Studying elementary, middle, and high schools in inner-city as well as suburban communities, she focuses her theory of literature instruction on the creation in the classroom of a literate community and the development of a reader-based pedagogy for all students.

Getting to Excellent is for everyone - educators, parents, civic leaders - who want students to think sharply, like learning, and have the high literacy skills that will open the path to success in school, work, and life. Using data from her groundbreaking study of diverse middle and high schools, Judith Langer shows us what makes the difference between highly effective schools and typical, business-as-usual schools. This very accessible volume: Provides research-based guidance from schools in California, Florida, New York, and Texas, four states with diverse students and different testing demands. Features many examples of schools in action, identifying particular features that are present in effective schools but don't exist in others. Examines the extent to which teachers and administrators are affected by the larger environment, leading to professional growth or malaise. Includes models for providing rich and exciting learning environments that undergird success for all students. Includes self-inspection checklists to help administrators, teachers, and others place their own school, on the continuum from "typical" to "excellent," and identify areas that need improvement.

Product Description: Judith Langer focuses here on middle school and high school literacy programs that effectively support student learning in an era of national and state standards and high-stakes testing. The book offers a programmatic vision, a set of principles, and real-life examples to guide educators who wish to inform their practice with research-based knowledge in order to best help their students become more highly literate...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

(view table of contents)

Product Description: Book by Flood, James

(view table of contents)

Product Description: Book by Applebee, Arthur N.

Product Description: Writing / Teaching / Learning

Product Description: "information writing is used to present information and share ideas"

Product Description: This volume presents the results of a two-year research project which examined the development and use of reading and writing by school-aged children. The studies examined the relationships between children's reading and writing by looking at the social contexts that surrounded their understandings and uses of reading and writing; the cognitive processes that the readers and writers invoked in completing different kinds of tasks; and the products that were produced, including the ideas that were developed in reading and writing, and the ways in which these ideas were structured in presentation or recall...read more

Product Description: This volume presents the results of a two-year research project which examined the development and use of reading and writing by school-aged children. The studies examined the relationships between children's reading and writing by looking at the social contexts that surrounded their understandings and uses of reading and writing; the cognitive processes that the readers and writers invoked in completing different kinds of tasks; and the products that were produced, including the ideas that were developed in reading and writing, and the ways in which these ideas were structured in presentation or recall...read more

Product Description: Authors' attempt to bridge the gap between readers and authors, therefore clarifying knowledge between the two.