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I also use a "backwards design" method. My process has been really influenced by Understanding by Design by Wiggins & McTighe. I really recommend that book, but here are the key points that I keep in mind:

• The thing that comes first is figuring out the essential questions for the unit. These are the questions that students will seek to answer as they study. They may not be questions with "right" and "wrong" answers, and they are definitely not questions that can be answered briefly. For example, a unit about Egypt might involve the question "How does geography affect the way people live?" or one about electricity might include "What influences how brightly a bulb shines?"
  
  
• Next step is to identify what understandings the students should have at the end of the unit, such as "Students will know Ohm's Law (voltage = current * resistance)" or "Students will understand how the ancient Egyptians depended on the Nile River for food and that the presence of the river allowed a large civilization to develop."
  
  
• Next develop assessments, considering what will prove that students have gained the understandings above. Perhaps the student has to build several kinds of circuits and explain aloud why the bulbs in the different circuits appear more or less bright. Maybe the student writes a short story from the point of view of an Egyptian farmer thinking about why the river matters.
  
  
• Then, as with your method, the activities come last, again thinking about the previous step - what will give students the experiences and knowledge they need to gain those understandings so they can express them in the assessment later? This keeps units from being a collection of fun but only somewhat-related activities.
  
  That was kind of a long explanation, but it's kind of an involved process! It works really well for me, though - it keeps me tied in to the "big picture" of my goals for the kids' learning even as I plan the day-to-day experiences. Hope it helps!

Hey friend! Don't stress about the content for the time-being, this kid will pick up on your enthusiasm for the subject and that's important.

What you need to do figure out what topics/events you are going to cover. I am new to teaching US history as well, but have designed my year using a text book (this one, specifically). I will be teaching from the early explorers to the 1960s. You might want to consider picking up a textbook or finding a pdf of one online- not even to have your student use - but for your own guidance.

Next create a chart of your sessions. What topics will you cover for those lessons? What activities would you like to do? Something similar to this (but not nearly as detailed, just a few bullet points for your own information) just to keep you on track. I'm not from the States so I am not familiar with your state's standards or the Common Core. If you can find out information from the student's mother or online just to ensure the student is meeting his standards.

Look up techniques for home-schooling. You are probably able to get a lot done with him because it's all one-on-one and you're not running around a classroom to make sure everyone else is on task. Take the first couple of sessions with him to figure our what he's capable of, what his pace of learning is, and what ways of learning he responds to most.

Best of luck!

Daily 5 is interesting, but it's a lot to take on as a 1st year elementary school teacher. My suggestion would be to start with two of those (Read to Self and Word work) and then add the others in if they're being successful. Read to self is easy to get going and word work is going to just happen.

As a male teacher, you're possibly the first male teacher some of these kids have had. There will be a "cool" factor. Be sure to be yourself but also be firm. That said, at 3rd grade, there's a lot of "babyish emotions" that he may see and he may have to get in touch with his emotional side.

I think that male teachers have it a bit easier to make connections with kids in elementary school because there just aren't very many of them. I play out at recess and at times sit with them at lunch and it's "cool". When the female teachers do it, it doesn't seem to have the same effect. Though, I'm a tad younger than most of them.

I wouldn't worry too much about handwriting. Just slow down (he'll ahve to do that anyway since he's teaching 3rd grade).

My best advice, Go Slow to Go Fast. I used this book religiously my first few years (http://www.amazon.com/First-Weeks-School-Strategies-Teachers/dp/1892989042). Other books to check out would be http://www.amazon.com/First-Days-School-Effective-Teacher/dp/0976423316/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377217374&sr=1-1&keywords=first+weeks+of+school+harry+wong and http://www.amazon.com/First-Day-Jitters-Julie-Danneberg/dp/158089061X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377217409&sr=1-1&keywords=first+day+jitters

Crash Course has a fun set of videos for each of the topics typically covered in a gen chem class. They're not super in-depth, but they'll serve as quick refreshers for the basics.

In addition to /r/chemicalreactiongifs I would recommend Periodic Videos.They also have lots of fun demos, but with more discussion and fun anecdotes.

If you're looking to hone your chemical instincts, I would actually recommend an older book called "Voyages in Conceptual Chemistry" by Dan Barouch. It's a source book of chemistry problems, but with a greater focus on concepts and critical thinking. Few (if any) of them require explicit calculations, which makes them great for class discussion. The problems still involve relevant equations, but with a focus on the relationships between and proportionality of variables in equations. Each problem even has 3 associated hints to help guide discussion and students' thought process.

