Kids on the Cusp / Teaching writing
by Mary Tarashuk · Published 05/27/2014 · Last modified 11/30/2019
Having helped her students visualize scenes and characters during read alouds, Mary Tarashuk tries the same idea with writing. She and her students “write aloud” as they create text to match the opening illustrations from The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Then they envision their own stories.
Future of History / History & Current Events
by Sarah Cooper · Published 05/20/2014 · Last modified 04/17/2024
Middle level students want to know how their studies relate to their lives, writes teacher-author Sarah Cooper. “The history we teach reaches them best when it involves novelty, humor, meaning, a sense of self, and a connection to the real world.”
Book Reviews / Personal Learning Networks
by MiddleWeb · Published 05/16/2014 · Last modified 05/19/2014
Organized and user friendly, Professional Learning in the Digital Age by Kristen Swanson provides educator cases, face-to-face protocols, research snippets and to-do lists to help teachers move through the process of developing their PLN, says reviewer Nicole Miller.
Future of History / Teaching strategies
by Aaron Brock · Published 05/11/2014 · Last modified 11/12/2019
While inner-city history teacher Aaron Brock agrees that lecture has been chronically abused in the middle grades, he uses short flexible lectures and image-heavy slides to help prepare students for deeper learning in his diverse classroom.
STEM By Design / STEM Communications
by Anne Jolly · Published 05/04/2014 · Last modified 12/05/2019
For STEM programs to realize their ambitions, kids need to communicate with the world about their projects. Science educator Anne Jolly says social media tools can help STEM students collaborate, tap expertise, and build key communications skills.
Teachers can help students explore important connections across different genres and subjects using “text sets” – collections of books and other media with a common theme. In this MiddleWeb article, teacher educator Amanda Wall details an assignment creating text sets for ELA and math.
Book Reviews / English Language Learners
by MiddleWeb · Published 04/13/2014 · Last modified 12/05/2019
Classroom Instruction that Works with English Language Learners by Jane E. Hill and Kirsten B. Miller is valuable for ensuring that English learners are challenged at Bloom’s higher levels of thinking and understanding, with the appropriate scaffolding, says reviewer Jennifer Underwood.
Green STEM Projects / STEM By Design
by Anne Jolly · Published 04/06/2014 · Last modified 11/24/2019
Earth Day: Science educator Anne Jolly remembers her first and best STEM project, when disengaged 8th graders learned how cool math, science and engineering could be by constructing a wetlands to reduce the environmental impact of a new school.
Book Reviews / Race, Class and School
by John Norton · Published 04/03/2014 · Last modified 11/24/2019
Teacher José Vilson’s must-read book, This Is Not A Test, cuts through political platitudes into the heart of America’s unresolved contradictions: public education and democratic principles; equity and privilege, race and class, says reviewer John Norton.
Thomas Newkirk urges us to consider how, in a test-crazed culture, we can stay focused on what matters for our students. Holding On To Good Ideas in a Time of Bad Ones is not a literacy ‘how-to’ book, says Jenni Miller, but important nonetheless.
