These 6 Things: How to Focus Your Teaching on What Matters Most / Edition 1

by Dave Stuart

Overview

Dave Stuart Jr.’s work is centered on a simple belief: all students and teachers can flourish. These 6 Things is all about streamlining your practice so that you’re teaching smarter, not harder, and kids are learning, doing, and flourishing in ELA and content-area classrooms. In this essential resource, teachers will receive:

• Proven, classroom-tested advice delivered in an approachable, teacher-to-teacher style that builds confidence
• Practical strategies for streamlining instruction in order to focus on key beliefs and literacy-building activities
• Solutions and suggestions for the most common teacher and student “hang-ups”
• Numerous recommendations for deeper reading on key topics

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781506391038
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	08/13/2018
Series:	Corwin Literacy
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	407,038
Product dimensions:	7.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Dave Stuart Jr. is a husband and father who teaches high school in Cedar Springs, MI. His blog, Dave Stuart Jr.com, is read by over 50,000 educators each month, and his bestselling These 6 Things: How to Focus Your Teaching on What Matters Most has been cherished by teachers and leaders around the world. Dave is also an accomplished creator of professional development experiences, having led hundreds of impactful experiences for teachers in every US state and multiple countries abroad.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1. Teaching Toward Everest
Long-Term Flourishing: The Peak of Peaks
Permission to Simplify
Let’s Focus on What We Already Know
The Gist
PART I: START WITH THE HEART
CHAPTER 2. Cultivate Key Beliefs
Why Beliefs?
The Five Research-Based Beliefs That Drive Student Learning Behaviors (and How to Cultivate Them)
What I’ve Learned to Be True About These Beliefs
The Gist
PART II: MAKING MASTERY
CHAPTER 3. Build Knowledge Purposefully and Often
The Criticality of Knowledge
Promising Practices Toward Meaningful Knowledge Building
The Gist
CHAPTER 4. Argue Purposefully and Often
The Argument for Argument
Cultivate an Earnest and Amicable Argument Culture
Increase the Quantity of Argumentation in Your Classroom
Improve the Quality of Argumentation in Your Classroom
The Gist
PART III: LITERACY-RICH LEARNING EXPERIENCES
CHAPTER 5. Read Purposefully and Often
The Case for Reading Throughout the School Day
A Focused, Sensible Approach to Reading Throughout the School Day for the Long-Term Flourishing of Our Students
The Gist
CHAPTER 6. Write Purposefully and Often
The Case for Writing Throughout the School Day
A Focused, Sensible Approach to Writing Throughout the School Day for the Long-Term Flourishing of Our Students
Sanity Check: Mentally Disentangling Grading From Feedback and Better, Saner Tips for Tackling Both
The Gist
CHAPTER 7. Speak and Listen Purposefully and Often
The Case for Speaking and Listening Throughout the School Day
A Focused, Sensible Approach to Speaking and Listening Throughout the School Day for the Long-Term Flourishing of Our Students
The Gist
CHAPTER 8. Onward and Upward
Pick a Project
Commit to This, and Nothing Else, for a Long Time
A Gift for You
Acknowledgments
References and Recommended Readings
Index

Editorial Reviews

In These 6 Things, Dave Stuart provides a framework and road map that is of value to educators at all stages of their careers, from novices to veterans. He reminds us all to focus in on the things that are most important and to do them well. Much of the book creates opportunities for the kinds of reflection and self-analysis in which most teachers do not have the opportunity to engage. A great tool for new teachers and seasoned teachers alike to find their “Everest” and pursue it.

David T. Conley

What I appreciate most about Dave Stuart’s book These 6 Things: How to Focus Your Teaching on What Matters Most is that he is one of us: a classroom teacher sharing with us what works for him in ways that will work for us in our own classrooms with our own students. When I read about the poster on his class wall that says “[In this class] we are all about becoming better thinkers, readers, writers, speakers, and people,” I think of the years of hard work I have watched Dave Stuart put into his craft and this book, and how the same statement applies to Dave Stuart himself: He is all about becoming a better thinker, reader, writer, speaker, person—and teacher, and showing us how we can do the same.

Jim Burke

These 6 Things is a joyful shot in the arm for experienced teachers as well as for novices. Is it possible to consolidate the most important aspects of teaching into one book—complete with relevant, engaging examples that have been tried and proven by teachers in various content areas? I wouldn’t have thought so, but Dave has managed to do it, all while affirming, encouraging, and acting as a “guide on the side” for those who may feel unsure about trying out new activities with their students. You’ll want to carve out some reading time for this book. The journey will yield wonderful rewards for both teachers and students.

Re Leah Cosset Lent

Dave Stuart has an important insight: that a skill kids already know how to do, which is argue, also happens to be a central one in the new standards for college readiness. In Stuart’s wonderful book, These 6 Things, he draws extensively on his own classroom experience to show teachers how to help students use their everyday argument skills to energize the classroom, meet these standards, and achieve success. An extra treat is that Stuart himself writes in a down to earth language refreshingly devoid of Educationese. If you’re a teacher or school administrator interested in turning your students onto argument, Dave Stuart is your man!

Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein

Dave Stuart’s These 6 Things is among the most helpful, passionate, practical, and insightful teaching resources I have ever come across. It is brimming with simple, practical—and exceedingly realistic—suggestions and strategies for immediately improving the quality of schooling and student work—starting tomorrow. These 6 Things is an impressive and arrestingly written book by a working teacher. I hope it gets a wide reading.

Mike Schmoker

If you’re searching for balance as a teacher of literacy, search no further. Dave Stuart Jr.
offers a calming voice for a frenzied profession and provides practical classroom strategies that will help you teach adolescents in the rich and meaningful ways they deserve without becoming overwhelmed. This book is packed with ideas that are research-based, student-centered, and most of all, workable.
This is a book written for classroom teachers by a classroom teacher, one who understands the struggle of teachers to navigate the demands of standards and content and offers an accessible, sensible formula for classroom success. Dave is a guide, a mentor, an advocate, and a fellow traveler on the road to nurturing and educating students through positive, focused instruction.

Barry Gilmore

These 6 Things is a joyful shot in the arm for experienced teachers as well as for novices. Is it possible to consolidate the most important aspects of teaching into one book—complete with relevant, engaging examples that have been tried and proven by teachers in various content areas? I wouldn’t have thought so, but Dave has managed to do it, all while affirming, encouraging, and acting as a “guide on the side” for those who may feel unsure about trying out new activities with their students. You’ll want to carve out some reading time for this book. The journey will yield wonderful rewards for both teachers and students.

ReLeah Cosset Lent