"50 Essential Lessons" is the result of the lessons Jim Burke learned while asking himself how to teach his students the skills they needed to succeed in school and in the larger world. Anchored in standards shared by a range of national literacy documents, these lessons focus on the core cognitive and personal skills--reading, writing, speaking and listening, taking notes, taking tests, and managing oneself--required on state tests and college entrance exams. Whether used to enhance your English Language Arts curriculum or as a stand-alone resource, "50 Essential Lessons" will help you teach your students the academic essentials. Components include: (1) "50 Essential Lessons (book of lessons) presents 50 standards-based lessons organized around the cognitive and personal skills students need for success in school and beyond; (2) "Tools and Texts for 50 Essential Lessons" provides a bank of teaching tools and lesson-related readings in a clear, reproducible format; and (3) "Tools for 50 Essential Lessons CD-ROM" organizes the charts, forms, and other teaching tools in an electronic format that is easy to scan and print. Lesson preview notes situate the lesson into your English Language Arts curriculum and provide the information needed to jump in and get started. The Teach section of each lesson offers the author's teaching demonstration, chronicling his teaching moves and language in a model lesson. Further, the "Assess and Extend" section of each lesson lists strategies for reinforcing or extending student learning and plans to help you tailor the lesson to the needs of your particular students.