored: students and teachers. Not anymore. In Testing Is Not Teaching, his most political book to date, Don Graves focuses on the education issues of our day-and he doesn't always like what he sees. In 22 new essays that are classic Graves, he shows how testing encroaches on teacher freedom; considers how narrow standards can actually reduce student achievement; asks questions that can help teachers to cope with these new restrictions; discusses practices that support humane teaching in a testing environment; and much more. Graves packs his thoughts into short but substantial essays-nuggets perfect for teacher meetings, planning sessions, teacher reading groups, or individual teachers pressed for time. Whether you know the ins and outs of standards and testing or whether you want to know more, Graves writing will push you toward a better understanding of our current education climate and how it impacts your curriculum. After twenty years as your mentor in classics like Writing and A Fresh Look at Writing, Don Graves has become your advocate, speaking out because, like you, he cares about your students, your practice, and your professional dignity. If the arrival of testing and other "accountability" measures compromises your classroom, don't let your interests be ignored. Join your voice with Don Graves' and reclaim your practice.

Testing Is Not Teaching: What Should Count in Education

Twenty years after Don Graves first guided you to new, more effective, and more professionally satisfying practices, Heinemann celebrates his continuing influence with a special Twentieth-Anniversary Edition of Writing, the book that revolutionized writing instruction. "Children still want to write-if we let them. These words are just as true now as they were twenty years ago," writes the master educator-researcher. In his new preface to his landmark book, Graves deepens your understanding of Writing's importance as he assesses its impact. Also new to this edition is an afterword by Mary Ellen Giacobbe who recounts not only the transformation that Graves' research made in her classroom, but also his ongoing influence on her own literacy research. And, of course, there's the classic text itself, a touchstone for all writing and literacy teaching. Writing establishes the crucial, reflexive relationship between reading and writing. Plus it gives you the tools you need to incorporate writing into your daily lesson planning by taking you inside real classrooms to watch as children work with their teachers to build literacy skills. Filled with inspiring, straightforward prose and backed by extensive classroom research, Writing not only launched an education revolution, it also began a twenty-year mentorship between Graves and hundreds of thousands of teachers looking for ways to improve their practice and their students' education. For 20 years Don Graves has guided you in developing a lifelong love of writing and reading in your students. Now join Heinemann in celebrating his lasting achievement with Writing: Teachers &amp; Children at Work, Twentieth-Anniversary Edition.

Writing: Teachers & Children at Work 20th Anniversary Edition

Reference

Words, Language & Grammar

How easy it is to get into an emotional rut. To get stuck in preparing lesson plans and tests. To mistake busyness for well-being. It's time to step back, reflect, and refresh. And there's no better way to do it than by reading master teacher and author Don Graves. In Teaching Day by Day, Graves exhibits the same uncommon insight, unwavering support, and unbounded hope for the future that made his best-selling book The Energy to Teach such an inspiration to teachers. Filled with anecdotes, classroom events, and reflections - one for each of the 180 school days - each "chapter" is about a page long and ends with a simple statement to ponder. Open the book and find Graves at this best in: 
<ul>
<li>
stories, poems, and classroom situations that will make you laugh, cry, or question your own teaching</li> <li>portraits of children, teachers, administrators, and parents</li> <li>
personal and professional reflections by Graves on his own teaching, his family, and major events in education, especially testing. </li>
</ul> Read a Graves 10-minute story each day. Share a story with a good friend. Or use a selection of stories for group discussion. It's the perfect gift to yourself or your colleagues - a special reflective time-out for teachers.

Teaching Day by Day: 180 Stories to Help You Along the Way

Learn more about the Heinemann Seminar based on this book: Inside the Teaching of Writing Your curriculum is packed, and you have barely enough instructional time to teach students essential writing skills, let alone how to combine those skills to form cohesive, compelling work. Fortunately, there is a solution to the time crunch, a quicker, more effective way to help children understand the complexities of writing, and Don Graves and Penny Kittle are ready to share it with you. In Inside Writing, Graves and Kittle show you the power behind an apprenticeship approach to writing instruction where you mentor students using your own writing-even if you don't consider yourself a writer. Inside Writing is a practical, flexible three-part program that gives you numerous entryways for learning how to model the central elements of the craft: <ul>
<li>topic choice </li> <li>rereading </li> <li>details </li> <li>response </li> <li>conventions </li> <li>the writing life. </li> </ul>
Begin with any aspect of Inside Writing, and you'll discover new insights about high-quality writing instruction. The DVD: go inside real classrooms to watch as teachers from grades 2-6 demonstrate their writing process for students, and hear teachers and students share what a difference this teaching technique makes; hear commentary tracks from Graves and Kittle that underscore important instructional moments; listen in as the authors discuss their own writing processes; and print seventy-eight quick-writes prompts form your computer's DVD drive. The book: read about the voluminous research that supports the efficacy of the apprenticeship method for teaching children to write; strengthen the link between instructional theory and your own day-to-day classroom-teaching practices; and gain a new understanding of the role of writing in both your students' lives and yours. My Quick Writes notebook: Use Graves' favorite Quick Write topics to practice your own writing and reflect on it; find prompts for in-class quick writes with children that prepare them for timed testing situations without giving over your writing workshop to mere test prep; and make connections between your writing process and your students'. Sharpen your writing instruction by learning to trust your own writing. Then teach your students in a powerful, lasting way that will help them to not only understand the elements of writing, but also to combine them into better finished products. Apprentice yourself to Donald Graves and Penny Kittle and go Inside Writing. Click here for a brief walkthrough of the book, notebook and DVD.

