Columbus Day?

So. Columbus Day, hmm? Such a romantic story of the discovery of a "New World." 

"In 14 hundred 92, Columbus sailed the ocean blue," was the sing-song verse I learned in elementary school. The First People weren't mentioned, of course.

My missionary son (a member of a minority in Tanzania, a former colony itself) posted this link on Facebook today: Rethinking Columbus: Towards a True People's History. The embedded question is, "Is it OK for big nations to bully small nations, for white people to dominate people of color, to celebrate the colonialists with no attention paid to the perspectives of the colonized, to view history solely from the standpoint of the "winners?"

Also for your consideration:

10 Things You May Not Know About Christopher Columbus

Before Columbus: The Americas of 1491

Hatuey: 1512 - 2012

Lies My Teacher Told Me About Christopher Columbus

Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years

Should Columbus Day be changed to 'Exploration Day'?

Students Make Film: Columbus – The Hidden History

Why do we celebrate Columbus Day?

Food for thought, and for your reflection and planning for teaching your kiddos.

Happy 127th, Niels Bohr!

If you teach science, you must teach your students about scientists, making sure that they understand they are scientists themselves as you investigate together. You must, of course, also teach them about well-known scientists who have made huge contributions to our understanding of the natural world.

Today is Niels Bohr's birthday. Bohr won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922, fled the Nazis in 1943, and worked on the Manhattan Project. CNET's Chris Matyszczyk calls today's Google Doodle in his honor "beautifully random and humorous (since it) is not some especially significant milestone in the Bohr family. It is not the 100th anniversary of his birth or death, nor his 150th. It's just that Niels Bohr would have been 127 today."

Matyszczyk seems to think this appropriate, calling Bohr a scientist with a sense of humor, citing a Washington Post article that includes "some of his more pithy observations, ones that make one imagine Bohr would have been anything but a bore in company." Here are some of my favorites:

“Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.”

“No, no, you’re not thinking — you’re just being logical.”

“How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress.”

“An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes, which can be made, in a very narrow field."

“We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough.”

Intelligent, intuitive, influential, and yes, funny. A man who so inspired one of his sons that he also received a Nobel Prize. Show your students this short YouTube video tomorrow to introduce them to the amazing man who was Niels Henrik David Bohr:

Common Core Practice | Floating Buddhas, MacArthur ‘Geniuses’ and Fracking

Today's Common Core Practice from Sarah Gross, Jonathan Olsen, and The Learning Network includes narrative, informative, and argumentative writing tasks. 

Floating Buddhas so inspired Sarah and Jonathan's students "that they have designed a challenge for students (and adults) everywhere: find a piece of “art” (however you define it) in your own surroundings, and post a photo of it to Twitter with the hashtag #art4me. They hope to 'see how far this project will travel,' so consider joining in!"

Librado Romero/The New York Times

Chang Jin-Lee’s inflatable Buddha sculpture, called “Floating Echo,”

is anchored on the East River at Socrates Sculpture Park

in Long Island City, Queens. Go to related article »

MacArthur ‘Geniuses’ tells students that “talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction (can win) $100,000 per year for five years" and asks them to "propose a dream project that you hope the MacArthur Foundation would help fund."

Fracking refers students to the article Shift by Cuomo on Gas Drilling Prompts Both Anger and Praise, as well as a video and an earlier lesson plan, and asks them to "write a letter to the editor of The New York Times explaining whether Governor Cuomo should allow fracking to occur in New York State, (using) evidence from the article to support your argument."

"Winning!" again, with this great resource at The New York Times.

Banned Books Week

It's the next-to-last day of Banned Books Week, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. The event is sponsored by the American Library Association, and recognizes the importance of the freedom to read.

I've always been amazed at the books that have been banned in one place or another. Here are just some of the books that were banned or challenged from 2000 to 2009:

A Day No Pigs Would Die, by Robert Newton Peck
A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeline L’Engle
Alice series, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, by Judy Blume

Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
Bridge To Terabithia, by Katherine Paterson
Draw Me A Star, by Eric Carle
Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury

Friday Night Lights, by H.G. Bissenger
Goosebumps series, by R.L. Stine
Harris and Me, by Gary Paulsen
Harry Potter series, by J.K. Rowling

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
In the Night Kitchen, by Maurice Sendak
Julie of the Wolves, by Jean Craighead George
Junie B. Jones series, by Barbara Park

Mick Harte Was Here, by Barbara Park
Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, by Mildred Taylor
Summer of My German Soldier, by Bette Green

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
The Color Purple, by Alice Walker

The Fighting Ground, by Avi

The Giver, by Lois Lowry

The Great Gilly Hopkins, by Katherine Paterson

To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

Yes...classics, favorite children's books, and many books that we read to and with our students and love ourselves!

