Dear Friends,

What is the very best way to support MiddleWeb and keep us working for you?

Subscribe to MiddleWeb SmartBrief!

That’s the publication we produce in partnership with the SmartBrief information company. Under our guidance, they create a twice-weekly newsletter filled with information and resources of interest to middle grades educators. We receive a small share of advertising revenues and work happily on!

To further entice you to subscribe, we’ve put together this free 24-page guide to some of our favorite websites for teachers and school leaders working with students in grades 4-8. Our resources guru Susan B. Curtis served as lead editor.

Subscribe here (it’s free) to claim your guide.

We’ll be updating our 40 Favorites list every six months, checking links and considering new sites for inclusion.

Honor System for Current Subscribers: Do you already subscribe to MiddleWeb SmartBrief? If so, you can bypass the subscription process and download the 40 Favorite Websites PDF by clicking here.

Here are a few of our favorite MiddleWeb posts from 2012. Although we have only six months of content to choose from (we launched the new site in late June), we still had a difficult time selecting only 10 from among our MiddleWeb blogs, guest articles, interviews, book reviews and resource roundups. Consider this a small sample of some great fare.

We hope you’ll come across something here that you enjoy reading and find helpful in the New Year.

1. The Essentials of Teaching Tweens & Young Teens – Interacting with young adolescents has its special challenges and rewards, says Education Week blogger and national teacher leader Nancy Flanagan. In this thought-provoking article, Nancy asks and answers four questions, revealing the essentials of excellent teaching in the middle grades. Learn more.

2. Book Review: Put the Fun Back in Your Classroom – Reviewer Sandy Wisneski, a charter school lead teacher, says Jill Spencer’s 2008 book Everyone’s Invited! Interactive Strategies That Engage Young Adolescents can spark a learning party in your classroom. You’ll discover lots of fun activities and adaptable ideas that will inspire student creativity and problem solving. “You’ll find that your guests may not want to leave,” she says, “and that’s a sure sign of the best kind of celebration of learning.” Learn more.

3. Tempered, with an Edge: An Interview with Bill Ferriter – North Carolina teacher Bill Ferriter has emerged from his sixth grade classroom into the worlds of teacher leadership, book and magazine publishing, and social media influence. His popular blog The Tempered Radical offers an engaging and provocative mix of commentary on his classroom practice and critiques of national education policy. Bill’s fourth book, Making Teamwork Meaningful, was published this month. From our interview: “We CAN be powerful change agents if we are willing to elbow our way into the important conversations happening online.”  Learn more.

4. Learn Like Luke Skywalker – Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach is a professional learning leader and prominent advocate of the radical notion that teaching and learning should be driven by the passions and interests of students, at every age. In this MiddleWeb article, Sheryl uses the example of her first grandson, Luke Skywalker Walblay, to make her case that we won’t improve schools until we treat students as fellow learners. Learn more.

5. Twelve Steps to Great STEM Lessons – Anne Jolly, author of MiddleWeb’s STEM Imagineering blog, is under no illusion that teachers have all the time and support they need to plan deeply engaging and challenging STEM lessons. But she sees value in laying out the 12 planning steps used by teachers in Mobile’s successful middle grades STEM program. School and system leaders, pay heed! Learn more.

6. My Fourth Grade Global Classroom – Patti Grayson is filling her upper elementary classroom with globe-trotting Skype adventures. In this helpful post, she shares the excitement of mystery Skyping, international book discussions, a Mardi Gras adventure and a celebrity visit during Anti-Bullying Month. Helping students connect with the outside world via video and the Internet “is becoming a routine part of being an effective 21st century teacher,” says Patti. Learn more.

7. Resource Roundup: Student Motivation – MiddleWeb co-editor Susan B. Curtis takes an in-depth look at the best web resources to help teachers and schools increase student engagement and motivation. In her link-filled article, you’ll find blog posts, interviews and studies centering on some of the year’s best commentary about intrinsic and extrinsic sources of motivation. She’s also included plenty of solid research and practical advice. Learn more.

8. Four Key Conversations for Co-Teachers – Elizabeth Stein, co-author of Two Teachers in the Room, our blog about co-teaching, believes that the best co-teaching partnerships grow out of discussions of “difficult truths” about personal goals and teaching philosophies. In this widely read post, Elizabeth suggests four places where co-teachers can begin these uncomfortable but critically important conversations. Learn more.