Inside Writing: How to Teach the Details of Craft

Kittle, Penny

For years Don Graves' wisdom has helped create meaningful connections between teachers, students, and curriculum and brought a more humane approach to teaching and learning. In A Sea of Faces Don returns to the theme of knowing your students. With an extraordinary, personal vision, and his warm, hopeful touch, Graves offers reflections on the vital importance of knowing each child as a unique individual and important insights on how to do it. A Sea of Faces is both an idea book and a meditation on children and learning. Filled with Don's wisdom, wit, and one-of-a-kind storytelling, it describes how to create new opportunities to understand your students better. Don includes exercises that will sharpen your ability to observe children and get to know them as individuals-not just students-as well as seventy delightful poems, written by Don himself, that model the writing of poetry as a new and powerful way to express what you know about the kids in your classroom. If the first day of school feels like an overwhelming blur of youngsters, trust Don Graves and read A Sea of Faces. You'll find out that all those new faces are an opportunity to renew your teaching, and that you can connect with your students in more meaningful ways than ever before.

A Sea of Faces: The Importance of Knowing Your Students

Children Want to Write is a collection of Donald Graves most significant writings paired with recovered video-tapes that illuminate his research and his inspiring work with teachers. See the earliest documented use of invented spelling, the earliest attempts to guide young children through a writing process, the earliest conferences. This collection allows you to see this revolutionary shift in writing instruction-with its emphasis on observation, reflection, and approaching children as writers. 
 Read Chapter 3: Follow the Child

Children Want to Write: Donald Graves and the Revolution in Children's Writing

Your curriculum is packed, and you have barely enough instructional time to teach students essential writing skills, let alone how to combine those skills to form cohesive, compelling work. Fortunately, there is a solution to the time crunch, a quicker, more effective way to help children understand the complexities of writing, and Don Graves and Penny Kittle are ready to share it with you. 
In Inside Writing, Graves and Kittle show you the power behind an apprenticeship approach to writing instruction where you mentor students using your own writing-even if you don't consider yourself a writer. Inside Writing is a practical, flexible three-part program that gives you numerous entryways for learning how to model the central elements of the craft: <ul>
<li>topic choice</li> <li>rereading</li> <li>details</li> <li>response</li> <li>conventions</li> <li>the writing life</li> </ul>
Begin with any aspect of Inside Writing, and you'll discover new insights about high-quality writing instruction. Online Resources: go inside real classrooms to watch as teachers from grades 2-6 demonstrate their writing process for students, and hear teachers and students share what a difference this teaching technique makes; hear commentary tracks from Graves and Kittle that underscore important instructional moments; listen in as the authors discuss their own writing processes; and print seventy-eight quick-writes prompts. Book: read about the voluminous research that supports the efficacy of the apprenticeship method for teaching children to write; strengthen the link between instructional theory and your own day-to-day classroom-teaching practices; and gain a new understanding of the role of writing in both your students' lives and yours. My Quick Writes notebook: Use Graves' favorite Quick Write topics to practice your own writing and reflect on it; find prompts for in-class quick writes with children that prepare them for timed testing situations without giving over your writing workshop to mere test prep; and make connections between your writing process and your students'. Sharpen your writing instruction by learning to trust your own writing. Then teach your students in a powerful, lasting way that will help them to not only understand the elements of writing, but also to combine them into better finished products. Apprentice yourself to Donald Graves and Penny Kittle and go Inside Writing.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Graves, Donald H.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Graves, Donald H.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Graves, Donald H.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

How to Catch a Shark: And Other Stories About Teaching and Learning

Bring Life into Learning: Create a Lasting Literacy

The Energy to Teach

Testing Is Not Teaching: What Should Count in Education

Writing: Teachers & Children at Work 20th Anniversary Edition

Teaching Day by Day: 180 Stories to Help You Along the Way

Inside Writing: How to Teach the Details of Craft

A Sea of Faces: The Importance of Knowing Your Students

Children Want to Write: Donald Graves and the Revolution in Children's Writing

Inside Writing: How to Teach the Details of Craft