Rachelle S. Savitz

It is vital for educators to be aware of how traumatic experiences affect today's students, yet few teachers learn the tools needed to successfully teach these students. This book highlights how English Language Arts teachers, who are typically not licensed or specifically trained to work with trauma issues, can design and implement instruction that helps students see that they are supported. This book provides specific strategies for teaching literacy based on the authors' extensive knowledge and experience in trauma-sensitive instruction, adolescent literacy, and culturally responsive–sustaining pedagogies. The authors show how to support middle and high school students with specific literacy practices (reading, speaking, listening, and writing) that build resilience. Trauma-Sensitive Literacy Instruction is for the many teachers who are unsure how to invite students and their traumas into classroom instruction and embed critical discussions and learning within their teaching practices and pedagogy. It will help ELA teachers navigate student trauma in a way that empowers both students and teachers.Book Features:Responds to research that consistently shows how schools are often places that marginalize-and sometimes traumatize or retraumatize-children.Offers specific information related to literature, writing, discussion, and inquiry activities focused on various traumatic experiences. Provides rationales and research, along with examples, teacher vignettes, and steps for incorporating relevant practices in classrooms (grades 6–12).

It is vital for educators to be aware of how traumatic experiences affect today's students, yet few teachers learn the tools needed to successfully teach these students. This book highlights how English Language Arts teachers, who are typically not licensed or specifically trained to work with trauma issues, can design and implement instruction that helps students see that they are supported. This book provides specific strategies for teaching literacy based on the authors' extensive knowledge and experience in trauma-sensitive instruction, adolescent literacy, and culturally responsive–sustaining pedagogies. The authors show how to support middle and high school students with specific literacy practices (reading, speaking, listening, and writing) that build resilience. Trauma-Sensitive Literacy Instruction is for the many teachers who are unsure how to invite students and their traumas into classroom instruction and embed critical discussions and learning within their teaching practices and pedagogy. It will help ELA teachers navigate student trauma in a way that empowers both students and teachers.Book Features:Responds to research that consistently shows how schools are often places that marginalize-and sometimes traumatize or retraumatize-children.Offers specific information related to literature, writing, discussion, and inquiry activities focused on various traumatic experiences. Provides rationales and research, along with examples, teacher vignettes, and steps for incorporating relevant practices in classrooms (grades 6–12).

Huge numbers of our students are caught in storms of trauma—whether stemming from abuse, homelessness, poverty, discrimination, violent neighborhoods, or fears of school shootings or family deportations. This practical book focuses on actions that teachers can take to facilitate learning for these students. Identifying positive, connected teacher–student relationships as foundational, the authors offer direction for creating an emotionally safe classroom environment in which students find a refuge from trauma and a space in which to process events. The text shows how social and emotional learning can be woven into the school day; how literacies can be used to help students see a path through challenges; how to empower learners through debate, civic action, and service learning; and how to use the vital nature of the school community as an agent of change. This book will serve as a roadmap for creating uniformly consistent and excellent classrooms and schools that better serve children who experience trauma in their lives.Book Features:Makes a clear case for the need and responsibility of schools to equip students with tools to learn despite the trauma in their lives.Shows practical classroom instructional and curricular interactions that address trauma while advancing student academic learning.Uses literacy and civic action as pathways to empowerment.Provides a method and tools for developing a coherent plan for creating a trauma-sensitive school.

Huge numbers of our students are caught in storms of trauma—whether stemming from abuse, homelessness, poverty, discrimination, violent neighborhoods, or fears of school shootings or family deportations. This practical book focuses on actions that teachers can take to facilitate learning for these students. Identifying positive, connected teacher–student relationships as foundational, the authors offer direction for creating an emotionally safe classroom environment in which students find a refuge from trauma and a space in which to process events. The text shows how social and emotional learning can be woven into the school day; how literacies can be used to help students see a path through challenges; how to empower learners through debate, civic action, and service learning; and how to use the vital nature of the school community as an agent of change. This book will serve as a roadmap for creating uniformly consistent and excellent classrooms and schools that better serve children who experience trauma in their lives.Book Features:Makes a clear case for the need and responsibility of schools to equip students with tools to learn despite the trauma in their lives.Shows practical classroom instructional and curricular interactions that address trauma while advancing student academic learning.Uses literacy and civic action as pathways to empowerment.Provides a method and tools for developing a coherent plan for creating a trauma-sensitive school.