Learn Like a PIRATE: A Must-Read!
Last summer I was immersed in Dave Burgess' Teach Like a PIRATE. What a refreshing and motivational read! This is one book that sticks with you, and the innovative ideas linger in your mind, are just best practice, and involve risk-taking from the both the teacher and the students. So, I was beyond thrilled when I saw that Learn Like a PIRATE had been published and knew that it would be at the top of my summer professional reading! This easy to read, thought-provoking book written by teacher Paul Solarz, takes the pirate analogy and acronym to the next level: that of our students.
More specifically, Solarz's focus of the book is student empowerment through the creation of a student-led classroom. How can our students learn like a PIRATE? Solarz uses the PIRATE acronym to emphasize strategies for an active and engaged classroom.
Paul Solarz's infectious enthusiasm for teaching is invigorating and just what a weary teacher needs to regroup after a long school year. If you are looking for new and innovative teaching strategies to re-energize your teaching and your classroom, then this book is for you! Written in an easy to read format, the book is entertaining, practical, and grows you as an educator as Solarz shares teaching techniques and strategies that you can implement to transform your students into collaborative, risk-taking, and creative pirates!
Throughout the majority of the book, the author discusses each component of the PIRATE acronym in depth. He offers the research and his own experiences of how to structure, implement, and maintain a PIRATE classroom. Topics include: teacher evaluations, classroom management, discipline, grades, literature circles, twenty-first century skills, and so much more! Sprinkled throughout the book are QR codes which link to graphics and to websites such as the author's own personal classroom blog for even more ideas and authentic examples of how to implement the theory into practice.
This must-read will appeal to teachers of all grade levels. The PIRATE activities and strategies have to be modified depending on the age of your students, but many of the suggestions in the book can be implemented into a K-2 classroom! In fact, my own personal goal as I read and reflect on Learn Like a PIRATE is to take the strategies and look for ways that they will work in a primary classroom. As a literacy coach and reading specialist, I may not be able to apply all of the strategies into an intervention setting, but I am excited to share these ideas with classroom teachers!
On my own blog, I have just started to write about my reflections from my reading. Join me on Sundays, as I present the important "nuggets" from my reading and my thinking of ways to adapt these strategies into a primary classroom. You can read the first post here and the latest post here.
If you have read the book or are in the middle of reading it, I would love for you to share your ideas of how to create a student-led classroom!
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