Better Answers: Written Performance that Looks Good and Sounds Smart

by Ardith Davis Cole

"Student's writing skills are improving tremendously… Last year's fourth-graders started using the sandwich method mid-year and almost all of them scored in the highest possible category when they took the state's standardized English-language arts test just a few months later."
—Wells Central Schools, NY

Wells Central is just one of numerous schools that attribute their success to Ardith Davis Cole's Better Answers process. Since 2002, her book Better Answers has offered teachers and school districts a powerful alternative to "test-prep" workbooks. It presents a dramatically different instructional model that helps students construct thoughtful test responses, but it also prepares them for any task requiring thorough, cogent answers to questions and prompts -- both in and out of school.

Now, with students tested more frequently than ever, and with teachers increasingly concerned about incorporating substantive test-taking skills into children's learning, Ardith Cole responds with a new updated and expanded edition of Better Answers. Informed by Ardith's ongoing work in classrooms where students struggle over constructed-response tasks, the new edition makes the Better Answers "sandwich" even easier to implement. The book has also been significantly reorganized, as well as expanded to include two new chapters, "Understanding the Prompt" and "What to do When." Also included is a resource-packed CD-ROM that contains everything teachers need to support their lessons and is a great tool for staff development:

lesson plans for text-based and self-based responses; power point slides, charts, and other visual supports; sets of sample texts with prompts; sample student responses; assessment forms; extensive bibliography of print and online resources.

The Better Answers process is easy to grasp and uses a gradual-release instructional process that begins with teacher modeling, invites increasing amounts of student participation, and eventually moves students into independent response writing. The book clearly explains each element of the process and provides helpful activities, authentic classroom vignettes, and tips on how to handle typical stumbling blocks along the way.

Genres: Professional Development, Nonfiction

232 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Paula Boyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this to be a good professional book for teachers. I read this in order to better help my students learn to write a smart and complete written response to a prompt. The activities shared in this book will help them become better writers on standardized tests as well as in content area classes.

[Mary Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

A group of teachers at my school is reading/discussing/implementing this. It's a little formulaic, but hopefully it will give our students one more tool in their writing toolboxes so that they can do what the subtitle says: Look good and sound smart.

[Marsha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book last summer and when I looked at the results from my first social studies test, I knew I needed to pull it back out. What great insight this author offers about the step-by-step process this author uses to get kids to understand the questions and then write a coherent answer.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book; I read the 2nd edition. This book has inspired me to approach writing instruction in a new way. The rubric that is included helps to "quantify" the elements of writing in a new way.

[Kathy]

An excellent way to teach the CEI method of answering questions.

[Martha · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book for all level teachers...covers teaching students how to make quality constructed responses.

[Missy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful and fun way to teach kids to respond to open-ended questions in the classroom and during assessments. Easy, straight-forward, and extremely useful for standardized testing.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very helpful ideas on how to help young writers be more concise.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good educational resource!