Urban ELA teacher Mackenzie Grate found mock trials to be the perfect vehicle to encourage reading, teach speaking & listening, and prepare her 6th graders for their first argumentative writing essay. How-to tips, downloads and lessons learned included.
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.
Book Reviews / Professional Development
by MiddleWeb · Published 01/28/2015 · Last modified 11/19/2019
The authors make the case for the Peer Observation Process (POP) – teams of teachers observing one another – as an inexpensive PD alternative that builds supportive collegiality. Reviewer Dina Murphy highly recommends the research-based book, which offers many implementation resources.
As Mary Tarashuk’s fourth graders took part in the Hour of Code this past December – assuming then switching roles as drivers and navigators in a code writing exercise – she considered how she might play the navigator more often in her own classroom.
When Sandy Wisneski engaged middle graders in a comic book project that combined writing, art and social studies, she wanted a whiz-bang culminating activity. She struck virtual gold when she found professional comics illustrator and author Alex Simmons.
When middle grades teacher Mackenzie Grate introduced a “kindness chain mail” project into her classroom, she was pleased to see that the secret letter exchanges helped students realize their ownership role in assuring a positive learning environment.
In a season filled with celebrations, MiddleWeb celebrates teachers by sharing some insights into the teaching life, offered by our bloggers and guest writers. We begin with the wonderful 2014 book, Teaching with Heart.
Learning to code is an important new literacy. But how, wonders edtech coach Emily Vickery, do we close the opportunity gap between those who have access to coding instruction and those who don’t? Vickery suggests some resources that can help less advantaged students cross the divide.
