New Titles: Reading, Writing, and Literacy

The OISE Library has some new additions to the collection that focus on reading, writing, and literacy.  Read about these awesome titles below!

Saving Wonder
by Mary Knight
Saving Wonder is a beautifully written story that explores the power of words, relationships, and community. With the Appalachian Mountains of Wonder Gap, Kentucky as its setting,  the story  tells of a boy named Curley Hines who lives with his grandfather after a devastating coal mining accident. Knowing that education is his grandson’s only way out of poverty, Curley’s grandfather constantly challenges Curley to improve his vocabulary with one word at a time. Saving Wonder is unique in that it can be used as a classroom tool for student teachers to introduce new vocabulary to elementary and middle school students. Student teachers can hold weekly spelling tests after each chapter is read. This is a fun way to encourage the importance of new vocabulary to elementary and middle school students.

35 Rubrics and Checklist to Assess Reading and Writing by Adele Fiderer 
This book is comprised of various assessments that can help student teachers better understand and evaluate their students’ work and performances in reading and writing. Just as the title suggests, this book provides 35 rubrics and checklists student teachers can use in the classroom. Fiderer has included various reading and writing assessments and rubrics, each accompanied by easy directions, scoring tips, and follow-up strategies. Topics of the book include writing, spelling, oral reading fluency, reading comprehension, and much more!

Departures: A Reader For Developing Writers by Randall Popken, Alice Newsome,  and Lanell Gonzales, offers developing writers a foundational practice to writing effective responses. Throughout their academic careers, students will be asked by instructors to produce summaries, critiques, research papers, reports, and essay exams. Often these exercises involve a reflection or critique of a scholar’s work. This book is comprised of readings dealing with American issues to which students can practice responding through their writing. The readings build on each other, allowing students to progressively increase their knowledge about a topic and to become progressively more confident in writing about it. Departures provide a unique approach to building confident analytical responses for graduate students.  

Process and Collaboration: Developing Your Writing by Daniel G. Foster and Linda E. Stairet 
This textbook provides graduate students the key components to useful applications of collaborative, developmental, and process approach in writing. Foster and Stairet have developed a writing textbook that is product-oriented, concentrating on what the final draft should look like rather than just focusing on how to develop ideas and strategies. The structure of the book is comprised of seven writing tasks to introduce students to a variety of strategies for completing different steps in the writing process. Whether writing from personal experience or writing from research, graduate students will find this textbook a useful tool in the writing process of their dissertation.  

Writing Paragraphs and Essays: Integrating Reading, Writing, and Grammar Skills by Joy Wingersky, Jan Boerner, Diana Holguin-Balogh, Enid Gossin, Susan Stancer 
This textbook provides a step-by-step approach for any student wanting to develop and improve their writing skills. The book is comprised of professional and student models that guide the user in a practical way to help build confidence in writing. This book features step-by-step approaches, explanation and modeling of the writing process, reading selections by professionals for generating ideas for writing, examples of writing, grammar exercises, and units on rhetorical modes and readings. This book can be used  for developing essential reading, thinking, and writing skills needed by students who are working towards becoming successful writers.

For more new titles on reading, writing, and literacy please visit the OISE Library!

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OISE Lobby Display: Language Education

This month the OISE Library highlights second language education. The OISE Library supports research and study in second language education, languages and literacies, of which includes both the theory and practice of second language teaching at the University of Toronto. In supporting researchers and students focused on language education, the OISE Library website features a Language Education Research Guide which provides useful tools and the best resources for your research needs.

Here are some featured publications:

I Hate English by Ellen Levine 
I Hate English is part of OISE Library’s children’s literature collection. The story is about a young girl named Mei Mei who has moved to New York with her family from Hong Kong. The story begins with Mei Mei’s struggle to adjust to a new school and the English language. However, with the help of her English teacher Nancy, Mei Mei learns she can have the best of both worlds by learning to communicate in English and Chinese. Researchers and students whose focus is on second language education may use this book to help understand languages and children’s literacies. Teacher candidates might also use this book in the classroom to share experiences of students whose native or home language is other than English. 

