Do you have students who lack stamina and struggle when it comes to sticking with difficult texts? So does Cris Tovani. On this new video—which complements So What Do They Really Know? her groundbreaking book on formative assessment—she takes you inside the classroom, where she faces the same challenges you do. Follow Cris as she confers with Irving and guides him to access and connect his background knowledge, or as she buckles down with Israel and helps him grow his vocabulary and develop a sense of text structure.

Throughout fourteen conferences with individual students and five group conferences (ninety minutes of classroom footage), Cris differentiates her instruction to meet her adolescent readers' and writers' needs by listening to, learning about, and connecting with her students. Watch what happens when she sits next to a student, engages him or her eye-to-eye, and simply says, Talk to me.

The last segment features Cris responding to the most frequently asked questions she receives. The integral study guide provides direction, ideas, and handouts for professional development.