Literacy and the Common Core: Recipes for Action (Jossey-Bass Teacher)

This is Tantillo's second book on teaching literacy skills. I'd read her first book The Literacy Cookbook: A Practical Guide to Effective Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening Instruction and appreciate her direct manner of writing and her passion for using effective teaching strategies in order to reach students to achieve learning objectives. In that first book she focused on teaching teachers how to teach, how to assess if learning is actually happening and how to develop lesson plans.In Literacy and the Common Core, Tantillo attacks the CC objectives head on. She says teachers are upset that not enough curriculum has been published yet to instantly begin using, so in this book she aims to teach teachers how to develop lessons plans from the most crucial CC objectives. The book explains the objectives in layman's terms so administrators can also understand the expectations.Thus this book contains new material to explain the CC objectives, along with mixing in some information from the first book (not a problem to revisit if you already read the first book).Tantillo speaks directly, sometimes criticizing teachers (not to rely on today's lesson plan depending on completion of last night's homework as it will fail for students who didn't do it) or administrators (i.e. don't pick the book to read that's the inferior one that the school already owns 500 copies of). She sometimes finds fault with the CC, such as saying Black Beauty may not be the best book for fourth graders after all. Although overall Tantillo is happy to have solid objectives for each grade level instead of "by the end of fourth grade" and "by the end of eighth grade". She supports one set of objectives for the whole country for continuity.I read her first book because I am a homeschooling mother who has created her own lesson plans for multiple classes for both of my kids every year. I found her techniques helpful as I was homeschooling grades 7-8 and 10-11 at that time. The first book focused on very specific teaching strategies. I chose to read this book because I have heard a lot of negative press from parents and teachers about CC and didn't know what or who to believe. After reading what Tantillo has to say and the analysis of some of the objectives I see nothing negative or problematic with the CC objectives. This book focuses on interpreting the CC objectives and working on a higher level, a more macro approach with some of the micro ideas.I appreciate Tantillo's energetic and passionate writing style. If you want a taste of Tantillo's writing style and what her style and writing is like, see her free blog or read more about the book on the author's website.I rate this book 5 stars = I Love It.

Alright, so I actually got this almost two weeks ago, right at the beginning of the school year. Just as I did with the previous standards, I have started to collect strategy guides that focus on common core. This is just so that I have things that include different ideas of how the common core is being interpreted and what are some things people are using to meet those goals. With multiple books to choose from, I always have another opinion on meaning and strategies at my fingertips when I get stuck in the planning process.With this book, she uses a cookbook type metaphor for writing this book. The first part is specifically based on what you need to do and would be focused on setting down to start planning, not necessarily something that most teachers will really read. I skipped that part after a bit of a quick flip through. There are materials listed that may be nice, but most of us have a particular list of materials in our heads anyways. The last three parts were really what I was interested in. Part 2 talks about the meaning of what common core is. A lot of it is similar to what has no undoubtedly been taught in a teacher education classroom or an in-service at the school district, but Tantillo's writing style is easy and simple, so the definitions and explanations are clear. While I don't believe she conquers any big questions about it, I do think that this is a good reference spot. The third part focuses on methods and strategies to use in the classroom and the fourth contains resources and things you can copy. Most of us are really interested in that section. There were some strategies that I marked off with post-its as things I may want to try this year. Also, I printed off some sheets from the resources on the CD. They are very general, but can be tailored easily towards any grade level or left open to include multiple grade levels. I also prefer the resources on the CD compared to the ones within the book because they are easier to print than shove on a copy machine.

I just finished reading Sarah Tantillo’s Literacy and the Common Core; Recipes for Action and I must say, this is unequivocally one of THE BEST teacher resources I have come upon in quite some time. What a great read! Everything about this book was appealing. As a veteran English teacher, obviously the content was of high interest to me, but Tantillo’s common sense approach coupled with her depth of understanding about English/ELA, kids, and the Common Core were spot on. Right from the get-go I liked the templates she provided for the action planning process. So many times I skim over those graphics when I feel they are the “same old, same old” but these were newer, fresher and most importantly, THEY MADE SENSE! As the recipe theme unfolded throughout the book, I particularly liked the author’s “Doggie Bags” at the end of each chapter. These were thought provoking questions that allowed me to really examine my school’s practices as well as my own when it came to topics like planning, developing, and designing curricula, daily lesson plan, etc. Topics throughout the book pertained specifically to me regarding the at-risk students I have in my classroom. In particular, the chapter entitled, “Bridging the Gap When Students are not on Grade Level” was excellent. She provided strategic suggestions and purposeful advice regarding engagement at both the students’ level as well and with parents. The book also came with a CD that provides excellent resources regarding the Common Core and ELA Standards. I am going to request my team purchase this book. It is an excellent resource!