Award-winning broadcast journalist Bill Moyers talks about how libraries provided his first opportunity to indulge his love of reading and learning, and shares his dismay over efforts to remove books from schools and libraries in modern times. Watch the essay, titled “The Bane of Banned Books," below: 

This letter from author Pat Conroy was published in the October 24, 2007, issue of the Charleston Gazette in West Virginia. It was written in response to his books’ permanent removal from classes at a local high school.

The National Council of Teachers of English is a co-sponsor of this year's celebration.

Cures For The Common Core Blues: BOOKS, Vol. 1

I know, I know. If you went to CCSS training this summer, you got a ton of helpful materials to take home.

And if you didn't, because you're a brand-new teacher? Or because your district didn't pay for it? Or require it? Or you went to school all summer, or taught summer school?

Or...you were overwhelmed and still haven't worked your way through all of it, because you teach ELA in Tennessee, and you're trying to figure out how to phase in the CCSS, and at the same time prepare your students for the TCAP because after all, that's what they will take next spring? I understand.

That's why I'm writing Common Core posts in chunks, with one topic, so you can actually look at resources one or a few at a time, when you have a minute. (I also know that even those minutes are few and far between, with PLC meetings, IEP meetings, RTI meetings, and meetings for every other acronym in education. :)

So. This post is the first in a series about a book that causes my juices to start flowing, just thinking about the possibilities for Common Core lessons using it. I'll write about one book each Thursday for the next several weeks.

Irena's Jars of Secrets, by Marcia Vaughan, was named a 2012 Sydney Taylor Honor Book for Older Readers. The Sydney Taylor Book Awards are presented annually to “outstanding books for children and teens that authentically portray the Jewish experience" by the Association of Jewish Libraries.

Here's a description from the publisher's website: "Irena Sendler, born to a Polish Catholic family, was raised to respect people of all backgrounds and to help those in need. She became a social worker; and after the German army occupied Poland during World War II, Irena knew she had to help the sick and starving Jews who were imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto. She began by smuggling food, clothing, and medicine into the ghetto, then turned to smuggling children out of the ghetto. Using false papers and creative means of escape, and at great personal risk, Irena helped rescue Jewish children and hide them in safe surroundings. Hoping to reunite the children with their families after the war, Irena kept secret lists of the children’s identities.

Motivated by conscience and armed with compassion and a belief in human dignity, Irena Sendler confronted an enormous moral challenge and proved to the world that an ordinary person can accomplish deeds of extraordinary courage." 

The book is available from: Lee and Low Books and Amazon. Download a PDF document with discussion questions for the book at Lee and Low's website.  Use them as inspiration for your own activities for close reading, inferring, vocabulary, cross-curricular connections, schema, and multicultural awareness. Lee and Low also provides a book talk with Vaughan and Ron Mazellan, who illustrated the book.

At the links below, you can read interviews with the book's author and illustrator that were part of the official Sydney Taylor Book Award Blog Tour:

• An interview with Marcia Vaughan - Irena's Jars of Secrets
• The Sydney Taylor Book Award Blog Tour: Interview with Ron Mazellan, Illustrator 

In December 2008, The New York Times published The Smuggler, a story about Irena Sendler, by Maggie Jones.
You can learn more about Irena Sendler and the group of students from Kansas whose research brought her story to worldwide attention at Life in a Jar: The Irena Sendler Project. A book of the same name by Jack Mayer is available both on the site and at Amazon.com.

Irena Sendler: Mother of the Children of the Holocaust, Irena Sendler and the Children of the Warsaw Ghetto, and Irena Sendler: Bringing Life to Children of the Holocaust are other books about this remarkable woman. The Other Schindler...Irena Sendler: Savior of the Holocaust Children is available for Kindle.

