MiddleWeb

Welcome to the MiddleWeb Resources Blog

Thanks for visiting our MiddleWeb blog, where you can browse 100s of resources selected for middle grades educators, parents and others interested in the education of young adolescents.

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Edutopia's New Middle Grades Chat Group

The Edutopia website (supported by the George Lucas Foundation) is well-known for its rich collection of teaching articles and videos. Last month the site added discussion communities to the mix, including a group just for middle grades teachers. Here's the teaser: "Teaching middle school is not for the faint of heart. But if you're called to do it, you know there's nothing else quite like it. Join us in discussing what works – and what doesn't." Best of all, the MS group is moderated by classroom teacher and popular TweenTeacher blogger Heather Wolpert-Gawron, whose witty, engaging style adds some spice to the discussions. The group is brand-new and there's potential to develop a thriving virtual community. Hope you'll help Heather launch this effort successfully by visiting often and posting comments.

New from Rick Wormeli

Metaphors & Analogies gives you the tools to create those aha! moments when students suddenly understand a difficult concept—across all content areas. It will change the way you design lessons and inspire you to dig deep for the right metaphors to reach all of your students. And you'll find examples from middle grades teachers throughout the book. Preview the entire book online!

Thanks to Stenhouse Publishers for their support of MiddleWeb and middle grades educators.

New Teachers: Instruction That Sizzles

Elizabeth Stein, a middle grades teacher and mentor, draws on her long classroom experience to offer seven strategies that help teachers stayed tuned into what she calls the "student perspective factor."; When attention wanes, these strategies can restore the rhythm of learning and "deliver instruction that sizzles." (At Teacher Magazine, where all TM content can be accessed after one-time no-cost registration.)

Underachievers Benefit from Math Frustration

Or so say researchers at Rutgers University, after seven years of observing New Jersey math teachers who work with minority and low-income students at low-performing schools. Allowing students to struggle with challenging math problems, they say, can lead to dramatically improved achievement and test scores. Though conventional wisdom says certain abilities are innate, Rutgers professor Roberta Schorr told Edutopia magazine, "a lot of kids' talents and capabilities go unnoticed unless they are effectively challenged; the key is to do it in a nurturing environment."

Science: Teaching with Jigsaws

Here's a nice step-by-step introduction to the jigsaw teaching strategy, originally developed for college science faculty, but easily adapted for use in middle grades science (and other subjects for that matter). From the intro: "In a jigsaw, the class is divided into several teams, with each team preparing separate but related assignments. When all team members are prepared, the class is re-divided into mixed groups, with one member from each team in each group. Each person in the group teaches the rest of the group what he/she knows, and the group then tackles an assignment together that pulls all of the pieces together to form the full picture." Succinctly put!

Educators Mustn't 'Laminate' the Curriculum

Here's a short but very interesting story "live" from the ASCD fall conference in Washington DC. Author-researcher Heidi Hayes Jacobs spoke about upgrading curriculum for 21st century learners — challenging the educators present to consider whether they have "laminated" their curriculum or are willing to "look at what needs to be cut, kept, and created so that students are learning today for the future." While many educators think of curriculum "alignment" in a single dimension — aligned to standards and benchmarks - Jacobs described five kinds of alignment that are critical in developing what she framed as "Curriculum 21."

Departments in Elementary School?

The Harvard Education Letter considers the pros and cons of an emerging trend — "platooning" or departmentalizing in the elementary grades. Why include this in a blog for the middle grades? Some of the arguments for and against departments are still being heard in middle school, where the focus on teacher-student relationships is still be considered a high priority by many middle grades educators. Can middle schools where departments are still not dominate long survive pressure from below?

Art Education Blog: The Carrot Revolution

Here's how the ASCD Inservice blog describes The Carrot Revolution: "(A)rt educator David Gran pulls together resources for teachers, students, and artists with an eye toward bucking the status quo. The blog is filled with eye-catching pictures and video and includes posts on everything from animation to art history." And speaking of Art, also check out the NASSP article "What makes a visual arts program crucial to middle level education?"

Good Source for Education Blogs

Here's an index to education blogs, categorized by subjects and disciplines, from ag education to world languages, with all the core and non-core subjects in between. This webpage created by Moving Forward (and spotlighted by ASCD recently) is a wiki, so you can add your own favorites. If you're looking for blogs in other categories (grade level, student/teacher, principal, school), check out Moving Forward's expanding general list at this wiki.

