MiddleWeb

Poets Laureate: Poems for Young Readers

Every year or two, the Library of Congress selects a new poet laureate. We've highlighted the newest national poet, Philip Levine, in a recent MiddleWeb newsletter (#434).

Here are some kid-friendly poems by other recent poets laureate:

Kay Ryan reading "Home to Roost,” a cautionary chicken tale.

Charles Simic on “Late September” at a quiet coast.

Charles Simic, again, describing wedges of “Watermelons” before and after dining.

Billy Collins’ “Introduction to Poetry” with some suggestion of violence at the end.

Ted Kooser reviving America’s past with “Porch Swing in September.”

Ted Kooser, again, seeing galaxies far and near in “Flying at Night.”

Rita Dove on the last moments before “Vacation.”

Tired of Humdrum Student Research Papers?

 

Want to help your students liven up their research reports? Writing to Explore gives you all of the structures and tools you'll need to carry out an exciting adventure writing project in grades 3-8. Includes numerous examples of student writing and a section on using technology. Preview the entire book online!

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

Mystery & Suspense: The Game Is Afoot

We came across this English/LA unit a little late for 2010's spookfest but it's easily adapted to any time of year. Developed by teacher and curriculum writer Felicity Chapman expressly for middle schoolers, the lesson plan "embraces the genre of mystery and suspense writing and allows students to explore the world of ghouls through four major projects in the areas of reading, writing, art and research." You'll find downloadable student handouts and links to three sites with lots more material for teaching whodunits.

 

Help Students Engage with Challenging Texts

Help students engage with challenging texts. Doing Literary Criticism is a comprehensive survey of critical approaches to reading literature, supported by a host of practical classroom activities. Preview the entire book online!

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

Teachers' Word Choice Matters

"PERHAPS THE MOST POWERFUL AND TEACHER-FRIENDLY BOOK EVER PUBLISHED."
--Richard Allington

The things that teachers say (and don't say) have important consequences for the literate lives of their students. CHOICE WORDS uses dozens of examples of words and phrases to show how "instructional talk" shapes intellectual development. $12. Order here.

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

Social Studies Resource: The Real Pro's and Con's

  This non-partisan website impresses with its crisp presentations of policy pros and cons around a wide variety of issues. There's a corner for teachers and librarians that includes lesson plans, link-ups with national content standards, and - if you need them - some sound arguments in favor of engaging students in pro/con discussions and research. Among them: promoting critical thinking skills and informed citizenship. Here's a sample likely to interest students in the middle grades: Do video games contribute to youth violence?

 

Dark Literature and the Tween Brain

How are adolescents affected by "dark" literature like the Twilight series and Harry Potter? Lit experts joined psychologists and sociologists at Cambridge U. recently to pursue this question. The Washington Post's Valerie Strauss interviewed conference organizer Maria Nikolajeva and discovered that "dark themes do indeed alter teen brains in sometimes important ways."

 

Blogging with Middle Schoolers

Here's a step-by-step guide that can help you use student blogs as learning tools in your classroom. It's from TweenTeacher Heather Wolpert-Gawron, who has polished her ideas over a number of years, and it's been a top-rated read for the Accomplished Teacher SmartBrief newsletter. Although "Blogging with Middle Schoolers: Front-Loading and First Steps" comes at the practice from an English teacher's point of view, imaginative teachers in other curriculum areas will quickly see how they might adapt similar strategies. Part of the learning secret: Commenting on each other's posts.

 

Teaching Tool: Google's Wonder Wheel

Middle grades English and social studies teacher Bill Ferriter is getting some great comments on his ideas (taken from his new book Teaching the iGeneration) about using a Google tool to help students break down broad topics into related subtopics as they develop research projects. Check out Ferriter's blog post in which he explains how to find the Google Wonder Wheel and offers a link to a lesson plan that teaches students how to put the tool to work.

 

Major Teaching Resource: THINKFINITY

Thinkfinity was launched three years ago by Verizon Foundation with an impressive list of education partners. The foundation has invested $30 million to create a premiere teaching resources site, complete with a social networking component for those who are not only looking for good lesson plans and other teaching resources, but like to talk about their work. Inside the fancy shell, Thinkfinity houses a database that includes thousands of resources in various subject areas. If you prefer to skip to the chase, once you reach the homepage, find the drop-down menu In the Classroom in the upper left of your screen and click to choose from Lesson Plans, Student Interactives, 21st Century Skills, Today in History, and more.

YA Novels Renew Excitement about Learning

Middle grades instructional coach Elena Aguilar suggests that shared novels and storytelling can help reignite excitement about learning and build community among students returning to school.

