ILA E-ssentials

Build Up Your Practice With ILA E-ssentials

ILA E-ssentials are quick-read articles by top literacy experts that will help strengthen your teaching practice while fostering your students' confidence, creativity, and critical thinking skills. They deliver practical, evidence-based strategies on a wide range of topics and relevant themes for grades K–12 that you can download easily and put to use immediately.

ILA E-ssentials are exclusive member resources available as PDFs. Not a member? Check out this FREE sample article to see what you can expect from ILA E-ssentials, and then join ILA to access all of them!

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21st-Century Literacy Skills
Grades K–12

In this series, you'll find fresh and engaging content on 21st-Century Literacy Skills such as project-based learning, critical thinking, and independent thinking.
- Designing PBL Projects to Increase Student Literacy
  Andrew Miller
- FREE Sample Article!
  The SHOTS Strategy
  Using Complex Narratives to Spark Independent Thinking
  A. Vincent Ciardiello
Common Core in Your Classroom
Grades K–12

We're breaking down the Common Core State Standards into key topic areas, with columns focused on text complexity, disciplinary literacy, informational texts, academic vocabulary, questioning, finding evidence, and more. And we'll give solutions for special areas of concern, such as motivating kids to read; helping struggling learners, gifted students, and ELL students to meet the Standards; and building understanding among colleagues.
- Practical Strategies for Implementing the Common Core with English Learners
  Diane Staehr Fenner & Ayanna Cooper
- Q & A Books
  Teaching Students to Read and Write Informational Text
  Michelle Kelley & Nicki Clausen-Grace
- Teaching 50,000 Words
  Meeting and Exceeding the Common Core State Standards for Vocabulary
  Michael F. Graves & Gregory C. Sales
- Winning Graphic Novels
  Blending Visual Literacy With the Common Core
  Sheri J. Tucker & Philip J. Tucker
Engaging the Adolescent Learner
Grades 6–12

Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey provide concrete, classroom-tested ideas for getting middle-grade and high school students excited about reading and writing, with an eye on Common Core State Standards. Recent topics include spelling instruction, comprehension across multiple texts, blended learning, after-reading discussions, and text-dependent questions.
Implementing CSR: Practical Applications for Creating Strategic Readers
Grades K–5

You know and love the innovative ideas for teaching comprehension, fluency, phonics, and phonemic awareness that Creating Strategic Readers has brought to your classroom. In these articles, Valerie Ellery offers fresh ways to engage your students and extend her CSR framework to meet today’s challenges.
Literacy Practices That Adolescents Deserve
Grades 6–12

The 21st-century has brought with it a tremendous evolution in how adolescents engage with text. As adolescents prepare to become productive citizens, they must be able to comprehend and construct information using print and nonprint materials in fixed and virtual platforms across disciplines. This series, edited by Heather Casey, Susan Lenski, and Carol Hryniuk-Adamov, brings readers inside real classrooms with practical, research-based strategies to implement in classrooms and schools.
- Access to a Wide Variety of Print and Nonprint Materials
  Heather Casey, Susan Lenski, & Carol Hryniuk-Adamov
- Assessments That Highlight Strengths and Challenges
  Douglas Fisher & Nancy Frey
- Building a Culture of Engaged Academic Literacy in Schools
  Cynthia Greenleaf, Ruth Schoenbach, & Lynn Murphy
- Differentiating Instruction for Adolescent Literacy Learning
  Susan Lenski
- Disciplinary Literacy Strategies in Content Area Classes
  Cynthia Shanahan
- Implementing a Schoolwide Literacy Action Plan for Adolescents
  Martha Jan Mickler & Judith L. Irvin
- Instruction With Multimodal, Multiple Texts
  Jill Castek
- Opportunities to Develop Oral Language
  Jeff Zwiers
- Using Critical Literacy to Promote Human Rights and Civic Engagement
  Judith Dunkerly-Bean & Thomas W. Bean
Motivating Readers, Inspiring Teachers
Grades Pre-K–12

Your students seem to be in a rut…and so are you. Jump-start your classroom literacy practices with encouragement and advice from seasoned educators who write with a touch of wit and wisdom. These surefire strategies can help you motivate even your most reluctant readers, and will inspire you and your colleagues to continue to strive for excellence.
- Creating Readers for Life
  Danny Brassell
- Engaging the Brain of All Learners Using Brain-Powered Strategies
  LaVonna Roth
- Imitate and Innovate Anchor Charts
  Ekuwah Moses & Holly Lee
- Making Writing Exciting
  Tips for Student Success
  David L. Harrison & Lauren Edmondson
- Playing With Poetry to Develop Phonemic Awareness
  Mary Jo Fresch & David L. Harrison
Rigorous Real-World Teaching and Learning
Grades K–12

