Children’s Literature for Today’s Classrooms
edited by Shelley S. Peterson, David Booth & Carol Jupiter
Portage & Main Press, 2009
ISBN 978-1-55379-203-1
$27, 209 pp, adult
www.pandmpress.com
This is an excellent resource for K – 12 teachers, both those who are already using contemporary media in their classrooms and those who are interested but don’t know where to start. This book provides “information, classroom examples, and anecdotes as practical tools to help teachers use digital, media, and print texts to extend students’ learning.” It tackles SMART boards, Photostory, 35mm and digital cameras, visual arts connections, movie interpretations of books and the toy industry, just to name a few. Filled with worksheets, teacher checklists, assessment questions and ideas, sample student answers as well as in-depth reference and resource bibliographies, this is an all-in-one resource to bring technology and literacy alive in your classroom.
Though most chapters are targeted toward primary, junior and intermediate classrooms, high school teachers will benefit from the many creative ways of incorporating technology into lessons and assessments. Rotary teachers will also appreciate the ease of collecting a variety of information in portable formats (CDs, DVDs, data sticks, etc.). Principals and school staff can use suggestions to plan assemblies, book fairs, fundraising events, etc. This is a must-have resource for any professional library in the 21st century.
Teachers know their students are already plugged in and exposed to a variety of media in hundreds of different ways each day, they’ve seen that it affects their students’ “traditional” classroom reading and writing—this resource will help teachers change the way students interact with text, ensuring that classrooms contain “both literacies—reading the new digital and multimedia texts and reading traditional paper-based forms (books, magazines and newspapers).” There is also a focus to integrate both literacies through a variety of shared reading, ways of listening while reading, independent reading and writing. Check out the website for an online preview of Chapter 1 and a book talk by Shelley S. Peterson.
Review by Amanda Parker.
This review is from Canadian Teacher Magazine’s Mar/Apr 2011 issue.