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While schools around the nation reconsider homework policies, teachers, students, and parents continue to ride the wave of either too much, too little, too easy, or too hard homework assignments. In the expectation that children complete homework, sometimes they are assigned mindless "busy work." Kathy Collins and Janine Bempechat take on the stormy topic of homework by re-focusing the conversation from "to assign or not to assign" to how we can design engaging homework that harnesses children's interests and fosters their learning. "Janine and I give you a research-based rationale and a more expansive view of homework that enables you to envision meaningful alternatives to worksheets, packets, and tasks that simply occupy children's afterschool time," Kathy writes. As Janine notes, "More than just 'getting it done, ' homework can be an opportunity to foster positive beliefs about learning, establish meaningful habits of mind, and forge an academic identity."
With strategies for adding choice, differentiation, relevance, and authentic feedback into homework assignments, you'll discover how to reimagine homework in ways that promote lifelong learning habits in your students.
About the author
Ellin Oliver Keene has been a classroom teacher, staff developer, non-profit director 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 and Director of Literacy and Staff Development for the Cornerstone Project at the University of Pennsylvania for 4 years. Ellin works with schools and districts throughout the country and abroad. Her emphasis is long-term, school-based professional development and strategic planning for literacy learning.
Ellin recently published
The Literacy Studio: Redesigning the Workshop for Readers and Writers which is focused on an up-to-date conceptualization of Readers/Writers' workshop. She is the author of
Engaging Children: Igniting the Drive for Deeper Learning (2018), is co-editor and co-author of
The Teacher You Want to Be: Essays about Children, Learning, and Teaching (Heinemann, 2015)
; co-editor of the
Not This, but That series (Heinemann, 2013 - 2018); author of
Talk About Understanding: Rethinking Classroom Talk to Enhance Understanding (Heinemann, 2012),
To Understand: New Horizons in Reading Comprehension (Heinemann, 2008), co-author of
Comprehension Going Forward (Heinemann, 2011),
co-author of Mosaic of Thought: The Power of Comprehension Strategy Instruction, 2nd edition (Heinemann, 2007, 1
st edition, 1997) and author of
Assessing Comprehension Thinking Strategies (Shell Educational Books, 2006) as well as numerous chapters for professional books and journals on the teaching of reading as well as education policy journals.
