Up and Out: Using Critical and Creative Thinking Skills to Enhance Learning

This should be the handbook for any general education teacher who wishes to add a variety of activities to his or her classroom curriculum. The open-ended activities can be used to provide instruction for gifted and talented students within the general education classroom. These strategies are also effective in helping lower ability students think and reason. This is a topic that many have made overly-complex and unusable. Johnson has a knack for making it very simple and pragmatic. THere are tons of activities related to reading, language arts, social studies, science, and gifted education.

The book is very concise in its description as to what thinking skills are and how to use them; very practical information. Additionally, the book is well written and should be an easy read for busy people.

This book takes the jargon and boring academic "intelligencia" out of informing teachers how to work with Gifted and Talented children. The author doesn't make us feel stupid. Instead we are treated as partners in building a challenging, yet safe world for our G and T students. FABULOUS!