Subjects Matter: Exceeding Standards Through Powerful Content-Area Reading

＂To help every kid fall in love with at least one field of knowledge, our students must encounter our fields’ most galvanizing, tantalizing, and pivotal documents. This book is about making those encounters as compelling as we can make them.＂
--Harvey ＂Smokey＂ Daniels and Steven Zemelman

We are specialists to the bone--in science, math, social studies, art, music, business, and foreign language. But now, the Common Core and state standards require us to help our students better understand the distinctive texts in our subject areas. ＂Nobody’s making us into reading teachers,＂ write Smokey Daniels and Steve Zemelman, ＂but we must become teachers of disciplinary thinking through our students’ reading.＂

If this shift sounds like a tough one, Subjects Matter, Second Edition is your solution. Smokey and Steve, two of America’s most popular educators, share exactly what you need to help students read your nonfiction content closely and strategically:

• 27 proven teaching strategies that help meet--and exceed--the standards
• how-to suggestions for engaging kids with content through wide, real-world reading
• a lively look at using ＂boring＂ textbooks
• motivating instruction that’s powered by student collaboration
• specifics for helping struggling readers succeed.

Subjects Matter, Second Edition enables deep, thoughtful learning for your students, while keeping the irreverent, inspiring heart that’s made the first edition indispensable. You’ll discover fresh and re-energized lessons, completely updated research, and vibrant vignettes from new colleagues and old friends who have as much passion for their subjects as you do.

＂We’ll be using methods particular to our fields as well as engaging reading materials that help students understand and remember our content better,＂ write Smokey and Steve. ＂We can realize that vision of the light going on in kids’ heads and maybe fill them with enthusiasm about the amazing subject matter that we have to offer. Sound good? Let’s get to work.＂

Read a sample chapter from Subjects Matter, Second Edition.

Harvey ＂Smokey＂ Daniels has been a city and suburban classroom teacher and a college professor, and now works as a national consultant and author on literacy education. In language arts, Smokey is known for his pioneering work on student book clubs, as recounted in Literature Circles: Voice and Choice in Book Clubs and Reading Groups, and Minilessons for Literature Circles. His latest bestselling books on content-area literacy are The Curious Classroom; Comprehension & Collaboration, Second Edition; Upstanders; Subjects Matter, Second Edition; the Texts and Lessons series; and Content-Area Writing. He is also coauthor of Best Practice, Fourth Edition, and The Best Practice Video Companion as well as editor of Comprehension Going Forward. Smokey works with elementary and secondary teachers throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe, offering demonstration lessons, workshops, and consulting, with a special focus on creating, sustaining, and renewing student-centered inquiries and discussions of all kinds. Smokey shows colleagues how to simultaneously build students’ reading strategies, balance their reading diets, and strengthen the social skills they need to become genuine lifelong readers. Connect with Smokey @smokeylit. READING Comprehension Going Forward Mini-lessons for Literature Circles Subjects Matter, Second Edition Texts and Lessons for Content-Area Reading Texts and Lessons for Teaching Literature WRITING Community of Writers Content-Area Writing LITERACY The Curious Classroom Comprehension & Collaboration, Second Edition Inquiry Circles for Elementary Classrooms Inquiry Circles for Secondary Classrooms SCHOOL CULTURE Best Practice, Fourth Edition Best Practice Video Companion Rethinking High School Rethinking High School Video Upstanders

Steven Zemelman’s newest Heinemann title is From Inquiry to Action, which combines two of his education passions: Choice-based inquiry approaches and civic action. He blogs frequently about the ideas behind the book and about how educators around the US are applying them at his blog Civic Action in Schools. Steve has worked in many capacities to promote the sustainability of innovative schools in Chicago. For eight years he directed the Center for City Schools at National-Louis University, and he is a founding director of the Illinois Writing Project. He has spearheaded the start of a number of innovative small high schools in the city. His experiences and research in these areas led to his Heinemann book 13 Steps to Teacher Empowerment, coauthored with Harry Ross. Steve has been a frequent collaborator with Harvey ＂Smokey＂ Daniels. They have coauthored seven books and videos with Heinemann, including Subjects Matter, Second Edition; Best Practice, Fourth Edition, and The Best Practice Video Companion; Content-Area Writing; Rethinking High School and its companion video; and A Community of Writers. These books are filled with practical strategies for making writing, reading, the content areas, and indeed the life of a school itself into a deeper and richer learning experience for kids. Zemelmen and Daniels are known for immediately useful teaching strategies that range from brief, easy-to-use reflections that help students learn right in class to bigger public-writing projects that can make school truly memorable for kids and teachers alike. Steve consults with schools and districts around the country and may be contacted directly at stv.zemelman@comcast.net or @StevenZemelman.