Jim Burke - Burke, Gilmore. Academic Moves for College and Career Readiness, Grades 6-12

15 Must-Have Skills Every Student Needs to Achieve

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Burke, Jim, 1961

Academic moves for college and career readiness, grades 6-12 : 15 must-have skills every student needs to achieve / Jim Burke, Barry Gilmore.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4833-7980-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Thought and thinkingStudy and teachingUnited States. 2. College preparation programsUnited States. 3. EducationStandardsUnited States. I. Gilmore, Barry. II. Title.

LB1590.3.B87 2015

370.152dc232014045597

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

15 16 17 18 19 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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The genesis of this book stems from something most of us do nearly every day at work: waiting to get on the copy machine to run off a few handouts for class. One day as I (Jim) waited impatiently to get my turn, I began surveying the stacks of handouts that waited to be retrieved and distributed to students. I found myself reflexively drawn to the language of the directions, problems, and prompts.

While the machines whirred out my colleagues copies (and I wondered if I would get mine made in time for class!), I became fascinated with the handoutsthe words, sentences, and general demands that such language makes on students minds. I realized that these simple photocopies were what teachers are really putting in students hands and telling them to do. Writing about the challenges and needs of English learners (ELs), Heritage, Silva, and Pierce (2007) insist that the challenge for teachers of ELs is to plan instruction that meets the language learning needs of students to ensure that their ability to speak, listen, read, and write in academic subjects across the curriculum does not lag behind that of their peers (p. 171).

The thing is, such challenges are by no means limited to ELs, for as these authors subsequently note, borrowing from Vygotsky, language and thinking develop simultaneously through everyday sociocultural experiences, and [such] thinking occurs through scaffolded interaction... that takes place [during] more structured experiences (p. 182). Nor, for that matter, are these challenges matters of vocabulary alone; rather, these obstacles to entering the academic world are as much about the cognitive or mental moves students need to be able to make when thinking and doing the work required by our different disciplines.

As if they had heard my thoughts, the teachers gathered around the copy machine began lamenting their struggles to get students to read, to write, to speak aboutin short, to