Teaching and learning in grades 4-8
To help in assessing students’ digital stories, Katie Caprino and Alyssa Marzili share tips on ways to engage middle graders in thinking about their stories’ purpose, genre, tone and audience, how to structure peer feedback, and how to use digital tools for ongoing evaluation.
Using informative, argumentative, personal and metacognitive writing activities, Linda Dacey shows how all learners can build skills and understanding in math through the writing process. Math and literacy coach Helene Alalouf highly recommends “this gem of a book.”
In his farewell reflection upon leaving the classroom, teacher Jeremy Hyler says he will be “working for an organization that believes in making every student successful through the programs they offer and not just selling a product or serving a subset of our students.”
In an earlier MiddleWeb post, professor and former middle grades ELA teacher Jason DeHart argued on behalf of teaching with graphic novels, with numerous examples. Here he delves deeper into a single text from the Kid Beowulf series, detailing his own instructional strategies.
In response to a pandemic spike in discipline referrals and educator burnout, AP DeAnna Miller urges school leaders make a concerted effort to be visible even though it is hard, to take time to listen even when they seem to lack the time, and to do something restorative for themselves.
The Columns strategy developed by Jill Brown and Jana Schmidt offers the organizing tool teachers need to provide students in grades 2-5 targeted and well-paced reading intervention, making all of the data we collect both relevant and meaningful, writes AP Ginny Hornberger.
Getting in touch with emotions, especially as a middle schooler, has become a critical component to classroom success. It’s also an essential life skill. Award-winning social studies teacher Jennifer Ingold shares some ways she helps students raise their emotional awareness.
If you’re looking for a way to engage your students in deep mathematical thinking as soon as they walk into class, give math warm-ups a try. Middle grades teacher Mona Iehl lays out the elements of eye-catching warm-ups and how to make them work for your kids.
Throughout the gradual release of responsibility we want students to be in control of their learning. Each phase is a partnership, with teacher as facilitator and student as agent. Cummins and Webb show how this works to produce an instructional journey with maximum benefit.
After making a strong case for small group instruction during the writing process, Jennifer Serravallo shares how to implement and develop six types. Teacher Jennifer Wirtz loves the access to videos of groups in action and the printables for students. Highly recommended.