In the Name of their Mothers: The Story of Irena Sendler is a film that was shown on PBS stations in May 2011. It includes some of Sendler's last interviews, and is available from PBS.org.

The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler, a 2009 Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation, is also available on DVD.

What a wonderful stand-alone book this is, but wouldn't it be amazing to embed these resources into a unit on the Holocaust or World War II, or a book study of The Diary of Anne Frank? If you create a fabulous unit around these ideas, be sure to let me know. 

And please, let great books help cure your Common Core blues!

White Flour - The Book and The Video

There are fourteen white faces in Geita, Tanzania, a rural town of 40,000 souls. Our son Carson, daughter-in-law Holly, and grandsons Jude and Silas are four. The rest are members of their mission team, except for a single German woman who also came to Geita as a missionary.

Since our kids moved to East Africa in 2009, I've spent a total of almost eleven weeks there, and I've glimpsed life as a minority. This has led to a great deal of reflection, as have my seven years of experience teaching English as a Second Language to Hispanic children and working closely with their families.

Holly sent me a link to this video last night, and I had to share it with you. If I were still in the classroom, I would get a copy of the book, download the video, and create a lesson to use with my students. I hope you will.

The book is available at WhiteFlourBook.com and at Amazon.com. From the website: "White Flour is David LaMotte’s second children’s book, with illustrations by Jenn Hales. In Seussian rhyme, it tells the funny and inspiring story of the day that the Ku Klux Klan met the Coup Clutz Clowns, who offered a whimsical and wise retort to their racist rally. The poem that provides the text for the book was inspired by true events in Knoxville, TN in 2007. White Flour was written for middle school students and older, but may be appropriate for younger kids at their parents’ discretion."

Great Resources From Ireland's NBSS

Today I'm sharing a fantastic resource from across the pond! Ireland's National Behaviour Support Service was established in 2006 in response to a recommendation in School Matters: The Report of the Task Force on Student Behaviour in Second Level Schools (2006). Education reform movements that result from a report - we've lived through a few, right?

I think, however, that you'll love this service's guiding principles:

• Schools can make a difference in young people’s lives.
• A whole school approach, founded on respectful relationships, is essential in promoting and supporting positive behaviours throughout the school community.
• Behaviour is intrinsically linked to teaching and learning.
• Inclusion is a core educational value.
• Good practice in schools is acknowledged and disseminated.

Here's the best part for your practice: The NBSS has assembled a library of resources that support schools and students in the development of academic literacy, learning, and study skills. On the Publications & Resources section of this site there are over twenty individual comprehension, vocabulary and study strategy resources to download, as well as vocabulary notebooks, reading comprehension bookmarks and posters, and many other resources to support teaching and learning. Wow.

I chose one of these great items to highlight: 

The Somebody-Wanted-But-So Summary - Comprehension Strategy

From their description: "The Somebody-Wanted-But-So strategy is used during or after reading. It provides a framework to use when summarising the action of a story or historical event by identifying key elements. The strategy also helps students identify the main ideas, recognise cause and effect relationships, make generalisations, identify differences between characters and look at various points of view." Yes, their spelling is British, naturally. :)

I really want you to click over and see all of the amazing resources, so I'm showing you everything included with this one: 

1. Teaching steps, including modeling the strategy for your students:

Explicitly teaching ‘Somebody Wanted But So’:

Step 1

Model the ‘Somebody Wanted But So’ strategy by reading a selection of text aloud or retelling an event – this could be a story, film or real life event. Complete the SWBS four column chart: Somebody (character/figure), Wanted  (goal/motivation), But (conflict), So/So then(resolution/outcome). Point out that there can be more than one ‘Somebody Wanted But So’ in a text selection/chapter and show how a second SWBS statement can be generated, if applicable.   

Step 2

Read aloud a second text selection or retell an event. Ask students to identify the Somebody from the event. Write down the name of the person in the first column. Explain that the Wanted represents the plot or motivation of the person/people and complete the second column. Explain that the But is the conflict or challenge the person/people faced and record the student responses in the third column. Finally, explain that the So column is to record the outcome or resolution and complete this column. Then read aloud the summary statement.

Step 3

Assign another selection of text or retell an event and in pairs/groups students complete a SWBS chart. Share SWBS statements in small groups and discuss the similarities and differences in the statements, as well as evidence in the text used to support each statement. Continue to guide students until they can use the strategy independently.