9. Book Review: Inspiring the Adolescent Brain – Sixth grade teacher Diane Horban has taught regular and gifted classes across the middle grades. She says Inspiring Middle School Minds: Gifted, Creative & Challenging is not just about the gifted kids but “a book about brain development in ALL students at middle school.” Author Judy Willis, an M.D. and experienced middle school teacher, tells how to use brain research to design effective classroom lessons. “It was a fascinating read!” Learn more.

10. Common Core: Take a Deep Breath – Feeling the need for a break from all the CCSS talk? Be our guest! But when you’re more rested and ready to take a dip, you’ll find there’s a difference between our resource collection around the nation’s #1 education topic and most others: We don’t take sides. You’ll find plenty of supporting articles, plenty of critics, and fair number of experts who are of two minds. Take a few deep breaths and dive in for a look. Learn more.

– More Choices? –

All of Our Book Reviews

All of Our Guest Articles

All of Our Interviews

All of Our Resource Roundups

Our STEM Imagineering blog

Our Two Teachers in the Room blog

by John Norton

Our Fall Book Review Festival features 15 brand-new reviews of professional books — each one written by and for middle grades educators.

Our collection of reviews covers a wide range of topics: teaching tips and strategies, visual & media literacy, intelligent test preparation, Common Core issues, academic icebreakers, RTI & special education, social studies, math teaching and achievement, teacher research, ESL/ELL strategies, and student motivation.

Look over all the offerings here and follow our links to the reviews that interest you most. You can always read our latest reviews, browse the growing collection, and learn about writing reviews yourself by visiting our Book Reviews area of the website. (Special thanks to Janice Norton for managing our book review program!)

Helping Students Motivate Themselves

Read the review

Larry Ferlazzo effectively ties student motivation to relationship-building, classroom culture and metacognition, says book reviewer and intermediate grades teacher Becky Bair. It’s the go-to book when we’re looking for good ways to respond to that sad, familiar comment: “These kids just don’t want to learn!”

How to Teach Thinking Skills Within the Common Core

Read the review

This book may be too structurally complex to be a valuable everyday resource to the classroom educator. But there’s still plenty to admire, says teacher-reviewer Kevin Hodgson,  including its stance that rote learning and memorization do “not produce the kind of thinking, problem-solving citizens that the world will need.”

Interactive Modeling: A Powerful Technique for Teaching Children

Read the review

This Responsive Classroom guide for PK-8 educators can improve teaching of essential academics, social skills, routines and behaviors, says reviewer Linda Biondi. The author’s practical advice “builds upon best practices that teachers may already apply in their classrooms, and introduces us to the highly useful Interactive Modeling concept.”

I See What You Mean: Visual Literacy K-8

Read the review

Visual literacy is a vital skill for iGeneration students, says our reviewer Patricia Thomas-Jeanig. In this second edition of a book first published in the 1990s, Steve Moline explores many kinds of visual texts and includes great teaching ideas, all in the context of today’s pervasive social media.

Kick-Start Your Class: Academic Icebreakers to Engage Students

Read the review

Imagine, 125 icebreakers and 40 closure activities all in one book! It’s a teacher’s dream come true, says our reviewer Anne Anderson. The rich collection of activities, she says, will help teachers in many grades and subjects engage students while meeting the high demands of Common Core State Standards.

The Line Between Us: Teaching about the Border and Mexican Immigration

Read the review

Bill Bigelow’s teacher-friendly book offers concrete strategies to help students understand immigration and globalization issues, says teacher educator Kelly Moser. Firsthand accounts and other resources provide students with a glimpse into how other peoples live, the challenges they face, and the reasons they come to the United States.

Living the Questions: A Guide for Teacher Researchers

Read the review

This teacher research guide can help educators analyze, reflect upon and improve their practice, says reviewer Amanda Wall. The authors “clearly value and respect the work of teachers and include short essays, tips, and examples submitted by teacher researchers themselves.”

Math in Plain English: Literacy Strategies for the Mathematics Classroom

Read the review

Finally, says reviewer Shelly Sims, there’s a book combining literacy strategies with what we know about math thinking and problem-solving. Author Amy Benjamin “challenges the teacher-reader to incorporate both receptive and productive math instruction.”

 Media Literacy in the K-12 Classroom

Read the review

Reviewer Jamey Cates says this ISTE guide by consultant Frank W. Baker is an excellent resource for cultivating media literacy skills in today’s iGeneration students, with well-thought-out and ready-to-serve lessons correlated to standards.

Minding the Achievement Gap One Classroom at a Time

Read the review

ESL teacher Julie Dermody found this book to be a great resource for implementing Classroom Instruction That Works strategies for second-language learners, although she says its vague title almost caused her to overlook it.

