Adolescent Development / Book Reviews
by MiddleWeb · Published 05/22/2025 · Last modified 05/23/2025
What do middle graders need from adults, especially their parents? Looking into brain science and social, academic, tech and ethical issues, educator and parent Jody Passanisi asks parents to think back to their own childhoods and then consider how to best support their kids.
Every student needs to understand AI basics, including its potential and problems. They need to be aware of current AI tools and understand how to use them. Perhaps most important, they need to understand the social and ethical issues AI can create. Anne Jolly shares ways to get students started.
Resources / Summer Reading & Learning
by Susan Curtis · Published 05/09/2025 · Last modified 05/26/2025
How can teachers help students enjoy reading and learning during summer following another challenging year? Visit MiddleWeb’s expanded resource for Summer 2025, where you’ll find teacher ideas and heaps of book and online suggestions.
Teaching dystopian fiction offers students a meaningful way to engage with literature and social issues while developing critical thinking skills. Kasey Short suggests discussion questions, activities, and a sample of dystopian novels and short stories to capture students’ attention.
By revealing and humanizing stories from the past, historical fiction fosters curiosity, inspires empathy, stimulates critical thinking, and helps develop understanding of complex issues. Kasey Short shares questions, activities and titles to help students benefit from the genre.
Working with kids in the middle grades has never been harder. We can’t do it alone. Building trust between parents and teachers is crucial, writes middle level leader Jody Passanisi. “When there’s trust, we can work together to support kids through challenges and successes.”
Women’s history is no longer in hiding, thanks to scholars who are documenting women’s impact on society. Middle grades teachers can help their students trace that history with these resources, just updated and expanded, for Women’s History Month and beyond.
Future of History / Understanding Religions
by MiddleWeb · Published 10/06/2024 · Last modified 01/25/2025
Social studies teacher Lauren Brown makes the case that learning about the history and culture of Judaism, Christianity & Islam is critical for today’s middle school students and offers a useful guide that she believes can help with curriculum development and lesson planning.
We know group work can help middle schoolers learn, but what about their concerns? Who does what? How do they meet outside of class? How will they be graded? Laurie Hornik details four ways teachers can amplify the positive effects of group work and minimize the negative ones.
For well over a decade MiddleWeb has shared helpful ideas for new middle grades and MS teachers. In this post we’ve selected recent articles along with several classics and book reviews that might be MOST useful before and during your first months in the classroom.
