Pages: 144 Price: $17.50 ISBN: 978-0-325-00971-1
Whole-Class Teaching, Minilessons and More by Janet Angelillo describes how to create and refine powerful lessons that have a lasting impact on students. This lovingly crafted book invites teachers to reflect on how well their teaching respects and dignifies children's learning. In her introduction, Angelillo states: "The process of teaching deserves to be an elegant work of art. It requires lessons that students will muse over and live off for a long, long time. And instruction that is significant and wise, not ordinary and common" (p. ix). Teaching is a splendid, almost sacred, process that deserves all of our attention and intelligence. The way we teach shows students that we respect their ideas. The way we teach provides students with the tools they will need to sustain meaningful conversations.
To read this book is to remember why we chose to become teachers: to "search for and find the seeds of greatness in each student" (p. 14). In order to do this we need to talk less and listen more to each other. We need moments of silence during classroom discussions to savor and appreciate others comments and contributions. Silence allows reflection and respect to flourish so that we can hear the "greatness" in each other and ourselves.
Angelillo treats us to a rich and thoughtful discussion of a variety of whole-class teaching structures that promote respect, build community, provide students with ideas that matter, and show how listening is a way to deepen our learning. We are guided to how to create effective minilessons, workshop share times, morning meetings, read alouds, celebrations of writing, and the importance of each one. According to Angelillo, each of these structures teaches children the joy of living in and loving the world of ideas in a way that is caring and respectful of others.
Angelillo's profound faith in teachers and children is evident in every chapter of her book. Teaching is a serious endeavor, she tells us. It must be intentionally planned, rehearsed (as if it were a grand symphony), and refined if we want students to find and expand on their greatness. Finally, by reading student work we will find evidence of minilessons.
Whole-Class Teaching, Minilessons and More gives teachers the gift of seeing ourselves as artists who create the most exquisite art—"the glorious truth of magnificent teaching" (p. 118).
Thank you Janet.
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