Small Steps, Big Changes: Eight Essential Practices for Transforming Schools Through Mathematics

Read the review

Reviewer and math teacher Michelle Schwartz admired the authors’ eight essential elements for schoolwide math success but wondered how they might be accomplished in schools without a math coach or “on-board” principal.

Teach Like a Champion Field Guide

Read the review

This field guide to 49 teaching techniques developed for the Uncommon Schools charter organization provides new ideas and useful information “to refresh my classroom teaching,” says reviewer Susan Shaver.

The Energetic Brain: Understanding and Managing ADHD

Read the review

Special education teacher Laura Von Staden, a mother of two children with ADHD, found this book authoritative and a good source of research-based information about ADHD but thought it lacked the detail teachers need about specific interventions.

What Every Middle School Teacher Needs to Know about Reading Tests

Read the review

Sick of test prep that required her students to read boring texts and fill out worksheets, our reviewer Rebecca Crockett was excited to discover a book offering practical advice about reading tests and engaging test-prep activities that integrate well into the content she teaches.

What Every School Leader Needs to Know about RTI

Read the review

This book for school leaders “provides the steps and framework necessary to seamlessly apply the RTI approach within our schools,” says Linda Biondi. “It’s an important book for all school-based and district-level administrators to read.”

Our book review collection will continue to grow. Watch for them here! If you’re a publisher interested in providing books for review, contact John Norton at MiddleWeb.

Here are some blogs we like to read. You’ll find outstanding teachers and school leaders, teacher librarians, PD experts and others with a particular interest in the middle grades, alpha by author. Visit their blogs to discover intriguing discourse, helpful advice, and provocative ideas. We’ll be adding more soon. (Many of them tweet, too, and you can follow that.) If you’d like for us to consider your middle grades-related blog, send us a note.

Project Based Learning - Journalist Suzie Boss writes about PBL, empowering students’ success and more in her Edutopia blog.

Technology for Teachers - Richard Byrne, former teacher, current writer & consultant, is a must-follow blogger for anyone interested in the intersection of tech and instruction.

Evolving Educators – Scott Russo is a progressive-minded asst. superintendent for personnel in New Jersey. Go figure.

Scripted Spontaneity – The Musings and Whinings of a Middle School Science Teacher (Paul Cancellieri)

Living in Dialogue – Anthony Cody, middle grades science coach, Oakland CA, blogs on policy and practice at Education Week. See his MiddleWeb article.

Learning is Messy – 30-yr veteran Brian Crosby, a leader in tech-infused learning, moves from upper elementary to middle school this fall.

Rush the Iceberg – MS English teacher Stephen Davis in Cypress, CA.

Cool Cat Teacher – Vicki Davis, innovative technology specialist at GA’s Westwood School.

Middle School Matrix – Hadley Ferguson, history teacher, Web 2.0 geek!

Larry Ferlazzo (see his MW interview)
Resources of the Day – awesome teaching resource center
Classroom Q&A (Education Week) – exploration of enduring learning issues, with many contributors
Engaging Parents in School – spinoff from his book of the same title

The Tempered Radical - Bill Ferriter, author and award-winning 6th grade teacher in Wake County, NC. See his MW interview.

Teacher in a Strange Land - Nancy Flanagan, former middle grades music teacher and Michigan TOY, keeps a sharp eye out for ed policies that hamper teacher effectiveness. At Education Week. See her MiddleWeb article.

Middle School, day by day – Cossondra George, MS and HS math teacher, Newberry, MI. See her MW interview.

A Place at the Table – Susan Graham, retired FACS teacher, Virginia
(archives only – great middle school reflections)

Patti’s Ponderings - Patti Grayson, Virginia-based 4th grade teacher and 21st century teaching advocate.

A Media Specialist’s Guide to the Internet – Julie Greller, cybrarian, NJ junior/senior high.

Mr. Guymon’s EduBlog – Dave Guymon is a husband, father and dog owner. He’s also a 6th grade teacher and advocate for connected learning for kids and educators.

Technology Integration - Mary Beth Hertz, Philly gr K-7 tech teacher and tech integration specialist. At Edutopia.

View from the Nest - Bill Ivey, Stoneleigh-Burnham middle school dean, MA. See his MW article.

The Daring Librarian -  Maryland MS librarian Gwyneth Anne Jones known for tech & infographics. See her MW interview.

Leading From the Classroom - Patrick Ledesma, middle grades special educator/technologist; now Director of Educator Engagement at the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. In Ed Week.

