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Why Do I Have to Read This?
9781625311511
Regular price $40.66 Sale price $30.50 Save $10.16“Why do I have to read this?”
What teacher doesn’t dread this question? It usually comes from our most disengaged students a student who cries of boredom, or one who is angry or apathetic. When we don’t know what else to try, it’s easy to become frustrated and give up on these challenging learners. Author Cris Tovani has spent her career figuring out how to entice challenging students back into the process of learning.
In Why Do I Have to Read This?: Literacy Strategies to Engage our Most Reluctant Students Tovani shares her best secrets, lessons learned from big fails, and her most effective literacy and planning strategies that hook these hard to get learners.
You will meet many of Tovani's students inside this book. As she describes some of her favorites, you may even recognize a few of your own. You will laugh at her stories and take comfort in her easily adaptable strategies that help students remove their masks of disengagement. She shows teachers how to plan by anticipating students’ needs. Her Curriculum You Anticipate structures of Topic, Task, Targets, Text, Tend to me, and Time will help you anticipate your curriculum.
Inside Why Do I Have to Read This? readers will find:
- Literacy strategies for all content areas that support and engage a wide range of learners so they can read and write a variety of complex text
- Reference charts packed with small bites of instructional shifts that coaches and teachers can use to quickly adjust instruction to re-engage students
- Planning strategies that show teachers how to connect day-to-day instruction so that no day lives in isolation
- Versatile think sheets that are reproducible and adaptable to different grade levels, content areas, and disciplines
Above all, Tovani gives teachers energy to get back into the classroom and face students who wear masks of disengagement. She reminds us of the importance of connecting students to compelling topics, rich text, useful targets, and worthy tasks. Teachers must tend to students’ basic needs and helps us consider how to best structure instructional time.
After reading this book, teachers will have new ways to connect with students in a deep, authentic way. Written in a humorous, compassionate, and wise voice, Why Do I Have to Read This? will provide answers to the pressing questions we have when we try to teach and reach all of our students.

Do I Really Have to Teach Reading?
9781571103765
Regular price $34.00 Sale price $25.50 Save $8.50“Do I really have to teach reading?”
This is a question many teachers ask, wondering how they can add a new element to an overloaded curriculum. The answer is yes; if teachers want their students to learn complex new concepts in different disciplines, they need to help develop their students’ reading skills.
In Do I Really Have to Teach Reading?: Content Comprehension, Grades 6-12, author Cris Tovani takes on the challenge of helping students apply reading comprehension strategies in any subject. Tovani shows how teachers can expand on their content expertise to provide the instruction students need to understand specific technical and narrative texts. Inside the book you’ll find:
- Examples of how teachers can model their reading process for students
- Ideas for supplementing and enhancing the use of required textbooks
- Detailed descriptions of specific strategies taught in context
- Stories from different high school classrooms to show how reading instruction varies according to content
- Samples of student work, including both struggling readers and college-bound seniors
- “Comprehension Constructors”: guides designed to help students recognize and capture their thinking in writing while reading
- Guidance on assessing students
- Tips for balancing content and reading instruction
Tovani’s humor, honesty, and willingness to share her own struggles as a teacher make this a unique take on content reading instruction that will be valuable to reading teachers as well as content specialists.

So What Do They Really Know?
9781571107305
Regular price $34.67 Sale price $26.00 Save $8.67In So What Do They Really Know?:Assessment That Informs Teaching and Learning Cris Tovani explores the complex issue of monitoring, assessing, and grading students' thinking and performance with fairness and fidelity. Like all teachers, Tovani struggles to balance her student-centered instruction with school system mandates. Her recommendations are realistic and practical; she understands that what isn't manageable isn't sustainable.
Tovani describes the systems and structure she uses in her own classroom and shows teachers how to use assessments to monitor student growth and provide targeted feedback that enables students to master content goals. She also shares ways to bring students into the assessment cycle so they can monitor their own learning, maximizing motivation and engagement.
So What Do They Really Know? includes a wealth of information:
- Templates showing how teachers can use the workshop model to assess and differentiate instruction
- Student work, including samples from linguistically diverse learners, struggling readers, and college-bound seniors
- Anchor charts of student thinking
- Ideas on how to give feedback
- Guidelines that explain how conferring is different from monitoring
- Suggestions for assessing learning and differentiating instruction during conferences
- Advice for managing ongoing assessment
Tovani’s willingness to share her own struggles continues to be a hallmark of her work. Teachers will recognize their own students and the challenges they face as they join the author on the journey to figure out how to raise student achievement.
