Tools for Thought: Graphic Organizers for Your Classroom

Dozens of graphic organizers and a hundred ways to use them! Jim's prepared a workbook that's a real workhorse, providing tools to spark student thinking that are both intriguing and precise-and applicable to grades 6 to 12 in all subject areas. These tools range from annotations and literature circle notes to Venn diagrams and vocabulary squares. Each comes as a reproducible accompanied by:

• background information and theoretical foundations
• different ways to use each tool to help students read, write, speak, and think better
• a range of note-taking strategies to help students succeed in all academic classes
• student samples, including many from Jim's ACCESS (Academic Success) program for struggling students who want to succeed.

In addition, three documents help you choose "the right tool for the job." Use Jim's suggestions to help students take better notes and improve their critical thinking. Or use his visual directory to quickly evaluate what you need for an assignment. Tools for Thought works across the spectrum-helping students with learning differences, assisting struggling readers and writers, challenging students in advanced classes.

Gloria Levine Bryant - KLIATT

This is a must-read for middle school and high school teachers. Burke, a high school English teacher, has received numerous awards for his teaching and educational writing. One look at his book chock-full of graphic organizers and rich with examples of how they could be used in various subject areas to improve reading, thinking, writing and you will see why. First of all, the book is beautifully laid out with the classroom teacher's needs in mind, from beginning (with an opening section on "How to Use This Book" and a "visual directory" with thumbnail sketches of all 24 graphic organizers for ready reference) to end (where there is an extensive bibliography, a complete index, and best of all 43 pages of reproducible graphic organizers for classroom use). The absorbing pages in between offer a delightful glimpse into what Burke's classroom is like. Each chapter begins with a description of the strategy and a helpful bulleted listing of standards, subject areas, and uses. Excellent teacher that he is, Burke then walks his reader through how he introduces the organizer to students and offers several models of student-completed organizers. Among the (over 40) figures and suggestions are sample annotated newspaper articles, conversational round-table notes and literature circle sheets for literature discussion, spreadsheet notes on a world studies reading, specific ideas for how to use decision trees in science classes, and suggestions on how to use "Thinking in Threes" notes to stimulate critical thinking in any discipline. Simply put, Burke's book is exciting. This reviewer could barely wait to try out some of the strategies in her sixth-grade classroom (with wonderful results) and plans totrumpet Tools for Thought at an upcoming workshop presentation on reading strategies for middle school content area teachers. KLIATT Codes: P* Exceptional book. 2002, Heinemann, 184p. illus. index., . Ages adult.

Jim Burke is the author of the Heinemann title What's the Big Idea? The question he's always tried to answer is "How can we teach our students better?" He began this search in his own classroom at Burlingame High School in California, where he still teaches. He shares his experiences there in bestselling professional titles with Heinemann such as The English Teacher's Companion; Reading Reminders; and Writing Reminders as well as through Heinemann Professional Development Services. Looking to his peers for still more answers, he founded the English Companion Ning, described by Education Week as "the world's largest English department." Jim continues to find and support best practices in many other ways, including serving on national commissions related to adolescent literacy and standards, such as the Advanced Placement English Literature and Language Course and Exam Review Commission with the College Board, and by being a senior author on the Holt McDougal Harcourt Literature series. Jim has received numerous awards, including the NCTE Intellectual Freedom Award, the NCTE Conference on English Leadership Award, and the California Reading Association Hall of Fame Award. He served on the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards Committee on Adolescence and Young Adulthood English Language Arts Standards and recently worked with ACT on their high school English Language Arts standards. In 2007, he participated in the national Adolescent Literacy Coalition roundtable and worked with the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. Visit his website (www.englishcompanion.com) for more information.