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A series of vignettes that follow Esperanza, a young Latina girl, as she grows up in Chicago. Perfect for ELD students due to its accessible language, rich cultural context, and relatable themes.

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A novel in verse about a young Vietnamese girl adapting to life in America. The poetic format and immigrant experience narrative make it especially relevant for ELD students.

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Written in verse, this memoir tells the story of growing up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s. The accessible format and compelling storytelling make it perfect for developing language skills.

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A graphic novel that weaves together three seemingly separate stories about identity, acceptance, and cultural bridges. The visual support helps ELD students understand complex themes.

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A graphic novel about Jordan Banks, who navigates being one of the few students of color at a prestigious private school. The visual storytelling supports comprehension while addressing relevant social themes.

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A graphic memoir about navigating friendships and school life. The combination of illustrations and text makes it accessible while dealing with universal themes that students can relate to.

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Academic Conversations: Classroom Talk That Fosters Critical Thinking

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Academic Conversations: Classroom Talk That Fosters Critical Thinking

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An interactive resource that helps students develop academic conversation skills. Includes practical activities and strategies for classroom implementation.

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Where would we be without conversation? Throughout history, conversations have allowed us to see different perspectives, build ideas, and solve problems. Conversations, particularly those referred to in this book as academic conversations, push students to think and learn in lasting ways. Academic conversations are back-and-forth dialogues in which students focus on a topic and explore it by building, challenging, and negotiating relevant ideas.

Unfortunately, academic conversations are rare in many classrooms. Talk is often dominated by the teacher and a few students, or it does not advance beyond short responses to the teacher's questions. Even certain teaching approaches and curriculum programs neglect to train students how to maintain a focused, respectful, and thoughtful conversation.

To address these challenges, authors Jeff Zwiers and Marie Crawford have identified five core communication skills to help students hold productive academic conversations across content areas. These skills include: elaborating and clarifying, supporting ideas with evidence, building on and/or challenging ideas, paraphrasing, and synthesizing. This book shows teachers how to weave the cultivation of academic conversation skills and conversations into current teaching approaches. More specifically, it describes how to use conversations to build the following:

Academic vocabulary and grammar

Critical thinking skills such as persuasion, interpretation, consideration of multiple perspectives, evaluation, and application

Literacy skills such as questioning, predicting, connecting to prior knowledge, and summarizing

Complex and abstract essential understandings in content areas such as adaptation, human nature, bias, conservation of mass, energy, gravity, irony, democracy, greed, and more

An academic classroom environment brimming with respect for others' ideas, equity of voice, engagement, and mutual support

The ideas in this book stem from many hours of classroom practice, research, and video analysis across grade levels and content areas. Readers will find numerous practical activities for working on each conversation skill, crafting conversation-worthy tasks, and using conversations to teach and assess. Academic Conversations offers an in-depth approach to helping students develop into the future parents, teachers, and leaders who will collaborate to build a better world.

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academic conversations: classroom talk that fosters critical thinking and content understandings

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thought and thinking;study and teaching (elementary)

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conversation - study and teaching (elementary)

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education / teaching methods & materials / general

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language arts & disciplines / writing / general

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thought and thinking - study and teaching (elementary)

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thought and thinking;study and teaching (elementary)

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conversations; academic; communication skills; academic vocabulary; grammar; critical thinking; literacy skills; classroom practice

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education / teaching methods & materials / general

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language arts & disciplines / writing / general

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Academic Conversations: Classroom Talk that Fosters Critical Thinking and Content Understandings

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Amazon.com: Academic Conversations: Classroom Talk that Fosters Critical Thinking and Content Understandings (9781571108845): Zwiers, Jeff, Crawford, Marie: Books

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A comprehensive online resource aligned with CA ELD standards, featuring engaging content and interactive exercises to build academic vocabulary and reading comprehension.

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An online platform that provides current events articles at multiple reading levels, perfect for developing academic language while staying engaged with real-world topics.

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It's time to improve literacy skills during social studies instruction and ensure that readers of all abilities have what they need to access grade-level social studies concepts.

Join us on Thursday, December 7 for a look at scaffolded materials that provide extra literacy support while building key social studies concepts and skills.

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Newsela | Content and assessment platform

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Content Aligned To National & State Standard, Flexible To Support Relevant Curriculum. Find the Perfect Piece Of Content For Lessons. Go beyond the book.

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A free online collection of fiction and nonfiction texts with built-in supports for ELD students, including translated instructions and vocabulary help.

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CommonLit | Free Online Reading Passages and Literacy Resources

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CommonLit is a comprehensive literacy program with thousands of reading lessons, full-year ELA curriculum, benchmark assessments, and standards-based data for teachers.