Practical Vocabulary Builder by Dorothy Gabel Liebowitz
Part of our Curriculum Resource collection, Practical Vocabulary Builder introduces word lists and vocabulary activities centered around helping second language students build vocabulary. This book provides teachers with worksheets and contains suggestions for practice and reinforcement in building practical vocabulary. Another feature of this book is the various games and activities intended to help teachers make learning new vocabulary fun and effective. This book would be a useful tool in understanding different teaching techniques that reinforce essential vocabulary in English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Russian, and Vietnamese. 

Culture as the Core: Perspectives on Culture in Second Language Learning edited by Dale L. Lange and R. Michael Paige  
This book is part of a volume in Research in Second Language Learning. This volume is comprised of integrating culture in the second language classroom. The first part of the book delves into culture as the core to interdisciplinary perspectives on culture teaching and learning in the second language curriculum. The second part of this volume comprises a collection of chapters that look into the integration of culture into the second language curriculum. This may be an interesting book to read for those interested in culture learning in language education settings. 

Experiences of Second Language Teacher Education edited by Tony Wright and Mike Beaumont
Experiences of Second Language Teacher Education is based on the personal experiences of teacher educators working in different national and educational settings. The book aims to address the themes of change in teacher education, influence of local context of practice, the issue of interculturality, and the process of engaging with teachers and teacher educators. The book provides the perspectives of second language teacher education from Hong Kong, Swaziland, Greece, India, and many more countries. The authors of this book hope to initiate further conversation in how second language teacher education is influenced directly by many factors such as the political environment, broad social and cultural forces, and intellectual movements, methodological trends, and technological developments. Experiences of Second Language Teacher Education offers readers perspectives on the daily experience the practice that is valuable for further understanding of second language teacher education processes.    

Collaborative Research in Second Language Education edited by Mike Beaumont and Teresa O’Brien 
This book explores four themes of research, professional development, collaboration, and different language education contexts. The issues covered in this book include: the role of language across curriculum, links between oral communication and literacy in bilingual learning, the relationship between communicative teaching and communicative testing, teacher development through distance learning programs, and the exploration of context of educational philosophies. This book would of interest to students and educators who would like to learn more about discourse analysis theory and conceptualization of the critical role of collaboration in moving from training to research in second language education.

For more featured publications, please visit the OISE Library Lobby Display, located on the ground floor of the OISE building.

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The OISE Library Collection is Out of this World!

Thinking of doing some stargazing this summer? We’ve got a great selection of books about stars, planets, and other astronomical phenomena here at the OISE Library!

The Backyard Astronomer’s Guide and the Collins Stars & Planets are excellent stargazing starting points. Both books include detailed star charts, in-depth explanations of stargazing equipment like telescopes, and extensive descriptions of constellations, planets, and other phenomena you may observe while stargazing. For a similar book aimed at younger readers, check out The Kids Book of the Night Sky. This book contains star charts, stories about the different constellations, and a large selection of star-themed activities and crafts. Children interested in a general introductory book about space that covers everything from the Moon to comets to distant galaxies will also enjoy The Jumbo Book of Space.

Our own solar system in an excellent starting point for learning about space. The OISE Library has many books about the planets orbiting the Sun. The Planet Library series has a book about The Solar System as a whole – as well as books about the individual planets! On display are books about The Moon, Mercury and Venus, and Saturn. Books from this series about the other planets are listed in the library catalogue. For readers looking for a more detailed look at our home system, check out this in-depth guide to The Solar System.

We’ve also got books on phenomena from outside our solar system! Learn a little about objects found in The Galaxy, such as stars, comets, and meteors, or delve into the weird world of Black Holes and Other Bizarre Space Objects.

The night sky has been inspiring wonder in people since the beginning of time – and humanity has responded by telling stories about it. You can read some of these stories in Dot-to-Dot in the Sky: Stories in the Stars, Dot-to-Dot in the Sky: Stories of the Moon, and Dot-to-Dot in the Sky: Stories of the Planets. All the Stars in the Sky shares stories about the heavens drawn from seven different First Nations.

