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HOORAY! The book is out. You can purchase it online here (click on the picture!):


Here's the Table of Contents:


Here's the focus of the chapters:

The book follows the trajectory of the reading response notebook work as it unfolds across an academic year. The first chapters describe explicit teaching of RRN strategies that we want all students to know and use. Later chapters will demonstrate how students develop agency for the strategies we teach and generate their own, then through ongoing sharing sessions, they develop autonomy. In Chapter 1, “A New Vision of the Reading Response Notebook,” I define the new vision of the reader response notebook that is the focus of this book, and how it differs significantly from the more standard uses of the RRN in schools. I explain some of the theories that this vision is based on. I also present an expanded vision of what counts as a text in school, including popular culture texts. In Chapter 2, “Getting Started,” I explain how to launch this work with students. I explain expanding what counts as texts for students, using reading logs, and teaching a first strategy, using the gradual release of responsibility model (Pearson & Duke, 2002). I also share students’ ongoing lists and how these lists develop their literate identities. In Chapter 3, “Expanding Possibilities,” I explain next strategies to teach, using an anchor chart to support students’ strategy use. I take you inside classrooms to hear how instruction unfolds for students to accomplish these strategies.
In Chapter 4, “Towards Agency, Autonomy, and Accountability,” I show how we develop and implement a checklist to support students’ independent use of strategies. I describe share sessions that promote students’ reflective self-assessment, build a community of practice, and stimulate generative and creative responses. I then discuss establishing grading criteria that hold students accountable for their work. I share ideas for using these grading criteria in manageable ways. I share dialogic classroom practices, such as conferring, small group and whole class discussion, with the RRN as mediational tool. I provide three text boxes, after Chapters 2, 3, and 4, that provide practical advice for common challenges you might face while implementing this work.
In Chapter 5, “Permeable Boundaries: Living Literate Lives in and out of School,” I share how the RRN becomes a tool that bridges students’ literate practices in and out of school. I share their generative responses that co-opt popular culture and social media formats, and school-based response formats for popular culture texts. The playfulness and flexibility that arises, in turn, empowers students’ literate identities. In Chapter 6, “Changing Lives,” I share students’ reflections of how this notebook work helps form their identities as literate beings, and what their responses suggest for our work as teachers. I also share teachers’ reflections of how this work is transforming their literacy teaching practices. Finally, I share some thoughts of next steps in our own journey using RRNs. In each chapter, I show how this work addresses and expands what state and national standards expect for excellent teaching and learning in the English Language Arts. In the appendices, I provide anchor charts and grading forms. So, buy the book and let's continue this conversation. 


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