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.
The 2021-22 school year came with all the expected sound and fury, and for many of us, weariness and low spirits. Now summer’s here and MiddleWeb has pulled together a diverse set of deep-dive PD articles you might have missed. They’re insightful, informative and actionable!
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.
Arab American Heritage Month / Resources
by Susan Curtis · Published 03/22/2025 · Last modified 04/14/2025
During Arab American Heritage Month students explore the diversity within the Arab community, its members’ contributions to the United States, and the discrimination many Arab Americans have faced in the 21st century. This resource collection can help with the exploration.
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.
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.
Creative writing exercises offer low stakes, high engagement opportunities for students to build writing skills while also having fun. Kasey Short shares a rich collection of character, plot and setting activities to help kids develop their voices as writers through the year.
Exploring human experiences through personal stories promotes discussions that focus on facts and individual realities rather than generalizations and stereotypes and helps students develop empathy, compassion and understanding, writes Kasey Short. Reading suggestions included!
With so many students experiencing stress, David Campos and Kathleen Fad help K-8 teachers understand anxiety and then implement strategies to help anxious students. Other students can benefit, too. MS leader and teacher Kasey Short sees their book as an essential tool.
As Kasey Short enters her 20th year as a middle grades educator, she’s been thinking a lot about some lessons she’s learned that now help her build a strong foundation in the early weeks of each school year. See how her tips for beginning teachers match up with your own.
