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.

Ann T. Reddy-Damon - VOYA

It has been a while since a single book has so powerfully changed this reviewer's thinking about teaching, making her reconsider how she teaches. The book at first seems a bit of a "love fest" among the editors as it is founded on the principles presented by George Hillocks's Teaching Writing as a Reflective Practice (Teacher's College Press, 1995). The editors frequently mention his work and influence as well as each other. Readers will get over this reaction as soon as they recognize the valuable insights on teaching and learning. Interest will pique in Chapter 2 where Markham claims "education is essentially an ethical endeavor." The next chapter solidifies interest by offering an idea that teachers will immediately want to use; Flanagan presents a game to teach students the elements of an argument to enhance their writings. But it was repeated references to what Csikszentmihalyi and Larson describe as "the flow of academic experiences" that truly change perspectives. Smith offers suggestions for using student's "literate activities outside of school" to give control and competence back to students so that they might in fact enjoy what they do at school. This book offers a wealth of practical teaching and learning activities founded on sound research. Each chapter starts with the author's reflection on a teaching practice and offers solutions to problems. Almost every chapter models Hillocks's "instructional scaffolding," and they are grouped into inquiry, writing, discussion, and literature instruction. Recommend this book to both novice and veteran teachers, as suggested in the introduction, "as a means for initiating dialogue with their peers about how to teach English." 2005,Heinemann, 223p., $25 pb. Ages adult professional.

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.

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.

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 W. Smith is a professor in Temple University's College of Education. In his research he works to understand how experienced readers read and talk about literary texts, how adolescents read and talk about texts both in and out of school, and how teachers can help prepare students to have more meaningful transactions when they read, interests he developed during his eleven years of teaching high school English. He has been Chair of the Literature Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association, co-Chair of the National Council of Teachers of English Assembly for Research, and co-editor of Research in the Teaching of English. He was recently elected as a Fellow of the National Conference on Research in Language and Literacy.