To give you a sense of the kinds of questions in the book, here's an example of a fun but tough stoichiometry problem without calculations:
"Your project is to determine the molecular formula of an unknown hydrocarbon (a compound consisting only of hydrogen and carbon). It is burned completely under tightly controlled laboratory conditions and the only source of oxygen is a balloon inflated with pure oxygen gas, attached through an inlet valve to the combustion chamber. A friend pulls you aside and whispers in your ear that the number of molecules in the hydrocarbon sample is the same as the number of oxygen molecules in the balloon. Keeping this tip in mind, you perform the combustion reaction and watch the balloon shrink. When the balloon is completely deflated, the combustion reaction stops, and you notice that four-fifths of the hydrocarbon remain.
What are the two possibilities for the molecular formula of the hydrocarbon? Assume that the reaction went to completion and there were no side reactions or by-products.

Hint 1: What is the general reaction for the combustion of a hydrocarbon?
Hint 2: What is the limiting reagent? What's the stoichiometry of the reagents in the reaction?
Hint 3: From this information, what must be the stoichiometry of the products?"

This is possibly too difficult for an introductory chemistry class, since they won't realize that C3H8 is a reasonable molecular formula for a hydrocarbon, but CH16 is not. However, this should give you an idea of the caliber of the questions in the book.

For more traditional, calculation based questions, there are tons of source books out there. Schaum's has a pretty extensive one called 3000 Solved Problems in Chemistry

Finally, (but perhaps most importantly) check with the lead instructor for the course. Find out which topics will be covered and the relative difficulty of the problems that students will be expected to solve. Then choose problems based on those criteria. That way, you'll be certain that students are getting the practice they need.

One last tip, when you're working through problems in class, be sure to actually give students time to work on the problems themselves and encourage group discussion. There's a tendency to try to cram as many example problems as possible into a discussion session, but I find that this overloads students and pushes them towards rote learning. They just scramble to copy down the answers and figure they'll reread and understand them later. Fewer and more focused problems are more productive and lead to more transferrable knowledge/understanding.

Good luck next semester! Have fun!

I teach newspaper, and I have taught yearbook in the past. It's a lot of fun. Here is a page of contest prompts for things like feature writing, cutline writing and design. There are rubrics at the bottom of the page. It's from the Kansas Scholastic Press Association website.I like to use them as training worksheets. I also really like "Inside Reporting" by Tim Harrower. It's probably the best textbook I've found for journalism, or anything else.

My biggest piece of advice is to make sure you empower your students to make editorial decisions and do all the work to get the publication to press. It's their newspaper and yearbook, and while that gives them a lot of freedom, it's also a huge responsibility. If they take pride and ownership in their publications they will work a lot harder.

Let me know if you have any specific questions. It can be a daunting task.

A common mistake and misperception about teaching is the focus that new teachers (and sometimes whole districts) place on daily planning. What I mean to say is that rather than focusing your energy on what's on for the next sixty minutes, your plan should have a larger goal and direction. When I taught in NYC, district rules required that I was able to produce a plan for what I was doing at that very moment, but never that I had a detailed idea of where the class was heading. The most effective teachers have a unit plan, and often design those plans backwards from the goals they wish the class to achieve.

Check out Understanding by Design, a really powerful system of resources and thinking about curriculum design that's also something that keeps coming up in the ed community.

Lots of this material will be discussed during your education coursework, but if you try examining some of this now, you'll be miles ahead of others in your classes.

edit: another resource I find amazingly useful is Bridging English, a textbook I bought for a methods class during my masters degree. I'm still constantly turning back to it and its incredible appendices. I now work in New Zealand, and nobody on this side of the world seems to have heard of it, but my colleagues have all had a look and love it.

Great books to help you out, written in an easy to read way: tools for teaching http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0965026329/ref=mp_s_a_1?pi=75x60&qid=1344739213&sr=8-1
And the first days of school
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0976423316/ref=mp_s_a_1?pi=75x61&qid=1344739284&sr=8-1

Essentially, imagine what you want to look like to your students. What teacher do you remember standing out to you? Can you model them? Managing your demeanor and classroom like them will help you a lot.

Write a parent letter home for the different grade levels.