2. Examples, including Anne Frank and Romeo and Juliet, AND 

3. Templates to use with your students, with & without scaffolding

Remember that much more awaits you at NBSS...enjoy!

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If you'd like to see more info about using SWBS, you can visit:
Anchorage School District
Learning Point
Response to Intervention Online
TeachingRocks                

Illustrative Mathematics - More Resources for the Common Core

Today's very cool math resource for the Common Core State Standards is Illustrative Mathematics.

Illustrative Mathematics is an initiative of the Institute for Mathematics & Education at the University of Arizona. The website launch team is headed by Bill McCallum, lead author of the CCSS in math, who also writes the blog Tools for the Common Core Standards.

Why very cool? There are more than 400 illustrative tasks for the Common Core on the site, all FREE! 

Since I know very well how busy teachers are, I want to show you that this site is worth exploring. Below, I have copied and pasted just one of the tasks for Grade 5, so that you can see the task itself, read the provided commentary, and explore the two proposed solutions:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

5.NF Painting a Wall

Alignment 1:  5.NF.B

Grade   5

Domain   NF: Number and Operations---Fractions

Cluster   Apply and extend previous understandings of multiplication and division to 

                 multiply and divide fractions.

                                   

Nicolas is helping to paint a wall at a park near his house as part of a community service project. He had painted half of the wall yellow when the park director walked by and said,
"This wall is supposed to be painted red."

Nicolas immediately started painting over the yellow portion of the wall. By the end of the day, he had repainted 5/6 of the yellow portion red.

What fraction of the entire wall is painted red at the end of the day?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Commentary: The purpose of this task is for students to find the answer to a question in context that can be represented by fraction multiplication. This task is appropriate for either instruction or assessment depending on how it is used and where students are in their understanding of fraction multiplication. If used in instruction, it can provide a lead-in to the meaning of fraction multiplication. If used for assessment, it can help teachers see whether students readily see that this is can be solved by multiplying 5/6×1/2 or not, which can help diagnose their comfort level with the meaning of fraction multiplication.

The teacher might need to emphasize that the task is asking for what portion of the total wall is red, it is not asking what portion of the yellow has been repainted.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Solution: Solution 1

In order to see what fraction of the wall is red we need to find out what 5/6 of 1/2 is. To do this we can multiply the fractions together like so:

5/6×1/2=(5×1)/(6×2)=5/12

So we can see that 5/12 of the wall is red.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Solution: Solution 2

The solution can also be represented with pictures. Here we see the wall right before the park director walks by:


And now we can break up the yellow portion into 6 equally sized parts:



Now we can show what the wall looked like at the end of the day by shading 5 out of those 6 parts red.


And finally, we can see that if we had broken up the wall into 12 equally sized pieces from the beginning, that finding the fraction of the wall that is red would be just a matter of counting the number of red pieces and comparing them to the total.


And so, since 5 pieces of the total 12 are red, we can see that 5/12 of the wall is red at the end of the day.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Go over to Illustrative Mathematics, and look at the Illustrations for the K-8 Content Standards and the High School Content Standards. I think you will be impressed and agree that they are indeed very cool!

Common Core Practice | A King’s Skeleton, a Musical Mystery, a Territorial Dispute

From The New York Times, this week's practice tasks for the Common Core include: 

1. an informative writing task for the international story: “Discovery of Skeleton Puts Richard III in Battle Once Again”

2. a narrative writing task for the front page story: “ ‘Rebecca’ Sees Investor Fade, as if Dreamt”

3. a second informative writing task for the international story: “Near Disputed Islands, Japan Confronts Boats From Taiwan”

And a bonus: This week, one of Sarah Gross and Jonathan Olsen's students suggested an extension activity connected to the “Rebecca” prompt.

Thank you to Sarah, Jonathan, their students, and The Learning Network!

From the site: 

"All of our lesson plans, which go into much greater depth than the(se) short assignments, are aligned to the Common Core, including recent ones on algebra, Hispanic Heritage month, writing advice, human muscle systems and the video that has been roiling the Muslim world.

We also hope you’ll encourage students to choose their own Times articles (or multimedia) to read and write about. Each Friday we ask, “What Interested You Most in The Times This Week?” and choose one student response to highlight."