As a teacher, on the first day of school, I wanted my students to know that in my class we would read a lot and we'd read great literature, literature that would help us understand our world better, and ourselves. In the first weeks of school, I also needed to build community in my classroom, define routines and procedures, and particularly in middle school, get kids re-anchored in the purpose and pleasure of learning. I used stories to accomplish all of these objectives...

In her Edutopia blog, Aguilar recommends three favorite books that work well at the beginning of the year. See her suggestions and other story ideas from her readers.

How to Achieve Lively Student Writing

Help your students play with language like skilled writers! Pyrotechnics on the Page shows how to weave various "tools" of play--puns and double meanings, invented words, allusions, hyperbole, and more--into everyday teaching. Includes 24 craft lessons and an extensive bibliography of relevant mentor texts. Preview the entire book online!

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

VisuWords

If you're familiar with Visual Thesaurus, you'll have some idea of how the VisuWords online graphical dictionary displays information about a word or phrase you enter into the database. VisuWords uses color-coded connections to indicate relationships such as "is a part of" or "opposes" and parts of speech, such as "nouns", "verbs", or "adverbs". Mouse over synonyms to see pop-up definitions and an example of the word in a sentence. The no-membership-required website uses Princeton's WordNet dictionary and provides simple tips on how to get the most out of the display.

The National Gallery of Writing

The second annual National Day on Writing, sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English, will be celebrated October 20, 2010. In preparation, NCTE is collecting a vast sample of writing from across America at the companion National Gallery of Writing, a virtual space "where people who perhaps have never thought of themselves as writers -- mothers, bus drivers, fathers, veterans, nurses, firefighters, sanitation workers, stockbrokers -- select and post writing that is important to them." The Gallery welcomes submissions of all types in many formats and includes a Local Partner Gallery with works from writers in classroom and schools, clubs, workplaces, cities, etc. Learn more about the Day on Writing.

Interactive Resources for Teaching Media Literacy

Media literacy guru Frank W. Baker offers some favorite interactive web resources that can help teachers engage students in becoming savvy travelers through the media avalanche that engulfs us each day. Among his intriguing choices is the high-concept Admongo video game, developed by Scholastic and the Federal Trade Commission to increase the advertising literacy of tweens. Who makes ads? How do they work? What do they want you to do? A series of graphically pleasing games helps students find answers.

Set Student Writing Ablaze!

New from Ralph Fletcher: Pyrotechnics on the Page helps teachers energize student writing with an in-depth look at the kind of language play commonly used by writers, 24 new craft lessons, and an extensive bibliography of relevant mentor texts. Foreword by Katie Wood Ray. Preview the entire book online!

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

Cool Sites: Not Just Great Science Resources

Way back in the prehistoric days of the Internet (1995), the San Francisco Exploratorium began surfing for good websites in the learning museum's areas of interest (which are wide and deep). The monthly service, now known simply as "10 Cool Sites," includes a categorical archive that allows teachers and other curious human beings to browse well over a thousand selections. A sample of June's offerings hints at the diversity: SmartHistory (art); NASA JPL: Cassini Equinox Mission; a historical timeline of chemical science; a site created by precocious Genna where tweens contribute stories and story ideas; and a "computational knowledge engine" that will excite any math/science nerd. Even E/LA teachers can have fun. Try the phrase "tortoise and hare."

Energize Student Writing

New from Ralph Fletcher! Pyrotechnics on the Page helps teachers energize student writing with an in-depth look at the kind of language play commonly used by writers, 24 new craft lessons, and an extensive bibliography of relevant mentor texts. Foreword by Katie Wood Ray. Preview the entire book online!

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

Free-Reading Middle Schoolers

Donalyn Miller, known for her book and blog titled The Book Whisperer, was chosen a Smart Blogger by the ASCD SmartBrief e-newsletter last week. In the highlighted post, Miller reflected on the favorite books read by her middle schoolers over the past school year. "Miller's free-choice reading environment," the editors wrote, "helped propel students' reading growth as they selected longer, more complex titles and found themselves exploring and preferring new and more diverse books." Student favorites included two by Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson & the Olympians series), an author who not too many years ago was (like Miller) a Texas middle school teacher. Other favorites among the sixth graders (who read an average of 57 books each) were The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness.

PBS Picks Teacher Innovators

In this press release, read details (and see video) about the top 10 teachers recently honored by the Public Broadcasting System for their innovative teaching. The group includes three teachers in the middle grades, but you'll find easily adaptable innovations from other grade levels, including Robert Schechter's "An Author You Can't Refuse," a writing strategy he employs with ELL and mainstream students. PBS has featured nearly 200 middle level teachers over the course of this awards program, so be sure to explore the Gr. 6-8 dropdown menu at the innovation gallery. See, for example, this video of history teacher Joe Huber sharing animation work of his 8th graders.