Kids on the Cusp / Standardized Testing
by Mary Tarashuk · Published 02/26/2015 · Last modified 11/15/2019
Teacher Mary Tarashuk has reasserted her “Irish Zen” following the full frontal assault on PARCC testing in her last post. She describes how her fourth graders had fun learning about Chinese New Year while also practicing for the high stakes test in prescribed ways.
In “59 Reasons to Write” Kate Messner shifts from teaching writers workshop and writing books for tweens to helping teachers build their own writing skills, assisted by more than 30 published authors. Reviewer Wendy Moore plans to try out their strategies.
Book Reviews / Narrative for Learning
by MiddleWeb · Published 02/19/2015 · Last modified 11/14/2019
Thomas Newkirk makes a convincing argument in Minds Made for Stories that narrative is the framework for all good learning experiences, says teacher-reviewer Jenni Miller. This insight about storytelling can be used by teachers to help students learn and retain more in any subject.
When Cheryl Mizerny invited her 6th graders to pursue a “passion project” of their own choosing, she included the option to help someone in need. The results surprised her. “I greatly underestimated my students’ capacity for wanting to make a difference.”
Teaching versus Testing / Two Teachers in the Room
by Elizabeth Stein · Published 02/15/2015 · Last modified 11/14/2019
“There is this race to absorb content just in time for the tests,” writes teaching coach Elizabeth Stein. But where is the time inside our secondary schools that students need to really connect to the learning process? Simple answer: there isn’t any.
Book Reviews / Teaching for the Future
by MiddleWeb · Published 02/12/2015 · Last modified 11/13/2019
David N. Perkins’ Future Wise: Educating Our Children for a Changing World is profoundly unsettling in the best way, simply because it gives so many expansive possibilities for making every minute of a student’s day relevant, says reviewer Sarah Cooper.
Kids on the Cusp / Standardized Testing
by Mary Tarashuk · Published 02/11/2015 · Last modified 11/13/2019
New Jersey teacher Mary Tarashuk finds herself in a traffic-snarled “PARCCing lot” waiting for March testing madness to begin. In a new Kids on the Cusp post, she lists her concerns –including a PARCC 4th grade reading test sample that levels at Grade 9.
Articles / Teaching the Whole Adolescent
by MiddleWeb · Published 02/08/2015 · Last modified 07/15/2024
In her valentine “to those volatile adolescents and the educators who cherish them,” veteran middle level teacher Beth Morrow highlights six good reasons to spend your days with “the wonderfully rough and resilient gems that are middle school students.”
Upstanders supports the complex challenge of cross-content literacy with excellent lesson plans, and authors Smokey Daniels and Sara Ahmed also describe a path to develop the most difficult skill for young middle schoolers, learning to be truly empathic.
Florida teacher David Finkle chronicles middle school life in a daily comic strip for the Daytona Beach News. Here he shares the 15-year story of “Mr. Fitz,” including four sample strips guaranteed to draw chuckles and knowing nods from teachers everywhere.
