180 DAYS (Print eBook Bundle)

Section One: Planning Decisions

1. Start with Beliefs:

2. Establish Daily Practices:

3. Map a Year of Reading:

4. Map a Year of Writing:

5. Balance Feedback and Evaluation:

Section Two: Teaching Essential Discourses

6. Narrative

7. Informational

8. Argument

9. Multigenre Research Projects

This book is divided into two sections. Section 1, “Planning Decisions,” takes you through the process we used—and you might consider—to plan a year of teaching. The section includes five chapters:
1: Start with Beliefs
2: Establish Daily Practices
3: Map a Year of Reading
4: Map a Year of Writing
5: Balance Feedback and Evaluation
Section 2, “Teaching Essential Discourses,” begins with an introduction that explains the general framework for planning a unit of study in a specific writing discourse. Then, in the four chapters that follow, we detail the decisions we made in four discourse studies: narrative, informational, argument, and multigenre. Our hope is that by reading about the decisions we made as we planned together, you will be inspired to reimagine the beautiful possibilities for your teaching.

— Introduction

This book is a brilliant work of architecture—the making of an English course. How do you shape the movement of the 180 days, balancing open space and structure, individuality and assessment, breadth and depth (not to mention managing the damn thing). Two of our country’s most innovative teachers, Penny Kittle and Kelly Gallagher take on this challenge in a cross-country collaboration, exploring the art of the possible. This book—and its amazing video accompaniment—illustrates not so much the fixed course everyone should teach (even they don’t totally agree on that), but how to think through the making, and the principles that should be its foundation.—Thomas Newkirk

Spending 180 days on the job and in the world with Penny Kittle and Kelly Gallagher is like apprenticing yourself to a year in the kitchen with two master chefs who speak honestly and passionately about the challenges we face and the choices we must make every day in our own classrooms. I learned something new on every page, verbally annotating just about every suggestion with a mental “Yes!” or “Try this!” At every turn, they acknowledge and address the constraints, especially of time, we all face in our classes—then show us how they manage to teach their students so much and so well despite those constraints.—Jim Burke, author of The English Teacher’s Companion

Who among us hasn’t wished to be a fly on the wall of Penny’s and Kelly’s classrooms? In 180 Days, we aren’t just flies—we are invited into their brains, their plan books, and their friendship as they answer the question that plagues every teacher: how to do it all in one year? This book is not about how to find time where time doesn’t exist. It’s not about turning 180 days into 200 days so you can fit everything in. This book is about making decisions about what really matters enough and how to make the most of the time we are given with our students. It honors teachers as decision-makers and reminds us of the power of professional collaboration to change not only our students’ learning but also our own professional lives.—Allison Marchetti and Rebekah O’Dell, coauthors of Writing With Mentors and Beyond Literary Analysis