Wonderopolis®

Wonderopolis is a program from the National Center for Family Literacy. Its Wonders of the Day highlight learning moments in everyday life, and are intended for families to watch together, so they can learn together.

You can browse the Wonders Archives in 86 categories, including:

• Animals (ex: Do Warthogs Really Have Warts?) 
• Cultures of the World (ex: Have You Ever Tried Dim Sum?)
• Folk Tales and Legends (ex: Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?)
• Invention (ex: How Do Night Vision Goggles Work?)
• Professions (ex: How Do Teachers Get to Be So Smart?)
• Writing (ex:Celebrating Poetry Friday)

Posts of special interest to teachers? Try Connecting Wonderopolis to Content Areas, How to Integrate Wonderopolis into Reading Workshop, and Wonderopolis is WONDERful Science HW for ideas on using the site with your classes.

I'm sure you'll find something, or many things, to like at Wonderopolis, "where the wonders of learning never cease."

Inside Mathematics - Resources for the Common Core

Inside Mathematics provides a way for educators to share strong practices via:

• tested demonstration lessons
• guided tours of reflective mathematics practice
• tools & resources to support daily practice
• a professional learning community

The great (and amazing) thing about this project is that it doesn't just talk about the CCSS, it actually provides performance tasks and assessment resources that are aligned to the standards. AND they can be searched by either grade level or mathematical progression.

Here's an example for 2nd Grade - Incredible Equations:

"The task challenges a student to demonstrate understanding of concepts involved in addition and subtraction. A student must be able to understand addition and subtraction as inverse operations and apply this understanding to problems where the unknown is in different positions...must make sense of the equals sign as a balance point between the two sides of an equation in order to find a missing addend on one side of an equation...must be able to justify a solution."

Common Core State Standards Math - Content:

Operations and Algebraic Thinking
2.OA.1 Represent and solve problems involving addition and subtraction.
2.OA.2 Add and subtract within 20.

Common Core State Standards Math – Standards of Mathematical Practice:

MP.1 Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
MP.3 Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.

Included are the task itself, which consists of eight addition and subtraction equations with one number missing, and a task rubric.

The MOST valuable part of this piece? An extremely detailed evaluation and reflection guide, including examples of student work. Identified are 

• what students knew and were able to do
• areas of difficulty for the students
• strategies used by successful students
• a frequency distribution for the example students
• a table of understandings and misunderstandings for each equation arrangement
• the Implications for Instruction and Action Research in narrative form

What a fabulous tool for reflective practice! Click over to the site and look at all of the excellent performance tasks available there for FREE.

Anchor Charts - Making Them Your Own

With the popularity of my first post on Anchor Charts, I've been busy researching for you, trying to find more great examples.

If you're on Pinterest, you can view many excellent charts on my learning twice: Teaching Resources board. If you aren't, send me an email at nancymcneal@gmail.com, and I'll send you an invite. Teachers are pinning good ideas every day, and I think all teachers should be able to see and use them!

Today, let's look at how you and your students can make charts from other teachers your own. Remember that co-constructing them with your students and making sure that they match your kiddos' developmental level are two of the key features that make anchor charts relevant for their ongoing learning.

While looking for Active Literacy resources (a future post), I found the Reading Resources wiki page of Pender County Schools in North Carolina. The number of links there will no doubt lead to other posts, but Iet's look at six posters that you can download, adapt, and turn into great anchor charts.

The posters all address signal words, and give good information. The best part? They are editable! Once you download a poster, you can change font and pics, cut, paste, and do whatever you like to give yourself the starting point you need. Here is the original poster for cause and effect:

And here's what I did to create the "bones" of a cause and effect anchor chart:

You choose how much to have on the chart when you begin working with your students. I titled it, chose seven signal words, included the traffic signal clipart, and color-coded the Cause (Action) and Effect (Outcome) so you could see what I was imagining for perhaps a 3rd grade class. If I were making this chart with students, we would write sentences using these words (writing the cause in each sentence in blue and the effect in red, underlining the signal words).

You might not want to begin with this much information, depending on where your students are in understanding signal words. And of course, you'll only use the document you create as a mini-template, since you'll be writing on a poster board or chart paper as you and your kiddos co-create the actual anchor chart. You will make it yours!

