Category: Book Review

How can students become involved as citizens of a community? The book From Inquiry to Action, by Steven Zemelman, answers this question. This book is all about Project-Based Learning (PBL) and its purpose in education. PBL is important because it encourages student creativity and application. As we live in a time where more and more technological advances are being used by students outside of the classroom, Zemelman tells us that teachers must become more creative in their projects. The projects of the past that have been strictly assessed but do not provide any interactive or realistic applications and are harmful to the growth and development of our students. Zemelman believes any assignment that excites and motivates the students will create a positive and enriching environment and it should be useful in the long term. PBL creates meaning and motivation for the students. The PBL approach is a great way to start incorporating more engaging projects in any classroom with a creative and unique touch. Zemelman states that teachers should be “Aiming for the kinds of thinking that will help students to take action as they grow older: finding issues that are of real concern to them, identifying the people who can affect the most change in relation to those issues, assessing potential solutions, taking a stand, and perhaps urging others to take action.” (Zemelman, 24)

PBL gives students the opportunity to actually apply the knowledge that was learned in their class instead of just taking a test for short-term uses. PBL also gives an opportunity for students to reflect and evaluate their own ideas and concepts. PBL is grounded in principles that focus on the extreme importance for students to learn on a more personal level but also to learn from real-world situations. According to the principles, the students should be prepared for real-life in class. This book creates an outline of steps in PBL including, choosing an issue, researching the issue, making a plan and preparing to act, taking action, empowering students in the classroom, social action in the school through restorative justice, growing an after-school program, and promoting change in schools. This book brings up an important point about the early stages of PBL and the need for generating research questions because this will make it easier to understand the issue and will aid in making a plan. Another major component of PBL is the social aspect and community building through collaboration. Zemelman does acknowledge that different ideas in collaboration can create some sticky situations, but the text also outlines “a great collection of strategies and activities for building habits of respectful discussion and mutual support in a classroom where strong opinions are bound to emerge.” (Zemelman, 98) The ideas in this book can be used in basically any classroom setting which means all teachers would benefit from reading this book. There is even sections dedicated to subjects like math, where it might seem harder to include PBL. Any teacher can use these suggestions and can follow it step by step. It is highly recommended!

Have you ever experienced teaching a tough text and didn’t know how to talk about it? Or been afraid to have a tough talk about a tough text? This book is a must read to help you through those difficult times in the classroom. Tough Talk Tough Texts: Teaching English to  Change the World is written by Cindy O’Donnell- Allen and has changed my outlook even before teaching in my own classroom. In chapter 1 the book starts off by introducing you to three teachers and their experiences with tough texts and tough talks. Tough talks “refer to the specialized communication students use to address the controversial topics that arise in tough texts, texts that raise difficult issues and treat them in complex ways,” (O’Donnell- Allen 6). Civil discourse is talked about a lot throughout this book which is how we talk about things well civilly. It is important because it can help with our understanding of certain aspects of the world.  Tough texts include things under cultural relevance and relatable characters that can make it hard for you as the teacher and the student to discuss. But don’t worry, there are strategies to help you choose tough texts for your class in this book. I learned  that there are questions to keep in mind when looking for tough texts. “Does this book focus on significant issues that my students are likely to see as relevant?” “Are these issues treated in complex ways?” (O’Donnell- Allen 34). Although these may be difficult to bring into the classroom at first, it is what students want to learn about. This book also provides ways in which you can get student and parent approval of texts. If you provide a list of suggested books in the syllabus you can have students read it over then show their parents and come back with a signature of approval for them to read certain texts. This can then help you separate your students into book clubs! If some students want to read book x others may want to read book y and this method can help with the process of separating students. Some tough texts will be good for individuals or groups or whole class but its all about figuring out your students and what will work the best. This book provides so many activities and appendix’s that offer tough texts and strategies when teaching them.

I think this book can be helpful to secondary teachers in both english and history classes, maybe even science if there are some tough things to talk about. I think as a society we often shy away from talking about certain things because we are afraid to offend people or come across as being rude. This book can help teachers really address their students to the best of their abilities. I think this book could even be assigned to students for them to read about or read parts of it before they start getting into tough texts and tough talks with their classmates and teachers. I think it is easier for students to talk about things with their peers rather than their teachers and this book along with tough texts really can start to break a wall down in my opinion. I think if we can keep civil discourse in mind, maybe tough talks will slowly start to go away and different parts of the world won’t be so hard to talk about anymore.