To help in assessing students’ digital stories, Katie Caprino and Alyssa Marzili share tips on ways to engage middle graders in thinking about their stories’ purpose, genre, tone and audience, how to structure peer feedback, and how to use digital tools for ongoing evaluation.
In an earlier MiddleWeb post, professor and former middle grades ELA teacher Jason DeHart argued on behalf of teaching with graphic novels, with numerous examples. Here he delves deeper into a single text from the Kid Beowulf series, detailing his own instructional strategies.
Getting in touch with emotions, especially as a middle schooler, has become a critical component to classroom success. It’s also an essential life skill. Award-winning social studies teacher Jennifer Ingold shares some ways she helps students raise their emotional awareness.
Throughout the gradual release of responsibility we want students to be in control of their learning. Each phase is a partnership, with teacher as facilitator and student as agent. Cummins and Webb show how this works to produce an instructional journey with maximum benefit.
Brain and learning expert Marilee Sprenger highlights the 25 most high-frequency words for learners in the English language to focus upon. “I call these words ‘essential’ because knowing and using them can boost academic success and lifelong learning.” Are they on your vocab list?
“Improve Every Lesson Plan with SEL” shows us how – through intentional, deliberate and embedded instruction, including differentiation and choice – teachers can assure all students gain the explicit and implicit SEL skills they need, writes middle level leader Todd Brist.
Does email steal your time? Your problem isn’t so much about having too many. It’s that they’re in the wrong places. Use these tips from educator and digital organization expert Frank Buck to unmask your email time bandits and make your inbox tidy and surprisingly sparse.
Teachers can capitalize on what our students already know and can do by purposely choosing to employ the independent “You do” phase of the gradual release of responsibility (GRR) at the start. Sunday Cummins and Julie Webb show how this strategy can build student agency.
Middle grades teacher Kathleen Palmieri is taking advantage of her students’ growing comfort level with online apps to set up interactive notebooks in Google Jamboard and use Google Slides to simplify the process. She includes all her steps plus extra tips and resource links.
Discover the why, what and how of collective student efficacy in this research-grounded book from John Hattie, Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey and Shirley Clarke. Reviewer Sarah Cooper was inspired by the rich descriptions of “I” and “we” skills needed for higher-level learning.
