The Alberta Teachers’ Association

These resources are now available through the ATA library.

The ATA library has great resources for teachers in print and online. Library staff are happy to mail out whatever you need to wherever you are, and we prepay the return postage for you. Drop us a line at library@ata.ab.ca and let us know how we can help you with your teaching this year. 

1. The Day I Reached My Tipping Point...: Compassion Fatigue and Educators
This book is designed to educate teachers about compassion fatigue, its causes, coping strategies and how to work toward recovery if you have gone over the tipping point. A timely book for all teachers after an extremely challenging year. 

2. Tackling the Motivation Crisis: How to Activate Student Learning Without Behavior Charts, Pizza Parties, or Other Hard-to-Quit Incentive Systems
Extrinsic rewards for learning can work against intrinsic love of learning. Mike Anderson shares how teachers can foster self-motivation in students with six high-impact motivators.

3. We Belong: 50 Strategies to ­Create Community and Revolutionize Classroom Management
In this book, teachers will find 50 ­targeted strategies to increase ­students’ sense of belonging and change how classrooms are managed by fostering a sense of community.

4. Starting Strong: Evidence-Based Early Literacy Practices 
Figuring out the instructional practice to use in your early childhood classroom can be ­difficult. Katrin Blamey and Katherine ­Beauchat simplify that process for teachers and then recommend one of four ­practices for teachers to implement for literacy instruction. 

5. Culturally Responsive Teaching for ­Multilingual Learners: Tools for Equity
Going beyond the normal cultural sensitivity and inclusion formula of many books, Sydney Snyder and Diane Staehr Fenner also include tools for teachers to identify their own cultural bias and deficit-based thinking. A useful tool for anyone teaching multilingual learners!

6. Activités pour mieux apprendre les mots : fiches d’étude et dictées ­quotidiennes ou hebdomadaires
Cet ouvrage est conçu pour amener les élèves à s’approprier l’orthographe des mots à l’aide d’observations qui les font réfléchir, de règles qui soutiennent leur mémoire et de dictées qui les mettent à l’épreuve ou consolident leurs acquis.

7. The Art of Teaching with ­Humor: Crafting Laughter
Laughter is good for the human body. It reduces stress and anxiety, releases endorphins and strengthens resilience. Author Teri Evans-Palmer discusses how moments of levity transformed and reinvigorated learning in her classroom. 

8. À grands pas vers l’écriture de textes narratifs
Comprenant 21 ateliers, ce module est conçu de manière à accompagner les élèves dans leur cheminement, s’appuyant sur leurs ­connaissances afin d’accélérer le ­développement de leurs ­habiletés en matière de lecture.

9. Is Racism an Environmental Threat? 
In this thought-provoking book, Ghassan Hage ties the mindset of colonialism to the ­mindset that creates wholescale environmental ­damage. He examines how racist attitudes have become not just a danger to people but to the whole planet. 

Information provided by ATA librarian Sandra Anderson

Your colleagues recommend

What are you reading these days and why would you recommend it to a colleague?

Deborah Nicholson
I just read Thomas King’s Sufferance. It blew me away — funny, sad, ­infuriating, enlightening. Loved this book!!

Asia Kirkpatrick 
Braiding Sweetgrass is a beautifully written book that teaches its reader how native peoples look at the ­natural world and practice the concept of reciprocity and renewal. It truly opens yours eyes to caring more deeply about the earth.

Jody Hertlein 
The Power of Vulnerability by Brené Brown — one of her first works in her research and a powerful message of finding that team to carry you through.

Sheri Crowston 
I’m almost done reading Because of a Teacher by George Couros. The stories by other educators are very meaningful. They remind me of my earliest years of teaching and are the tap on the shoulder to remind me that I, as an administrator, need to remember to support and encourage the new teachers on staff.

Michelle Gill Caird 
The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich. I’m recommending it for two reasons: 1) it’s the 2021 Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction; and 2) it’s written by an Indigenous woman and explores interesting and pertinent topics that are relevant to what we, as Canadians, are trying to reconcile.

Teachers suggested these reads via Facebook.