A Sea of Faces: The Importance of Knowing Your Students - Tapa blanda

For years Don Graves' wisdom has helped create meaningful connections between teachers, students, and curriculum and brought a more humane approach to teaching and learning. InA Sea of Faces Don returns to the theme of knowing your students. With an extraordinary, personal vision, and his warm, hopeful touch, Graves offers reflections on the vital importance of knowing each child as a unique individual and important insights on how to do it.

A Sea of Faces is both an idea book and a meditation on children and learning. Filled with Don's wisdom, wit, and one-of-a-kind storytelling, it describes how to create new opportunities to understand your students better. Don includes exercises that will sharpen your ability to observe children and get to know them as individuals-not just students-as well as seventy delightful poems, written by Don himself, that model the writing of poetry as a new and powerful way to express what you know about the kids in your classroom.

If the first day of school feels like an overwhelming blur of youngsters, trust Don Graves and readA Sea of Faces. You'll find out that all those new faces are an opportunity to renew your teaching, and that you can connect with your students in more meaningful ways than ever before.

Donald H. Graves was involved in writing research for decades. His books Writing: Teachers & Children at Work (Heinemann, 1983) and A Fresh Look at Writing (Heinemann, 1994) are bestsellers throughout the English-speaking world and have revolutionized the way writing is taught in schools. Don was a teacher, school principal, and language supervisor, education director, and a director of language in bilingual, ESL, and special programs. He was also the codirector of an undergraduate urban teacher preparation program and a professor of an early childhood program. He was Professor Emeritus at the University of New Hampshire. Donald H. Graves 9.11.1930 - 9.28.2010 Heinemann is deeply saddened by the news that Donald Graves has passed away. We, and the entire field, have lost a giant and one of our greatest friends. Our thoughts and prayers are with his widow, Betty, their family, and the many friends he made in his long career. We are honored to have been Don's publishing partner for more than three decades and over more than a dozen books-to have watched his research and vision become not only a classroom reality but the core of our publishing philosophy. His influence is so vast that we will meet him again and again on the pages of every book and resource we publish. His spirit pervades each of our books-in the conviction that children want to write and read if given the chance; in the flourishing of the workshop model of instruction that he pioneered; and in his abiding faith in teachers' ability to make sound instructional decisions. Don touched so many teachers' lives with his smile, his unflagging encouragement, and his generosity of spirit. We hope you will take a brief moment to remember how he touched your life. Watch a recent interview with Don » Remembering how Don touched your life » The Donald Graves memorial fund » Eight Children Teach Donald Graves Nine pencils break the surface of awareness, jutting into the air, slanted back like yellow, orange-tipped shark fins, entering chartless white, exploring hazy depths. Nine voices search a scent, suddenly lurch, lose the line, pause, pick it up again, and move from cloudy, roiling waters of new thought through warm currents of reception, straits of questioning, and tidal imbalances on to a clear, precise sea of meaning. - Tom Romano (Language Arts, 62,2 (Feb.) 1985: 142