Restructure Middle School around Literacy, Carnegie Says

Time to Act, a new report from the Carnegie Corporation's Council on Advancing Adolescent Learning, recommends restructuring middle and high schools around literacy. Schools should hire teachers skilled in literacy instruction across content areas, the Council says, and literacy training should be fully integrated into preservice education and professional development for both teachers and principals. The report also calls for increased federal investments in middle level programs like Striving Readers, especially in high-needs schools, and for increasing emphasis on reading comprehension "within the nuanced context of each subject area." This download page includes both the main report and five key resource reports.

Science: The Exploravision Competition

Sponsored by Toshiba and administered by the National Science Teachers Association, the ExploraVision competition "offers students in grades K-12 the chance to create their own visions of the future." Student teams select and research a current technology, and then explore what it could be like 20 years from now. Research topics can be blended into curriculum, and the contest website includes videos of teachers describing how they've done this. The top eight teams receive substantial prizes, including a trip to D.C. for the top four groups.

Help Transform Students' Narrative Writing

12 Sides to Your Story is a 32-page flipchart that summarizes 12 key strategies for improving narrative writing. You'll find concise explanations, tips, exemplars, and specific steps students can use to identify strategies as they read—and use them in their own stories. Only $12. Click here to preview the entire flipchart online.

Thanks to Stenhouse Publishers for their support of MiddleWeb and middle grades educators.

A Crazy Idea for the Middle Grades?

Would you "cring" at having teachers teach multiple subjects in middle school and loop with students from grades 6-8? Washington Post columnist Jay Mathews thinks most middle grades educators would strongly resist such an idea. In this recent column, Mathews writes about a high-achieving inner-city middle school in California that "is bucking the national trend of departmentalization." Mathews reports on conversations with some experts who said the approach might work best at schools with a large population of disadvantaged students.

Streetplay: Phys Ed, Recess or After-School

Ever played (or heard of) stickball, hopscotch, kick the can, boxball, ringoleavio, chinese handball, scully, or clap and rhyme? The Streetplay website is dedicated to documenting the games kids played on front lawns, sidewalks and streets in the days of yesteryear (before everyone went indoors and plugged in). In addition to descriptions and rules, you'll find some history, feature articles, even a cartoon strip. With new concerns about the need for more PE and exercise, maybe it's time to share these kid-invented games with a new generation.

Assessment in the Differentiated Classroom

Alice, a reading teacher, wrote recently looking for ideas about grading in a differentiated classroom. "I am finding little information on the Internet," she said. At the risk of touting a Stenhouse author (they sponsor this website), teachers in the online communities I frequent most often mention Rick Wormeli's book "Fair Is Not Always Equal." About half the book -- subtitled "Assessing and Grading in the Differentiated Classroom" -- is now available for public reading at Google Books. That should be enough to help Alice and others decide whether Wormeli has the answers they're looking for. Also see these articles by Rick.

Halloween: Writing a Scary Story

An award-winning middle grades English teacher shares her lesson plan for writing spooky stories that focus "on setting, good plot twists, suspense and the use of surprise in the ending." Bruhahaha. Kellie Hayden points to the Monster Librarian website as a good source of examples, with dozens of scary storybooks, summaries and reviews.

Effective Behavior Support

This May 2009 issue of the NSDC newsletter Teachers Teaching Teachers focuses on ways to improve behavior schoolwide and includes a self-assessment tool that can help schools explore the effectiveness of their programs to support positive behavior. As a bonus, you'll find an article by PD expert Joellen Killion describing four criteria that schools can use to evaluate the success of professional development, including the work of professional learning communities.

Banned? Let Me at 'Em!

We recently noted Banned Books Week and included a link to Donalyn Miller's criteria for managing parent or community concerns about controvesial books. Since then we came across this Edutopia article by middle grades teacher Heather Wolpert-Gawron. She shares photos from her classroom and other descriptions of how she uses the "banning" controversy to lure students into more active reading. Crime scene tape? 

NCSS Annual Conference, Nov. 13-15

The National Council for the Social Studies will meet in Atlanta GA on Nov. 13-15 for its 89th national conference, featuring over 500 sessions and workshops for middle and high school educators. This gathering in the cradle of the Civil Rights Movement has the theme "Dreams and Deeds: The Civic Mission of Schools,"and will highlight "the central role of social studies in our schools: preparing young citizens to make a better world." Activities include events at the Carter Presidential Library and a documentary film festival.

Learning and the Adolescent Brain

Taking Center Stage, the California web portal for middle grades educators, is featuring a public video series by cognitive neuro-scientist and reading specialist Janet Zadina. One offering focuses on the importance of survival, attention, and the “reward pathway” in adolescent brain development. Another considers the social nature of the brain and the role of emotion in engaging students in meaningful ways. A third video describes ways to find students' strengths and passions and provide multiple opportunities for them to demonstrate understanding. The videos are supported by pre- and post-activities and resources.