Illuminating Texts: How to Teach Students to Read the World

by Jim Burke

Today's students face such a barrage of competing texts in so many different forms and media that it's almost impossible to know what to trust and where to turn anymore. So it's now up to teachers to help students determine not only what should be read, but how it should be read. Illuminating Texts , Jim Burke's most ambitious book yet, addresses this issue. It explores the powerful idea of "textual intelligence," offers both practical and theoretical information on teaching and reading, and explains how to incorporate the newest ideas and techniques into actual classroom practice. Jim also presents an important argument for teaching what students will need to know, and be able to do, in the future - one of our primary responsibilities as educators. Each chapter has a clear focus - e.g., Reading the Internet, Reading Textbooks, Reading Literature, Reading Images - and all follow a similar format, including background information and rationale, standards connections, questions to ask, classroom connections, elements of the text, and additional resources. You can turn to the book for a five-minute read and find some questions to use in your next period. Or you can read an entire chapter, to help you clarify your thinking. Illuminating Texts' accompanying website - www.englishcompanion.com/illuminating - continues and complements the book by providing additional resources, all of which are frequently updated.

Genres: Teaching, Education

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

A longtime English teacher, Jim Burke is the author of more than 20 books and senior consultant for the Holt McDougal Literature program. Jim has received several awards, including the 2000 NCTE Exemplary English Leadership Award. In 2009, he created the English Companion Ning―the largest online community of English teachers in the world. More recently, Jim has served on the AP English Course and Exam Review Commission and the PARCC Consortium.

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book for a class that I'm taking, and I didn't learn anything that I didn't already know. Perhaps this book would be helpful if you had NEVER USED the Internet before or didn't know anything about how to teach reading. Very disappointed. The strategies given didn't seem like they were activities I could do with 5th graders. This book would be better suited for the high school English teacher, perhaps?

[Sirpa Grierson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A thought-provoking book on how to teach high school students to read not only literature, but the many texts that make up the world. Not particularly exciting reading cover-to-cover as it contains lots of lengthy lists and rubrics. This would be better used as a reference book when looking at specific ideas such as reading media or textbooks or tests. Burke is knowledgeable and the ideas are sound. Includes a companion website: http://www.englishcompanion.com/illum...