Mr. McClung’s World – Joe McClung, MS teacher becoming EL assistant principal.

The Book Whisperer – Donalyn Miller, 4th grade teacher, author, Texas. An Education Week blog that ended in Sept. 2012 after four years. See her MW interview.

MindShift: How We Will Learn – Fascinating reports from the learning edge (KQED, San Francisco).

TeachMoore - Renee Moore, former Mississippi teacher of the year, Milken winner, Carnegie Scholar.

21st Century Collaborative – Teacher turned edupreneur Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach on professional learning in a connected world.

mrspal – This MS classroom teacher, Megan Palevich, doesn’t post a lot, but when she does…

Reflections of a Techie - Marsha Ratzel, middle grades science/math teacher, Kansas. See her MW article.

The Dream Teacher - Cindi Rigsbee, 2009 National TOY finalist, now a NC Regional Education Facilitator.

On the Shoulders of Giants - Ariel Sacks, 8th Grade English, Brooklyn NY.

Lessons Learned in the Middle – Maryland MS principal Tom Saunders.

Kathy Schrock’s Kaffeeklatsch – An entry point for librarian Kathy Schrock’s extensive techy resources.

Let’s Talk Speech & Language - Tejwatie Sohan, a NY middle school Speech-Language Pathologist, writes about behavior management and creative, cost-effective ways to target various speech and language skills.

The Line – Henrietta, NY 7th grade English teacher Dina Strasser writes about teaching & other wonderful stuff

Inspiration, Unexpected – subtitled “Evolving Practice,” NH 5th grade teacher Jess Valenti is just getting started with her blog, but we can tell it’s going to be a good one.

NeverEndingSearch - Joyce Valenza, PA teacher librarian and national TL leader (at School Library Journal).

The Jose Vilson - MS math teacher/coach, Lower East Side, NYC. See his MW article.

Voices from the Learning Revolution – Group blog includes 4-8 educators who have shifted to 21st century teaching & leading. Edited by MiddleWeb’s John Norton.

The Wejr Board – K-6 principal Chris Wejr looks into the future of education.

Mr. Wiemer’s Shop – Galyn Wiemers teaches 21stC shop, Gr. 6-8, Iowa

Brain Based Learning – Judy Willis, MD, a neurologist, EL/MS teacher and speaker who blogs at Edutopia about the impact of brain research on teaching.

TweenTeacher – Heather Wolpert-Gawron, CA E/LA teacher and author, who also blogs at Edutopia. See her MW interview.

1. Read our site. Look at some of the articles we’ve published. You’ll soon get a sense of the writing style we prefer. Our chief guideline is the same for articles, book reviews and interviews: Tell our visitors what YOU would want to know if you were the reader rather than the writer, looking for ideas, inspiration, collegiality.

2. Don’t obsess about length — we suggest 800-1200 words for articles, but if we feel you’ve written too much or too little, we’ll suggest ways to expand or contract.

3. Write in a relaxed, personal voice. Be professional but don’t feel compelled to write your article like a grad school paper or journal article. Humor is good. Graphics, video, other multimedia might be appropriate. Embed links as needed.

4. Avoid harsh sarcasm or personal attacks. But feel free to criticize ideas and practices and offer a better way.

5. We love writers who tell stories from your own experience as an educator (or learner or parent, etc.) and relate those stories in ways that will be useful to educators and others. If you’re writing about your teaching or leadership practices, remember that your audience is less interested in your professional life than they are in what they can learn from your professional experience. It’s not much fun to read an article about education where the writer is mostly swimming in his or her own fishbowl, oblivious to the outside world.

Writing queries or questions? Send them to John Norton at ask.middleweb@gmail.com

We love to involve folks in creating content for MiddleWeb.. It’s our way of building a social space and adding more middle grades voices to the blogosphere. Here’s how to join in the fun. If you have trouble with a mail link below, contact us here.

Pen a guest post

Share some of what you know, what you believe, what you hope for. We welcome submissions of 800-1200 words. You might want to query us first about possible topics. We’re especially interested in how-to articles and reflections on both teaching and leading in the middle grades. And we think you can do both, by the way! MiddleWeb founder and co-author John Norton has been a professional education editor/writer for 30 years and will work with you to produce a good finished article. (See our writer’s guidelines.)

Share middle grades photos

We’re eager to expand our collection of photographs portraying student learning and middle grades life. Send us images (300 dpi or less) from your classroom or school and we’ll highlight them here at the MiddleWeb site. Be sure to include captions! Before we publish them, we’ll ask you to confirm that you have permission to share pictures of students.

