Corwin’s Top 10 Books of 2019

Did you know that Corwin publishes over 80 books per year? We cover a range of topics from Project-Based Learning to coaching, from equity to team dynamics, from math instruction to balanced literacy, and everything in between. Corwin was founded as an education publisher, and supporting teachers and school leaders continues to be at the heart of everything we do. 

Here were our top 10 books published in 2019. Add these to your Goodreads To-Read list or Amazon Wishlist – or, if you’ve already read them, be sure to leave a review! 

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PLC+: Better Decisions and Greater Impact by Design by Doug Fisher, Nancy Frey, John Almarode, Karen Flories, and Dave Nagel 

Until now, the PLC movement has been focused almost exclusively on students and what they were or were not learning. But keeping student learning at the forefront requires that we also recognize the vital role that you play in the equation of teaching and learning. This means that PLCs must take on two additional challenges: maximizing your individual expertise, while harnessing the power of the collaborative expertise you can develop with your peers. 

PLC+ is grounded in four cross-cutting themes—a focus on equity of access and opportunity, high expectations for all students, a commitment to building individual self-efficacy and the collective efficacy of the professional learning community and effective team activation and facilitation to move from discussion to action. 

The PLC+ Playbook: A Hands-On Guide to Collectively Improving Student Learning by Doug Fisher, Nancy Frey, John Almarode, Karen Flories, and Dave Nagel 

Help your PLC+ group to work wiser, not harder. This practical guide to planning and implementing PLC+ groups in a collaborative setting is designed to equip professional learning community teams with the tools they need to work effectively toward improving student learning.   

Designed as an accompanying resource to PLC+: Better Decisions and Greater Impact by Design, the Playbook helps educators bring the PLC+ framework to life by supporting teams as they answer the five guiding questions that comprise a PLC+:  

1. Where are we going? 
2. Where are we now? 
3. How do we move learning forward? 
4. What did we learn today? 
5. Who benefited and who did not benefit? 

Dive Into Deep Learning: Tools for Engagement by Joanne Quinn, Joanne McEachen, Michael Fullan, Mag Gardner, and Max Drummy 

This hands-on guide provides a roadmap for building capacity in teachers, schools, districts, and systems to design deep learning, measure progress, and assess conditions needed to activate and sustain innovation. This book is rich with resources educators need to construct and drive meaningful deep learning experiences in order to develop the kind of mindset and know-how that is crucial to becoming a problem-solving change agent in our global society. 

Watch this example of deep learning at St. Louis School and check out the New Pedagogies for Deep Learning website for more resources. 

The Teaching Mathematics in the Visible Learning Classroom series by John Almarode, Doug Fisher, Joseph Assof, Kateri Thunder, Sara Delano Moore, John Hattie, and Nancy Frey 

It could happen in the morning during homework review. Or perhaps it happens when listening to students as they struggle through a challenging problem. Or maybe even after class, when planning a lesson. At some point, the question arises: How do I influence students’ learning—what’s going to generate that light bulb “aha” moment of understanding? 

In this sequel series to the megawatt best seller Visible Learning for Mathematics, a cast of expert authors help you answer that question by showing how Visible Learning strategies look in action in the mathematics classroom in each grade band K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and high school Walk in the shoes of educators like you as they engage in the 200 micro-decisions-per-minute needed to balance the strategies, tasks, and assessments seminal to high-impact mathematics instruction. 

Hatching Results for Secondary School Counseling: Implementing Core Curriculum, Individual Student Planning, and Other Tier One Activities by Trish Hatch, Whitney Triplett, Danielle Duarte, and Vanessa Gomez 

This hands-on guide from 4 experienced school counselors, national leaders, and expert trainers takes you step-by-step through the creation and implementation of high-quality Tier 1 systems of support, including core curriculum classroom lessons and schoolwide activities. 

Features include examples of design, implementation, and evaluation; alignment with Multi-Tier Multi-Domain System of Supports (MTMDSS), stories from practicing school counselors; and templates for developing lesson plans. 

Watch the recorded webinar with Trish Hatch:  

 

Collaborating for English Learners: A Foundational Guide to Integrated Practices by Andrea Honigsfeld and Maria G. Dove 

When EL specialists and general ed teachers pool their expertise, your ELs’ language development and content mastery will improve exponentially. Just ask the tens of thousands of Collaboration and Co-Teaching users and now, a new generation of educators, thanks to this all-new second edition: Collaborating for English Learners.

Why this new edition? Because more than a decade of implementation has generated for Andrea Honigsfeld and Maria Dove new insight into what exemplary teacher collaboration looks like, which essential frameworks must be established, and how integrated approaches to ELD services benefit all stakeholders. 

The Five Practices in Practice: Successfully Orchestrating Mathematics Discussion in Your Middle School Classroom series by Margaret (Peg) Smith,Miriam Gamoran Sherin, Victoria Bill, and Michael D. Steele 

Take a deeper dive into understanding the five practices—anticipating, monitoring, selecting, sequencing, and connecting—for facilitating productive mathematical conversations in your middle school classrooms and learn to apply them with confidence. Each book in this follow-up series to the modern classic, Five Practices for Orchestrating Productive Mathematics Discussions, shows the five practices in action in elementary, middle school, and high school* classrooms, respectively, and empowers teachers to be prepared for and overcome the challenges common to orchestrating math discussions. *Note: High School volume available in spring 2020.
 

This is Balanced Literacy, Grades K-6 by Doug Fisher, Nancy Frey, and Nancy Akhavan 

Students learn to read and write best when their teachers balance literacy instruction. But how do you strike the right balance of skills and knowledge, reading and writing, small and whole group instruction, and direct and dialogic instruction, so that all students can learn to their maximum potential?

The answer lies in the intentional design of learning activities, purposeful selection of instructional materials, evidence-based teaching methods,  and in strategic groupings of students based on assessment data.  Together, these create the perfect balance of high impact learning experiences that engage and excite learners. In this hands-on essential guide, best-selling authors Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and Nancy Akhavan help you define that balance for your students, lighting the path to implementing balanced literacy in your classroom. 

Check out our earlier blog post + video, “What is Balanced Literacy? [VIDEO]” for more! 

Text Structures From Fairy Tales: Truisms That Help Students Write About Abstract Concepts… and Live Happily Ever After, Grades 4-12 by Gretchen Bernabei and Judi Reimer 

Standardized tests and college essay prompts demand that students produce quality analytical writing about abstract concepts. But how do you actually teach this kind of writing? Award-winning authors Gretchen Bernabei and Judi Reimer make it easy and fun. This book includes 35 engaging lessons that give students just the focused practice they need to craft effective, analytical writing for any situation. 

Centered on classic fairy tales and designed for students of all ages, each lesson includes a writing prompt accompanied by a planning framework. Students write a truism, select or create a text structure, and write a kernel essay that serves as scaffolding for a detailed rhetorical piece. With practice, students move from depending on teacher guidance to becoming autonomous analytical writers.