Sketch out what you plan on teaching for big ideas each month. September is identifying and correctly saying the computer parts (monitor, keyboard, etc) and.... If you do that for each level, you'll have expectations of where you want to go.

Bio teacher in a low income, high poverty school with about 75% Hispanic students, quite a few are from Honduras.

As far as how my students grasp concepts here seems to be the trend with them

Hard concepts: Cell bio, prokaryote vs eukaryote, some organelles(cell wall vs cell membrane, lysosome, ERs), viruses and their life cycle, DNA replication, transcription/translation, mitosis vs meiosis, 6 kingdoms(Animalia/plantae are easy, protista, fungi/archaebacteria/eubacteria are hard), sex linked inheritance, DNA/genetics some parts


Easier concepts: Plant anatomy/structure/function, photosynthesis vs cellular respiration, ecology, human body systems, punnett squares, mendelian inheritence, some organelles(Chloroplast, nucelus, ribosome, cytoplasm, cytoskeleton)

Honestly though the content is only like 5% the battle. If you have never been in a classroom before I would observe all I could before I started.

I suggest reading

Harry Wong's "The First Day of School" - Helped me for the first day and having my shit together

Fred Jones' "Tools for Teachers" - Helped me in random areas of my teaching I had not totally thought of, like getting kids into higher levels of thinking

and finally Doug Lemov's "Teach Like a Champion" - THIS BOOK! I Love this book! Some of the ideas in it are fairly simple and some are even "no duh!" moments but they have helped me out tremendously. Ideas like no opt out, 100%, and other questioning techniques really helped me out.

Know what you are doing for the next 3-5 days at least otherwise you will end up being swamped and doing more work than necessary. Be tough, be consistent, have a clear set of rules and consequences when the rules are impeded, have high expectations even if they are the stupidest kids you've ever seen. On the high expectations note, it is amazing how even the worst underachiever starts to tread water on his/her own. But only when high/tough but reachable goals with rewards that matter to the individual are set before them.

Feel free to pm me if you have any questions that arise. Also I'd be willing to send you an extra copy of Fred Jones' "Tools for Teachers" if you want it, pm me your address if you do. I bought one before my first job to read over the summer with Harry Wong and then the school district provided me one for free.

I completed my student teaching in April. I taught 7th and 8th grade Social Studies. I don't have a real teaching job yet, but my related experiences my be helpful to you.

Students and administration may not care, but that doesn't mean that you should stop caring. Especially in regards to the students: they will know when you don't care, or stop caring, and it will be completely demoralizing to them and you will definitely lose them. The best thing you can do is start off with high expectations and continue with high expectations, for all students. I had one particularly difficult student, and I never faltered on my expectations of her behavior or academic work. She may not have ever met me halfway, but at least I can say I put in the effort. The best thing my student teaching advisor said to me was, "I can tell you have high expectations for them," in regards to my worst behaving, worst performing class. It was seriously the best compliment.

I also learned when to push and when to let go. I have a habit of wanting to control every little thing, but it's really not possible when you're working with human beings, which you must remember that you are. Don't yell for every little thing -- tapping a pencil, laying their heads down on their desk -- because the ones who are trying to derail the class will have won, and the ones who just need a minute with their head down will think you don't care about them. You must learn how to pick your battles if you want to be successful. Learn the art of non-verbal communication, it is ridiculously effective in curtailing undesirable behaviors. Eye contact, a stern look, placing yourself near disruptive students, a simple tap on the shoulder or desk... these are effective because it doesn't cause a disruption to the entire class and does not embarrass the student, but they know you are aware of what they are doing and they need to change their behavior.

Here is a quote I read in a book that I thought of every single day, especially before my rougher classes: "It takes one fool to backtalk, it takes two fools to have a conversation about it." Never engage a student who back-talks. Let them deflate. I used to think it was important to defend myself against back-talkers... but it's actually the worst thing to do. Keep it simple: tell them what they have to do, tell them the consequences if they don't, and walk away.

A lot of this (and much, much more) I learned from the book Fred Jones Tools for Teaching, which I highly recommend. It is a quick, easy read, not a textbook-style, heavy book full of jargon and useless information. I took what I read here and applied it every day while student teaching, and I can say that it was effective (when I did it right).

This site provides some awesome short passages that you can use with the students for analysis of style and rhetorical devices. What I do is teach/reteach them a bunch of the simple devices in the first week (simile, metaphor, alliteration, etc.) and we do one of these analysis passages every Tuesday night for homework before discussing it Wed. in class. As we move through the year, I add more devices to their bank and their analysis increases. Make sure they're also able to answer why authors might use it, not just what they use.

