Summer Reading

Yesterday I emailed my post-defense revised dissertation to my chair, and last week I finished up with the last of my commitments for my sabbatical replacement year. It feels like summer has arrived now. Aside from spending more time with the girls, blogging more regularly, and having more time for scrapbooking, I am looking forward to PD-related summer reading. This evening I saw a post from Katie over at the Catching Readers Before They Fall blog, and I thought it would be fun to also blog about books I would like to read.

Many of the books in my TBR pile are from favorite authors, as well as books that I started at least partially throughout the year but then for one reason or another did not end up getting to read fully. My plan will be to start and finish books in the pile rather than dabbling here and there as I have been for much of this year.

I decided to follow Katie's lead and post a picture of my book stack!

Right now I am reading Pathways to the Common Core: Accelerating Achievement by Lucy Calkins, Mary Ehrenworth, and Christopher Lehman. It is a must read for sure! I was excited for it from the time that it was first announced on Heinemann's site. Then reading Stacey's thoughts on the book earlier in the year made me even more excited. I have already been sharing some initial thoughts about the book with some of my colleagues. I told them that it is a much better starting point then the time-consuming process of unwrapping the standards, something that did not seem to be the best way to achieve the goal of deep understanding of standards with previous standards.

I am also excited to get back to Peter Johnston's Opening Minds. I mentioned reading it on my other blog back in March. At that time Stacey mentioned that she had read his other book multiple times, and I noticed that Katie had both of his books listed for this summer as well, noting that she always re-reads his Choice Words in the summer. I am thinking that I am going to have to get a copy of his first book.

Thomas Newkirk's The Art of Slow Reading seems like it is going to be a great fit to consider the question of what we value in reading as we make the transition to the common core playing a big role in the educational landscape. I also just really enjoy Newkirk's insights.

Kassia Wedekind's Math Exchanges is one that I am reading out of fascination of workshop possibilities in the math context even though I do not ever see myself being a math teacher, as well as thinking about implications as a mom and how I can support and value math at home in a way similar to what I already do for reading and writing.

I love all of Kelly Gallagher's books, so Teaching Adolescent Writers will be a real treat!

Through my doctoral program, I developed a larger interest in educational reform, and Michael Fullan is one of my favorite authors. He mentioned All Systems Go in a book that I was reading earlier this fall and Professional Capital is co-authored with his colleague Andy Hargreaves, who also co-authored the first Fullan book that I read. It was amazing seeing Fullan participate as discussant at a couple of sessions at AERA in April, as well as hearing Hargreaves on one of the panels.

Robert DuFour's name came up often as well in class discussions during my doctoral program, but I have not read any of his books before, so I chose Leaders of Learning that he co-authored with Marzano.


I also have books that I just moved from my office back to my classroom that I will want to get to read. Off the top of my head, I know for sure that I will want to read Jeff Anderson's 10 Things Every Writer Needs to Know and Gretchen Owocki's The Common Core Lesson Plan Book K-5. Like other books, I have read a little bit of both but then got swept up in the day to day to-do list that I did not get too far into them.

So many great books to read... We'll see how many I actually get to read this summer. Regardless, any leftover books means great fall reads!

What books are you hoping to read this summer?