Mosaic of Thought: The Power of Comprehension Strategy Instruction » (2nd Edition)

Ellin Oliver Keene is the author of To Understand (2008) and coauthor of Mosaic of Thought, Second Edition (2007), both published by Heinemann. She has been a classroom teacher, staff developer, and adjunct professor of reading and writing. For sixteen years she directed staff development initiatives at the Denver-based Public Education & Business Coalition. She served as Deputy Director of the Cornerstone Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania for 4 years, where she oversaw literacy and professional learning for teachers in high-poverty schools throughout the nation. She lives with her husband, David, and daughter, Elizabeth, in Denver and works with schools and districts around the country. Ellin Oliver Keene is a Heinemann Professional Development provider. She now provides long-term professional development residencies in partnership with Heinemann Professional Development. Click for an overview of the Keene Residency or to learn more about Heinemann residencies as a long-term literacy action plan.

An internationally-known speaker and workshop leader, Susan Zimmermann is coauthor of the educational bestsellers Mosaic of Thought, Second Edition (2007) and 7 Keys to Comprehension (with Chryse Hutchins, 2003). She cofounded and served as the Executive Director of the Denver-based Public Education and Business Coalition, an organization that has spearheaded ground-breaking comprehension work. During her ten years there, she initiated numerous programs to improve the quality of public schools, including the Reading Project, which has been implemented in more than one hundred schools and provides the examples in Mosaic of Thought, Second Edition, and 7 Keys. As part of Heinemann Speakers, Susan also provides Professional development through Heinemann related to comprehension strategy teaching. Visit her Heinemann Speakers page for more information. Susan is also the author of Keeping Katherine (2005); Writing to Heal the Soul (2002), winner of the Colorado Book Award; and Grief Dancers (1996), finalist for the Colorado Book Award and winner of the Exceptional Parent symbol of excellence for its "profound contribution to human understanding and dignity." These wise and inspiring books grew out of Susan's personal experience of raising her profoundly handicapped daughter Katherine, who developed normally for her first year, but then experienced a devastating neurological disorder (Rett syndrome) that left her unable to walk, talk or feed herself. Currently a full-time speaker and writer, Susan has given hundreds of workshops, keynotes, and summer institutes in over 40 states, throughout Canada, and in Mexico on ways to deepen reading and writing experiences for adults and children. A lover of the wilderness and believer in the transformative power of the outdoors, she has been a trustee of the Colorado Outward Bound School and served as the board chair of The Women's Wilderness Institute, an organization that provides wilderness learning experiences for adolescent girls and women. Susan is a graduate of Yale Law School and mother of four. She lives in the foothills west of Denver. For more information on Susan Zimmermann visit her Web site at www.susanzimmermann.com.

When it published ten years ago, Mosaic of Thought became a runaway bestseller as the first book to explicitly describe the use and benefits of strategy-based comprehension instruction. Since then comprehension strategy instruction has exploded, leading to numerous inspiring variations on Mosaic s instructional principles, as well as a widening of the comprehension research base. Now, Ellin Oliver Keene and Susan Zimmermann have returned with a second edition of their classic that offers up-to-the-minute insight for classroom teachers, literacy coaches, and school leaders everywhere, and reminds everyone of precisely what effective, long-lasting comprehension teaching looks like.

Mosaic of Thought, Second Edition, has been carefully revised and contains more than 70 percent new material. It reflects Keene and Zimmermann s latest thinking and is designed to help teachers implement practical, thoughtful ideas for teaching comprehension in contemporary classrooms through the seven core strategies that successful readers use to engage with texts. Packed with new classroom examples, grounded in the latest research, and written in the same accessible tone as the first edition, Mosaic of Thought reaffirms the essential elements of powerful comprehension teaching introduced in the first edition while adding and updating features, including:
-Key Ideas sections for each strategy that describe crucial comprehension concepts
-new classroom examples that show comprehension strategies put into action in dynamic, literature-rich, current classrooms
-new opening vignettes that illustrate the concepts students will learn through explorations of the thinking used by proficient adult readers
-new tools to help teachers create effective reader s workshops
-innovations from teachers around the country for fine tuning think-alouds and conferring practices
-new advice on long-term instructional planning.

Keene and Zimmermann have also created an invaluable Q-and-A section with smart, informed responses to the questions that today s teachers most frequently ask about strategy-based teaching.

Whether you are just now joining the hundreds of thousands of teachers who have made Keene and Zimmermann their central resource for comprehension teaching, or whether you ve relied on their advice for years, Mosaic of Thought, Second Edition, will change your literacy instruction - and possibly your own reading - forever. It s filled with vital, new information, new research, and proven practices. Read it today and give your students strategies for connecting with texts that will last a lifetime.