Explore Middle Grades Literacy

You'll find great insights and teaching strategies in the weekly journals of literacy teacher-coach Juli Kendall.

    

See: Juli's Journals: Greatest Hits!

Read teacher conversations from our listserv archives!

This month's featured chat:
Using Centers in Middle School

WHAT'S NEW?

MORNING MEETINGS IN LOUISVILLE
Edutopia Magazine has a good story about a homegrown school district initiative in Louisville KY called "CARE: Community Autonomy, Relationships & Empowerment." Initiated by system superintendent Sheldon Berman, the K-8 program grows out of a view "from the trenches" that social and emotional learning are key to cultivating successful schools "and essential to any mission to educate children." CARE targets core social skills through the "Morning Meeting," a 20-minute daily encounter between students and teacher. The Edutopia story has the kind of detail schools might need to pursue a similar program of their own.

A DOLLAR'S WORTH OF TEACHING MEMORIES
For many years, sixth grade teacher-author Bill Ferriter has been giving a silver dollar to students with whom he had a coaching or special classroom relationship. "Ten years from now," he would tell them, "when you find your silver dollar on your bookshelf or in your box of special things, I hope your coin will remind you of our team and the time that we spent together." Some of those silver dollars are beginning to work their magic.

SPECIAL RESOURCES FOR NEW TEACHERS
Check out our ever-expanding page of resources that can help new teachers through the first weeks and months of classroom and curriculum management.

VISIT MIDDLEWEB BLOG & FOLLOW US ON TWITTER
We've developed a companion blog to the MiddleWeb website, where we load all the new resources we feature, tagged by category for easier searching. And editor John Norton has recently established a Twitter account (@middleweb) which concentrates on both K-12 resources and items related to his work with the Teacher Leaders Network. John rarely tweets about what he's having for lunch.

A MOUNTAIN OF GOOD ADVICE FOR NEW TEACHERS
This selection of 18 "Teaching Secrets" articles were written by members of the Teacher Leaders Network eager to support new colleagues. For the price of free registration, novice professionals can take advantage of several hundred years of accumulated wisdom. The collection covers the fundamentals of classroom management and discipline, tips on surviving your first parent meetings, and the secrets of student engagement.

THE BEST MIDDLE GRADES RESOURCES ON THE WEB! Do not miss our Of Particular Interest page and archives. You'll find hundreds of key Web resources.

HOT LINK OF THE WEEK: The Exploratorium - San Francisco's amazing science museum is celebrating its 40th anniversary. Visit all our Hot Links