Touchstones 1 - Textbook and Activity Book Set
Written by highly experienced and well-known English teacher Clare Madden, Touchstones presents a fresh and engaging new approach to Junior Cycle English.
Touchstones uses cutting-edge, classroom-tested methods to build up students’ knowledge of texts and skills in a carefully integrated way. Students are led on an innovative and exciting journey through the specification.
The Touchstones package includes:
- A Student Textbook
- A Student Activity Book
- A Free Student e-book
- Free Audio App
- All 22 First Year Learning Outcomes are covered with emphasis on the three strands of the Junior Cycle English specification: oral language, reading and writing
- The clear, simple design helps to focus students and prevent cognitive overload
- Fresh, exciting and engaging text extracts, both traditional and contemporary, are used throughout from novels, plays, films, digital texts and multi-modal texts
- Units are carefully structured around the recommended genre-based approach and cover the following genres: fiction, poetry, film, drama, Shakespeare and non-fiction
- These sequenced units of learning begin by building a strong knowledge base for each genre, develop oral communication, reading and writing skills, and end with a project
- They are designed to be either covered in sequence or to be dipped into and out, for ease of use
- A stand-alone Shakespeare unit, a first with this programme, introduces students to the world of Shakespeare and builds knowledge and understanding of the grammar and punctuation of a Shakespearean text
- Each unit begins with a knowledge organiser of genre-based critical vocabulary and ends with a Test Your Knowledge quiz
- Highly scaffolded tasks effectively support mixed-ability teaching in the English classroom
- Retrieval practice opportunities that build on prior learning appear throughout
- Oral language supports include a strong focus on using structured and meaningful group discussion
Reading supports include:
- Effective reading strategies integrated into tasks to develop reading skills
- A dedicated reading unit including over 40 books appealing to this age group as well as engaging group tasks to encourage and promote reading for pleasure
Writing supports include:
- Scaffolded writing tasks (models and writer’s toolkits) that promote the craft of writing
- A skills development approach for writing to analyse, beginning in first year with annotation, quotation and inference skills
- A focus on development of high-level vocabulary throughout
- A dedicated Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar (SPaG) section at the
end of the book
- Can be used to prepare for the Classroom-Based Assessments (CBAs)
- Oral language and writing projects provide students with opportunities to develop a personal writing voice and to experiment with and enjoy elements of public speaking and performance
- Clear success criteria are provided
- Step-by-step instructions and tasks with complementary teacher mark sheet and whole class feedback sheet for each project, provided in the Teacher’s Resource Book
Student Activity Book
Touchstones 1 Student Activity Book provides additional material, questions and activities to complement textbook content, including:
- Meaningful scaffolding to approach written tasks
- Carefully designed graphic organisers to support thinking and writing
- A range of retrieval practice templates to support students using effective learning techniques
School Level: Secondary
Class: Junior Cycle
Subject: English
ISBN-10: 180230018X
ISBN-13: 9781802300185
Barcode: 9781802300185
Publisher: Edco
Author: Clare Madden
New column
Product: Book
Format: Softback
Edition: 1st Edition
Language: English
Pages:
Weight: 1.344 kg
Publication Date: 2022
Touchstones 1 - Textbook and Activity Book Set
Written by highly experienced and well-known English teacher Clare Madden, Touchstones presents a fresh and engaging new approach to Junior Cycle English.
Touchstones uses cutting-edge, classroom-tested methods to build up students’ knowledge of texts and skills in a carefully integrated way. Students are led on an innovative and exciting journey through the specification.
The Touchstones package includes:
- A Student Textbook
- A Student Activity Book
- A Free Student e-book
- Free Audio App
- All 22 First Year Learning Outcomes are covered with emphasis on the three strands of the Junior Cycle English specification: oral language, reading and writing
- The clear, simple design helps to focus students and prevent cognitive overload
- Fresh, exciting and engaging text extracts, both traditional and contemporary, are used throughout from novels, plays, films, digital texts and multi-modal texts
- Units are carefully structured around the recommended genre-based approach and cover the following genres: fiction, poetry, film, drama, Shakespeare and non-fiction
- These sequenced units of learning begin by building a strong knowledge base for each genre, develop oral communication, reading and writing skills, and end with a project
- They are designed to be either covered in sequence or to be dipped into and out, for ease of use
- A stand-alone Shakespeare unit, a first with this programme, introduces students to the world of Shakespeare and builds knowledge and understanding of the grammar and punctuation of a Shakespearean text
- Each unit begins with a knowledge organiser of genre-based critical vocabulary and ends with a Test Your Knowledge quiz
- Highly scaffolded tasks effectively support mixed-ability teaching in the English classroom
- Retrieval practice opportunities that build on prior learning appear throughout
- Oral language supports include a strong focus on using structured and meaningful group discussion
Reading supports include:
- Effective reading strategies integrated into tasks to develop reading skills
- A dedicated reading unit including over 40 books appealing to this age group as well as engaging group tasks to encourage and promote reading for pleasure
Writing supports include:
- Scaffolded writing tasks (models and writer’s toolkits) that promote the craft of writing
- A skills development approach for writing to analyse, beginning in first year with annotation, quotation and inference skills
- A focus on development of high-level vocabulary throughout
- A dedicated Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar (SPaG) section at the
end of the book
- Can be used to prepare for the Classroom-Based Assessments (CBAs)
- Oral language and writing projects provide students with opportunities to develop a personal writing voice and to experiment with and enjoy elements of public speaking and performance
- Clear success criteria are provided
- Step-by-step instructions and tasks with complementary teacher mark sheet and whole class feedback sheet for each project, provided in the Teacher’s Resource Book
Student Activity Book
Touchstones 1 Student Activity Book provides additional material, questions and activities to complement textbook content, including:
- Meaningful scaffolding to approach written tasks
- Carefully designed graphic organisers to support thinking and writing
- A range of retrieval practice templates to support students using effective learning techniques
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