Reading books written for today’s middle schoolers helps teachers gain insight into the different ways students experience their adolescence. ELA teacher Kasey Short spotlights 21 novels, memoirs and collections that explore a wide range of race and gender issues and social-emotional challenges.
Each educator braving the gauntlet of Covid-era teaching has been stressed and stretched to wits’ end. It’s time to collect the payoff from this strenuous work. Curtis Chandler relates 5 questions teachers asked themselves during the crisis. “If we begin the new school year with solid answers, we’ll be rewarded.”
Asking three basic questions can help middle grades readers connect with informational texts and make sense of their meaning. Literacy consultant Sunday Cummins describes several classroom-tested steps that can aid students in identifying and analyzing new information in nonfiction material.
To cope with the next iteration of our world, students will have to master the art of continual learning. Fresh from a lengthy stint writing workplace-savvy STEM curriculum, Anne Jolly has insights educators can use to reboot teaching and help students better create their future.
Helping students who avoid reading see themselves as developing readers rather than struggling readers can make all the difference, writes Laura Robb. She shows how guided practice lessons give students opportunities to strengthen their skill and move steadily forward.
As educators reflect on the past year, NBCT Elizabeth Stein shares insights from co-teachers in her coaching circle who are grateful for the support they received from one another. She encourages all of us to rest, relax, and find ways to carry forward our own silver linings.
Educators Daniel Rose and Christine Walsh receive a thank-you note for their new book, Talking Through Reading and Writing: Online Reading Conversation Journals” from middle school director and teacher Jeny Randall. She’s ready to reinvigorate her practice with their ideas.
Language specialists and multilingual educators can boost achievement for their students by using Ester de Jong’s principles of multilingualism, making sure ML learners study grade-level content in two languages as a daily practice, writes teacher and podcaster Tan Huynh.
Middle school educators at Brooklyn’s Ditmar IS 62 chose to overcome “learning loss” by engaging their sixth, seventh and eighth graders in a long-range project documenting the tragic story of 9/11 through research, oral family and community history and literacy activities.
In this pandemic year Katie Durkin adopted 3 new practices she’ll be carrying forward: going paperless; slowing down the curriculum to provide more feedback to students; and using the Flipped Classroom model.