We’ve also got a selection picture books with space-themed stories available in our children’s literature collection. Be sure to check out Stars, How to Catch a Star, and Bright Star for delightful tales about – you guessed it – stars! Readers young and old will be enchanted by Galileo’s Universe, a pop-up book recounting the story of Galileo Galilei, the astronomer reknowned for proving that the Earth revolved around the Sun – and not the other way around. Night Wonders, meanwhile, provides a charming voyage through the universe through the medium of poetry!

There are also space-related activity kits available at the OISE Library. In the display case, you’ll find the Replogle Lunar Globe. Teachers will also find the Earth, Moon, and Stars kit to be a valuable resource for science classes about astronomy.

For a real-life stargazing experience, the Perseid meteor shower is visible this month! Although this meteor shower began in late July, interested stargazers will want to keep an eye out for these shooting stars at its peak on August 12th. For those of you able to get away from the city lights, you’ll want to look toward Cassiopeia in the north-east for one of the best meteor showers of the year.

Another exciting astronomical event coming up is this month’s solar eclipse! On August 21st, we’ll be experiencing a partial solar eclipse: Toronto will be getting 70% coverage. While you won’t be able to view the eclipse without special protective glasses, observatories in the area will be holding eclipse-viewing events.

These books can be found in the glass display case on the ground floor of the OISE Library. All of these books are available to be checked out – please speak to staff at the circulation and reference desks if you need any assistance.

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Back to School …in 1915

It’s August, summer is winding down, and students across Ontario are getting ready to go back to school. This month in the glass display table, check out some of the books and supplies a pupil in the junior grade of Form IV (today’s grade 7) would have needed for the 1915-1916 school year!

Certain books, such as The Ontario Public School Speller (1914) and Ontario Public School Arithmetic (1910), were required for all pupils, regardless of what Form they were in. These textbooks contained the material taught in every Form and pupils would use the same textbooks through their entire public school year. These textbooks were divided into chapters according to the Form in which the material would be covered. Starting in Form III, pupils also needed a copy of The Ontario Public School Composition (1910). All pupils were also required to have the Ontario Writing Course (1909) and blank Ontario Copy Books (1908), both of which were used to teach good penmanship.

Pupils were also expected to have their Form’s reader – for our Form IV pupil, this would be The Ontario Readers Fourth Book (1909). The readers contained selections of prose and poetry to be used for reading practice, which included reading aloud. The Form IV reader contained works and excerpts from writers such as Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Pupils in Form IV would also use The Golden Rule Books: Book IV (1915), a reader used for moral instruction in schools. Unlike the other books used by Form IV pupils, however, the Golden Rule Books were not required textbooks and copies were provided by the school.

Pupils in Form IV and Form V were required to have several additional textbooks: Ontario Public School Grammar (1910), Ontario School Geography (1910), The Ontario Public School History of England (1912), The Ontario Public School History of Canada (1910), and The Ontario Public School Hygiene (1910). Although students in earlier Forms would still have studied these subjects, these textbooks were only authorized for use in Forms IV and V. Younger pupils would instead be given supplementary reading made available by the school.

Unlike schools today, where students are assigned textbooks to use for the year, pupils in the early 1900s were expected to purchase their own textbooks. For a Form IV pupil, the full set of required textbooks would have cost $2.16 – about $45 in 2017 dollars. Other supplies such as equipment and reagents for science class, musical instruments and songbooks, and art supplies were provided by the school for use during class time.

Additional items in the display table come from our small artefact collection: a slate (used to practise writing and arithmetic), a dip pen, and a box akin to a pencil case (used for storing pens and spare nibs).

These books and artefacts will be on display in the glass table on the ground floor of the OISE Library through the end of August.

Welcome back, OISE students!

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August 3, 2017: Library Third Floor Reserved

Please note that the Third Floor of the Library, specifically in the Children’s Literature Collection area, will be reserved for an event on Thursday, August 3, 2017 from 9:00 AM – 2:00 PM. Please contact Desmond Wong at de.wong@utoronto.ca, PH: 416-978-1945 if you have any questions or concerns.

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