Write book reviews

Back in MiddleWeb’s early days, we featured reviews of professional books of particular interest to educators working in the middle. We’re reviving that tradition and we’ve made arrangements with many of the major education publishers to share review copies with us. We’ll be looking for MiddleWeb fans to read (and keep) the books and write the reviews. If you’re interested, send us an email and let us know. We’ll share a list of what’s available, you can choose a book you’d like to review, and we’ll send it out to you. We’ll also share some basic guidelines for writing MiddleWeb reviews. Most important: tell our readers what YOU would want to know if you were reading the review.

Help us raise student voices

We believe it’s important for the world to hear from students themselves. We rely on educators to help us gather student opinions and stories about their own learning. Each month we’ll select several student articles for our Guest Articles stream. If you’d like to share student work with us, please get in touch. We’re looking for non-fiction, first-person narratives of 500 words or less.

Interview yourself

We might never think to ask you for a Five Q Interview. So here’s what we suggest. Ask yourself five questions. Answer them. Send us the interview! If we’re intrigued by what you have to say and how you say it (we love humor, inspiration, well-founded opinions and good ideas about practice), we’ll use your self-interview in our Interviews stream. Don’t forget to send a photo!

Be a Tattletale

Here’s an idea from Anne Jolly, long-time friend of MiddleWeb and interviewee: Ask a teacher to catch another teacher in the act of doing something “good” – using a new teaching strategy, helping a student in a special way, trying a new way of working with other teachers, etc. Interview that teacher – then send it to MW.  Sometimes it’s easier to do that than to interview yourself.  Excellent idea. The first reader to take us up on this idea will initiate a new MiddleWeb feature. Send us a draft. Keep it to five questions or less. That’s it!

Comment on our content

Become a regular contributor at MiddleWeb by commenting on articles and resource roundups. All of our posts are open to comment. We welcome everyone who’s not a spam robot (or the biological equivalent) to tell us what you think and share what you know.

Our 7/30/12 webinar for new teachers (and teachers new to the middle grades) was a great success! Of course we captured this comment near the end of the session, from presenter Rick Wormeli:

“MiddleWeb is one of the greatest tools we have!”

Here’s the webinar archive link – it’s on the Blackboard/Elluminate Live platform. Here’s a transcript of the chat stream.

You’ll find information about the discussion leaders below – along with handouts, webinar slides and more!

To keep up with future MiddleWeb events, watch the MiddleWeb News section of MiddleWeb SmartBrief.

The Webinar

When: Monday, July 30 at 3 p.m. EDT (Noon Pacific).

What: MiddleWeb’s Free Webinar for New Middle Grades Teachers (and experienced teachers new to grades 4-8)

Who: Our presenters included:

• Former Disney TOY and sought-after middle grades teaching expert Rick Wormeli, author of Meet Me in the Middle and Day One & Beyond: Practical Matters for New Middle-Level Teachers.

• Blogger (TweenTeacher, Edutopia) and 8th grade E/LA teacher Heather Wolpert-Gawron, author of ‘Tween Crayons & Curfews: Tips for Middle School Teachers.

• Education Week contributor Elizabeth Stein, special education teacher and new-teacher mentor, nationally certified in Literacy, with teaching experience across the grades 4-8 spectrum. Elizabeth is also a MiddleWeb blogger, at Two Teachers in the Room.

Our session was moderated by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, CEO of Powerful Learning Practice and co-author of The Connected Educator: Leading and Learning in a Digital Age.

Sponsors: Stenhouse Publishing, Eye on Education, Powerful Learning Practice LLC

Webinar Handouts and Slides

Webinar Content
Slides shown during webinar
Edited transcript of our webinar chat stream

Elizabeth Stein
Downloads
Classroom Procedures & Management (.ppt – all her slides)
Review of two Rick Wormeli books (for teachers transitioning to MS)

Heather Wolpert-Gawron
Downloads
HWG-Learning Styles_Multiple Intelligences (PDF – chart from her book)
HWG-Oral-Conference-Feedback (.doc)
HWG-Teach the Teacher Project (.doc)
HWG-Problem Statement handout (.doc)

Rick Wormeli
Large collection of teaching tip videos
Movin’ Up to the Middle (Ed Leadership article)
Fundamentals of Middle Grades Teaching (here at our site!)

Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach
Links
Day in the Life of a Connected Educator
Twitter Guide for Teachers
Free Webinar: Project-Based Learning

MiddleWeb
Our New Teacher 911 resources page!

If you have any questions, please get in touch: ask.middleweb@gmail.com