Book Review Festival / Book Reviews / MiddleWeb
by John Norton · Published 10/04/2012 · Last modified 07/19/2023
Our Fall Book Review Festival features 15 brand-new reviews of professional books – each one written by and for middle grades educators – on teaching strategies, visual & media literacy, test preparation, the Common Core, academic icebreakers, RTI & special education, social studies, mathematics, teacher research, ESL students, and student motivation.
Students don’t like school because we don’t create the right cognitive conditions for learning. Bill Ivey reviews Dan Willingham’s book, Why Don’t Students Like School? A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom.
In the last decade of her teaching career, NBCT Julie Dermody no longer thinks about her resumé. She’s working on her bucket list. What’s on yours?
Blogger and science educator Anne Jolly is issuing a MiddleWeb Alert! Here are six things teachers in the middle grades can do to promote STEM Girl Power.
Teacher librarian Lorri Kingan recommends Bryan Harris’s book, Battling Boredom – 99 Strategies to Spark Student Engagement, and its clever, simple-to-implement strategies to all teachers looking for ways to promote active student learning.
Reviewer and math teacher Michelle Schwartze says the eight essential elements for school-wide math success identified by Chris Confer and Marco Ramirez in Small Steps, Big Changes: Eight Essential Practices for Transforming Schools Through Mathematics ring true.
In Amy Benjamin’s Math in Plain English: Literacy Strategies for the Mathematics Classroom, says reviewer Shelly Sims, there’s finally a book combining literacy strategies with what we know about math thinking and problem-solving.
Book Reviews / Visual & Media Literacy
by MiddleWeb · Published 09/29/2012 · Last modified 11/13/2019
Visual literacy is vital skill for iGeneration students, says reviewer Patricia Thomas-Jeanig. She recommends Steve Moline’s See What You Mean: Visual Literacy K-8 (2nd Edition) which explores many kinds of visual texts and includes great teaching ideas.
Reviewer Rebecca Crockett praises Charles Fuhrken’s What Every Middle School Teacher Needs to Know About Reading Tests (From Someone Who Has Written Them), a book of practical, teaching-friendly advice about prepping students for reading tests.
Bill Bigelow’s teacher-friendly book, The Line Between Us: Teaching About the Border and Mexican Immigration, offers concrete strategies & teaching resources to help students understand immigration and globalization issues, says reviewer Kelly Moser.
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