Another thing I like to do is use the multiple choice practice sections in this book and give them one on Monday mornings. The sections are 10 questions, so I give them 10 minutes. When I have them do practice sections, I ask them to highlight words they don't know in the questions/answers, and then I utilize their lists to help drive my instruction.

I'm now entering my 4th year of teaching this class, so I'm finally feeling comfortable with everything that's required of it (my scores don't reflect that, but that's another story for another time). Feel free to message me at anytime!

One great resource is Bridging English. It's my college methods textbook, and it's pretty solid, chock full of good ideas. Get an older edition used.

Get this book: Teach Like a Champion. There are a thousand details that you have to get right for a classroom to work at all, and this book doesn't have all of them, but it has more than most.

Fred Jones is excellent as well.

Pace yourself - all of your biggest challenges are in the second half of the year.

I say that too, but very, very quietly. I teach in a very affluent district, and saying that here is like farting in church. When I tell them this, I mention that my plumber makes far more money than I do..... FWIW, here's a great book along those lines.

First Days of School

I took over for a teacher in January and being a first year teacher+taking over a challenging situation I buckled under the pressure and am having a difficult time. BUT my awesome mentor (seriously without her I would be lost) got me this book a few weeks ago. I wish I had years ago because it really does teach first year teachers a lot of the little stuff that goes into making it a spectacular year.

I have a couple of books to recommend--you should be able to find used copies on paperbackswap or amazon for very cheap:

Tools for Teaching by Fred Jones. Look for an older edition or ask your adviser if he/she has a copy you can borrow until yours arrives. I love this book because it's simple, direct, and very practical. You can't know what you need to know until you already needed to know it, but this is a good start.

The First Days of School by Harry Wong. This one is a little bit wordier but it really can help get you psyched up for what you need to do to prepare for the first days of school.

We use a program called Fundations at my school, but a program that might work better, since he can move at his own pace is Words Their Way. They have different levels of difficulty depending on what students know and are able to do. I would recommend starting with this book. It's the lowest level, and will help your brother with phonemic awareness (the building blocks of decoding words and is probably the reason your brother is having a hard time putting syllables together). Then you can move on to higher levels, like this. The program is meant to be a spelling program, but I find that if I pair it with a lot of independent reading and reading with an adult where I can point out examples of the phonics skills they've encountered, then they can learn a lot about decoding from it.

On a side note, one of the major problems that struggling readers run into at a young age is that people spend so much time focusing on their decoding that they don't think about how well the student is comprehending. Use a variety of books with your brother -stuff he can decode just fine, stuff he needs help with, and stuff he can't read at all, but that you can read aloud to him. With these last books, spend a lot of time discussing what he's reading as well. Otherwise you run the risk that he's going to continue to struggle when he gets older because he values decoding the words over understanding the content.

I teach 8th grade special ed and having a magnetic timer that the kids can easily see on the board helps immensely with classroom management. “You have 5 minutes to complete this activity”. “You have 90 seconds to put your supplies away and have your name written on the worksheet I’m handing out”. I always had difficulty with transitions and this has helped a ton.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CVSSS68?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

This is the one I use. Was delivered in 1 day with amazon prime!

Fred Jones Tools for Teaching: All first year teachers should get this book. Writing is engaging, realistic, practical and useful tips married with a solid pedagogy.

Book: https://www.amazon.com/Fred-Jones-Tools-Teaching-Instruction/dp/0965026329/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1474497518&sr=8-1&keywords=tools+for+teaching

Video Overview (2.5hrs): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wwb15NwjCl4

Good resource

Reading, Writing and Learning in ESL: A Resource Book for Teaching K-12 English Learners (7th Edition)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0134014545/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_-oKRCb4X3CK1C


Ahem, sometimes you can find textbooks for free using this website

Try to get a hold of a book like this to give you some idea of what you're dealing with https://www.amazon.com/Reading-Writing-Learning-ESL-Resource/dp/0134014545

There are a lot of them that summarize some of the same ideas, just see what you can get your hands on for cheap. But honestly you are in over your head. You won't learn much from a reddit post. Whatever situation you got yourself in isn't a good one for you

I loved these books: The Reluctant Disciplinarian ; The First Days of School

Harry Wong's book was my bible my first few years of teaching. I highly recommend it to anyone about to step in the classroom for the first time.

http://www.amazon.com/First-Days-School-Effective-Teacher/dp/0976423316/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1450627609&sr=8-1&keywords=harry+wong

My first suggestion is that she get a copy of Harry Wong's First Days of School. Not everyone swears by this book, but it has uplifting messages and very sensible, practical advice for organizing a classroom (it is fine for middle school) and it's relatively inexpensive.