The other five posters on the page depict the following categories of signal words:

• Compare and contrast
• Description or list
• Problem and solution
• Question and answer
• Sequence or order

The compare and contrast poster is shown below. What would you do with it to adapt it as an anchor chart for your class? Narrow it down to only a few signal words? Change the graphics? Divide it into two charts - one for comparing and one for contrasting?

Whatever you decide to do, enjoy making great signal word anchor charts with your kiddos starting with these ideas. And once your chart is finished, don't forget to take a photo, put it in a binder, and add it to your ongoing slide collection so you can project it if your entire class needs to revisit it, as suggested in an earlier post, Anchor Charts - Another Blogger's Ideas, and by Jodi at The Clutter-Free Classroom, in Anchor Chart Planning and Management!

Common Core Practice | Medical Manga, a Family Grocery and a Restaurant Review

Drum roll, please! I told you earlier this week about The Learning Network's plan to publish a Common Core Practice Feature each Friday, and I'm thrilled to say that it is here!

The series is being done in collaboration with two teachers in New Jersey, Jonathan Olsen and Sarah Gross, and the premiere post includes two argumentative writing tasks and one that is informative. All reference the Common Core Standards that they address.

The one that grabbed my attention is the first, Science: “Manga as Medical Tool,” which refers to a Times news article about Dr. Ian Roberts of London.

To paraphrase from the task description: No pharmaceutical company is willing to devote money to an advertising campaign for a new drug that promotes clotting and should reduce death in trauma patients, so Dr. Roberts has turned to unorthodox means such as cartoons and manga comics to share the information with doctors around the world.

Here is the student task: "Do you think it is a good idea to share research findings through visual media, like manga comics and cartoons? Write a paragraph in which you use information from this article to support your views. Provide at least one example where visual media could be helpful — or harmful — in sharing this kind of information." Students can view the manga comic (the first frame is shown)

and watch the cartoon below before writing. The CRASH-2 comic was created by Dr. Roberts's nephew, and should contribute much to your students' interest in the article!

I want to say "Thank you!" to the writers of this great new feature, so I'm leaving a comment on the post. If you use any of the three tasks proposed this week, I hope you will, too.

Have a fabulous fall weekend! The weather here in Middle Tennessee couldn't be better, and I plan to enjoy it!

Jim Burke & The English Teacher's Companion

Jim Burke is the author of almost twenty books on the art of teaching, including The English Teacher's Companion: A Complete Guide to Classroom, Curriculum, and the Profession. He won the NCTE's Exemplary English Leadership Award in 2000 and was inducted into the California Reading Association's Hall of Fame. Burke serves on the College Board's Advanced Placement Course & Exam Review Commission for the English Literature & Language courses. 

Oh, and he teaches high school English every day. I can't imagine a more connected expert than one who remains in the trenches, where Burke has been for more than 25 years. Today let's take a tour of the FREE resources he offers through his website, English Companion.com:

• Handouts from his workshops - These are detailed and fabulous! He provides them even if you haven't attended one of the workshops, saying: "You are...welcome to download and use the materials if they will help you do your work better." Wow.
• Links to Industry Research and Reports - Are you in grad school? Writing papers? These are super resources for you!
• Tools and Techniques - Includes Burke's Academic Essentials Matrix and a short video on using graphic organizers
• Documents and Resources for Teaching AP

And here are my favorites:

• Digital Textbook - From NPR's This I Believe to Time magazine's Pictures of the Week to Peace Corps Stories, these amazing sites allow you to move away from dry textbooks to dynamic resources that you can use to teach your students "how to read an image or how to write about one; how to analyze a website or how to craft a particular type of sentence or organize a paragraph a certain way." Simply fantastic!
• Tools for Teachers - Templates for notes of every kind, including episodic, hierarchical, and inference. Below is his Vocabulary Squares template, which can be used to "help readers process the word in different ways, all proven useful through...research." It is sophisticated, therefore more useful for high school students than are simpler ones. 

Want to read his blog? Go to Jim Burke: The English Teacher's Companion. You can also see Mr. Burke's homepage at Burlingame High School. If you're interested in purchasing his books, they are available on his website, as well as on Amazon.com.

For those of you who teach secondary reading (including reading in the content area) or English/Language Arts, I hope you'll have fun finding what you can use from the work of the amazing Jim Burke!