Diane Lapp and her colleagues take you inside real classrooms to see top-quality literacy instruction that stretches students’ thinking and learning. Each column is packed with practical tools and resources to help you implement the ideas immediately.
- Arguments Are Only as Credible as Their Sources
  Teaching Students to Choose Wisely
  Diane Lapp, Marisol Thayre, Thomas DeVere Wolsey, & Douglas Fisher
- I Hadn’t Thought of That!
  Guidelines for Providing Online Feedback That Motivates Students to Learn
  Diane Lapp, with Thomas DeVere Wolsey & Patrick Ganz
- Navigating the Common Core State Standards
  Diane Lapp, with Julie B. Wise & Kelly Johnson
- Teaching Students to Closely Read Texts
  How and When?
  Diane Lapp, with Barbara Moss, Kelly Johnson, & Maria Grant
- Teaching Students to Write a Well-Supported Argument
  Diane Lapp, Maria Grant, & Kelly Johnson
- Visualizing the Argument With Graphic Organizers
  Diane Lapp, Thomas DeVere Wolsey, & Barbara Moss
- You're on a "Role" With Perspective Guides
  Diane Lapp & Karen Wood, with Katie Stover & Lindsay Yearta
Teaching With Technology
Grades K–12

Your students are growing up in a world in which gadgetry is ever-present and ever-expanding, and you know there is huge potential for teaching and learning—if only you knew where to start. Here are classroom-tested ideas for harnessing kids' excitement around digital technology and suggestions for using 21st-century tools, websites, and teaching techniques in your everyday instruction.
- Accelerating Learning
  Making the Most of iPads in Kindergarten
  Kathryn Toppel
- Sharing Student Writing With the World
  Stephanie Laird
- Technology Tools for Classroom Management
  Lindsey Fuller
- There's No Time Like Real-Time
  Immediate Formative Assessments for Secondary Classrooms
  Tony Varrato
What's New in Literacy Teaching?
Grades K–8

What does it mean to join time-tested best practices with new media, texts, and communication forms? And how can you weave together grounded, time-honored practices with new research, new text types, and new students? This series of columns, edited by Karen Wood, Jeanne Paratore, Rachel McCormack, and Brian Kissel, answers these questions and more with practical strategies from leaders in the field!
- Conversation, Collaboration, and the Common Core
  Strategies for Learning Together
  Thomas DeVere Wolsey, Karen Wood, & Diane Lapp
- Critical Literacy With New Communication Technologies
  Vivian Maria Vasquez & Carol B. Felderman
- Digital Discussions
  Using Web 2.0 Tools to Communicate, Collaborate, and Create
  Brian Kissel, Karen Wood, Katie Stover, & Kim Heintschel
- "Flood, Fast, Focus"
  Integrated Vocabulary Instruction in the Classroom
  Camille Blachowicz, James F. Baumann, Patrick C. Manyak, & Michael F. Graves
- Reading Interventions
  Yesterday's Theories, Today's Pedagogy, and Tomorrow's Teachers
  Katherine Frankel & P. David Pearson
- Reinvite Drama Into Classrooms
  New Ways With an Old Form
  Nancy L. Roser, Miriam Martinez, & Holly Carrell Moore
- Reinvite Drama Into Classrooms, Part 2
  Exploring Stories Through Process Drama
  Nancy L. Roser, Miriam Martinez, Holly Carrell Moore, & Deborah Palmer
- Supporting Parents as Valuable Partners in Their Children's Literacy Learning
  Alisa Hindin & Jeanne R. Paratore
- Teaching Students to Self-Regulate During Online Inquiry
  Julie Coiro & Michael Putman
- Text Talk
  Engaging Readers in Purposeful Discussions
  Dot McElhone
- What Happens After Staff Development?
  A Model for Self-Coaching in Literacy
  Karen Wood, Brian Kissel, & Karen Haag
- What's Complex in Text Complexity?
  Elfrieda H. Hiebert
- Writers' Workshop
  Using Retro Ideas to Reenvision Student-Led Agendas
  Brian Kissel, Erin Miller, & Jane Hansen