Is she teaching English? If so, I have some websites for her.

Teach Like a Champion

I'm about to take the praxis 2 middle levels, also. My state training thing recommended this book for studying..

I recommend buying a couple used textbooks online and using them for photocopies. Read them yourself and build some lessons out. No need to photocopy the whole book of course.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0618904123/ref=tmm_hrd_used_olp_sr/183-1854472-9366726?ie=UTF8&condition=used

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0131950843/ref=sr_1_1_up_1_main_olp?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1347046184&sr=1-1&condition=used

Also a (sort of) first year teacher here. I highly, highly recommend reading Fred Jones' "Tools for Teaching". My dad sent me a copy when I was teaching abroad (hence the "sort of"), and the change in my class was literally immediate. I thought of it because the first thing I thought when I saw your classroom was "that desk layout is a disaster waiting to happen." One of the cool things about the book is that it's all really concrete (eg. what do you specifically do), and it's all labor saving right out of the gate instead of investing a bunch of time up front.

This is more aimed at middle school and up but most of the ideas can be applied to elementary: http://www.amazon.com/Fred-Jones-Tools-Teaching-Instruction/dp/0965026329

Get this book.

Sorry man, if you let the kid get away with that, then you have brought it on yourself. Passing the buck onto the a Dean/Asst. Principal is a sure-fire way to show kids that you can't handle it. Unless it involves drugs, fighting, or other felonies, don't ever send kids to the office. Handle it yourself.

Do you have a posted list of consequences? Is it approved by your principal? Follow it. When you send a student to the office and you have a list of the things you have already done to address the behavior, then you get a whole lot more support from admin. If you continually send kids to the office for minor infractions, then you will get zero support.

I'm really not trying to jump down your throat, but I'm having flashbacks to a team member I taught with a decade ago. I was the department head and on my recommendation, the principal fired him at semester. Why? He couldn't teach and students couldn't learn because he didn't have control of his classroom.

Get this book: http://www.amazon.com/Fred-Jones-Tools-Teaching-Instruction/dp/0965026329/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1450286630&sr=8-1&keywords=fred+jones

It will help.

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What is the "West Bank"? It was territory controlled by the Kingdom of Jordan between 1948 and 1967. Prior to Israel's founding in 1948, it was just another part of the Palestine Mandate (now divided into Israel and Jordan), controlled by the British Empire on behalf of the UN as part of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire after WWI. Over 2000 years ago, before Rome conquered the Middle East, the West Bank area constituted the heartland of the Kingdom of Israel, which split into the Northern Kingdom of Israel and Kingdom of Judah after King Solomon's death. Because the Northern Kingdom's capital was at a place called "Shomron" ("Sebastia," according to the Romans), I and many like me, refer to this region as Yehuda/Shomron.

Israel's War of Independence ended with the Jordanian army controlling the mountainous highlands of the West Bank, and the eastern half of Jerusalem, while Israel retained control of the coast plain.

In 1967, Israel beat the Jordanian Army, the Egyptian Army, and the Syrian Army. Territory that had been controlled by them, from the Suez Canal to the Golan Heights and Jordan River Valley became integrated into Israel. The Israeli government made a policy that it would be willing to return control of the newly-captured land in return for peace treaties and an end to all hostilities with its neighbors. In 1979, Israel signed a peace treaty with Egypt and returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egyptian control in 1981.

