Explore Middle Grades Literacy

You'll find great insights and teaching strategies in the weekly journals of literacy teacher-coach Juli Kendall.

    

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WHAT'S NEW?

TEN GREAT READS FOR NEW TEACHERS
We've scoured the web and our own archives to produce a diverse mix of excellent articles that can help new middle grades teachers not just survive but thrive. You'll find our 10 top picks (with a few optional extras) posted at the MiddleWeb blog. One early entry is titled "Important Things to Do Before Your Students Arrive." Don't wait until August for this one. (And if you're not a new teacher but know some, please share the link.)

SAGE ADVICE FOR NEW PRINCIPALS
Novice teachers won't be the only educators entering into rookie territory this fall — the move into a schoolwide leadership role can be equally unsettling. Here's a popular article by the leader of a regional principals center, who asked an array of school stakeholders what new school leaders needed to know. "Their responses were strikingly similar," she says, "and might serve as a guide for those beginning their journeys."

WHAT IS MATHEMATICAL LITERACY?
In this 2007 article from Principal Leadership magazine, Hope Martin urges us to begin by thinking about what we mean by literacy in a general sense. It's not "isolated bits of knowledge" but a student's "growing ability to use language." And so it is with the language of math. Thanks to Marina for asking about this article, first shared several years ago. It's worth a repeat performance.

LEGACY LETTERS: STUDENTS PASS ON THEIR WISDOM
There's no anxiety quite like that of 11 and 12-year olds leaving the comfort of the elementary grades for the uncertainty of middle school. Being welcomed by letters of advice from your older peers is bound to help. That's why middle school teacher Marsha Ratzel developed her annual "Legacy Letters" activity. She supplies all the details you'll need to get your own letters cycle started.

UNCONFERENCING: "THE BEST PD EVER"
In hard financial times, professional development funding can be a favorite target of budget cutters. Maybe that's why more school systems are beginning to see the potential of the "Unconference." In this post at the group blog "Voices from the Learning Revolution," Cincinnati-area asst. superintendent M.E. Steele-Pierce makes her case for the virtues of an exciting professional learning process that's inexpensive, empowering, and respectful of what teachers know, want to know, and have to share.

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