In 1993, under the auspices of the Oslo Accords, Jordan signed a peace treaty with Israel, but also relinquished all of its claims to the West Bank, leaving the whole of West Bank to Israeli control. Under the Oslo Accords, an organization called the "Palestinian Liberation Organization" (PLO), led by Yasser Arafat would be given administrative control over predominantly-Arab cities in the West Bank, because the Israeli government did not want to govern these places, because the population of these cities (Ramallah, Shechem/Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarm, Qalqilya, Jericho, Bethlehem, and most of Hebron) were generally resistant to Israeli governance (though you'll never hear them complain about the paved roads, running water and electricity that Israel installed for them between 1967 and 1993). Naturally, this wasn't good enough for Yasser Arafat, so he orchestrated a series of bus bombings in order to pressure Israel for more territorial concessions. Israeli prime minister Ehud Barack offered Arafat nearly everything he asked for at Camp David in July 2000, and Arafat walked away. In October 2000, Arafat ordered the beginning of the Second Intifada, a 5-year campaign of terrorism against Israeli civilians. The intifada ended with Arafat's death (whether from AIDS or some other ailment, who knows-- that he was diseased is evident in every picture of him), the IDF policing the cities under PLO control, and a succession of right-wing Israeli governments who were elected with the mandate that they would not give any concessions to the PLO as long as the Arabs continued to support terrorism.

The PLO was initially founded in 1964, as a terrorist organization and foreign policy tool under the joint control of Egypt, Syria and Jordan in order to be a perpetual thorn in Israel's side. After the Six Day War ended, the PLO tried to hide among the population of the aforementioned ungovernable Arab cities. Over the next three years, the IDF chased the PLO into Jordan, where, in 1970, they hijacked several international airliners and tried to overthrow the King of Jordan. In a massacre that became known as Black September, the Jordanian army ejected the PLO, who then fled to Lebanon and ignited the bloody Lebanese Civil War, which lasted from 1975 until 1990 and directly led to the rise of Hezbollah (which murdered more Americans than any other terrorist organization before 9/11), who made their debut by driving a bomb-laden truck into the peacekeeper barracks in Beirut, murdering 241 American servicemen.

---------------------------

What are "settlements"?

Remember at the beginning of this wall of text, that I mentioned that Jews have roots throughout the West Bank? Regardless of whether you believe G-d exists, the Old Testament explicitly states that Abraham lived in Be'er Sheva, and is buried in Hebron with his wife, son and grandson. Isaac was bound and nearly offered to G-d on Mt. Moriah, where a retaining wall from the Second Temple still stands. Jacob's daughter Dina was raped near Shechem/Nablus, where Josef's body is buried. Rachel died on the road to Hebron, and was buried near Efrat, just outside of Bethlehem, where King David was born. The mobile temple from the 40 years of wandering in the desert was placed at Shiloh for over 300 years before King Solomon built the first temple in Jerusalem. Jericho is at the place where the Jews crossed the Jordan River into Israel. It's all there in the book. And these are some of the places that are now called "Settlements," where Jews built suburban towns, in order to maintain access to their heritage. As long as these places had been under Jordanian rule, Jews were forbidden entry. Even now, if you are Jewish, then you can only access Josef's tomb with a military escort because Shechem/Nablus is controlled by the PLO. In the case of any peace deal, the existence of these "settlements" reminds the Israeli government that Jews can't trust Arabs to let them visit their heritage, and that Jews are not willing to part with their heritage for the sake of a peace that would already exist if the Arabs behaved like normal human beings instead of being brainwashed by their leadership to support terrorism.

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Here is the book list that I recommend to anyone looking to learn more about Israel:

Six Days of War by Michael Oren <---- Nothing happens in a vacuum. The first half of the book describes the events leading up to the war, from 1956 to 1967. The author is a former Israeli ambassador to the USA.

The Revolt by Menachem Begin <---- Excellent discussion of the War of Independence, the events before and after it, and how Israeli politics evolved once the State coalesced. The author led Etz"L during the War for Independence, and served as the first non-Labor-party Prime Minister from 1977 to 1983.

The Arab-Israeli Wars by Chaim Herzog <------- Excellent summary of all of Israel's military actions. The author is a former Israeli president.

Like Dreamers by Yossi Klein HaLevi <---- The different ways that everyone all over the Israeli spectrum believe in Zionism.

The Israelis by Donna Rosenthal <----- snapshot of Israel's diverse population. This book is from 2005, so the description of certain events and especially their outcomes is a bit dated.

Catch the Jew by Tuvia Tenenbom <----- All the different ways that international organizations meddle in Israeli affairs, looking for ways to blame Israel for malfeasance, as well as all the different ways that the Arabs can't keep their story straight.

Voice of Israel by Abba Eban <------ The author was Israel's ambassador to the UN.

Letters from Tel Mond Prison by Era Rapaport <---- The schizophrenia of post-1967 Israeli policy in Yehuda/Shomron, and how Israeli citizens dealt with it.