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Offers middle school teachers practical advice on how they can adapt their instruction methods to meet the needs of diverse students and cope with the emotional challenges they face in the classroom.
Middle level researchers Dave Brown and Trudy Knowles have updated their bestselling classic What Every Middle School Teacher Should Know with more student voice as well as timely new research, strategies, and models that illuminate the philosophies and practices that best serve the needs of young adolescents. Once again a comprehensive description of truly responsive middle level teaching, the Third Edition features: the latest discoveries in neuroscience that inform practical strategies for improving student learning, the most recent research on physical, socio-emotional, cognitive, and identity developmental processes, the impact of technology and social media on students' lives and learning, new research in middle level education supporting the development of genuine middle schools, concrete ways to meet new content standards while implementing true curriculum integration, explicit ways teachers can make the transition from theory to practice in their own classrooms.
Tests require a special kind of savvy, a kind of critical thinking and knowledge application that is not always a part of classroom reading experiences. Who better to teach you how to prepare your students for reading tests than someone who has written them? Charles Fuhrken has spent years working with several major testing companies and contributing to the reading assessments of various testing programs. What he's learned about testing can help teachers who are interested in teaching effective reading strategies as well as preparing students for reading tests. What Every Middle School Teacher Needs to Know About Reading Tests (From Someone Who Has Written Them) offers extensive, practical strategies to help students perform well on test day. This ready-to-use, easy-to-understand resource provides a wealth of information about reading tests, including high-quality preparation materials, samples of the most frequently assessed reading standards, and engaging core-reading activities. Charles takes the mystery out of reading tests; he explains how students can learn the language of tests and apply their knowledge of reading to standardized tests. In addition to providing information about reading tests that will help students feel prepared and confident on test day, What Every Middle School Teacher Needs to Know About Reading Tests provides a wealth of resources that can be incorporated into a teacher's everyday reading work, including vocabulary development, literary techniques, interpretation, comprehension, and more.
"My whole goal with this book was to come at teaching writing from the angle that matters most: students' perspective. They taught me what I needed to know to make this book live up to their passion for writing." Laura Robb Adolescents have robust and rewarding writing lives outside of school that involve journals, emails, text messages, blogs, and an astounding array of genres. Unlike their personal reading lives that teachers frequently tap into, their personal writings typically exist under the curricular radar-that is until now. While grounded in the common schedule constraints and curriculum demands of middle school, Laura Robb's Teaching Middle School Writers offers teachers lessons and routines that are uncommonly attuned to adolescents' developmental and social needs. As she taps into the energy and enthusiasm of adolescents' personal writing lives, Laura presents: writing plans that support first drafts strategies for crafting leads that grab and endings that satisfy grammar lessons that address writing conventions editing lessons that have students revise their writing before the teacher reads it guidelines for grading and responding to student work. Straight-from-the-classroom writing samples and videos give teachers the opportunity to see how Laura uses compelling questions and powerful mentor texts to teach writing, support struggling writers, and weave twenty-first century literacies into the writing curriculum. Throughout, teachers learn ways of connecting to students' lives in order to bring out their best writing, their best self. Watch a video overview.
You're teaching first grade this year. What do you need to know? Margaret Berry Wilson gives you practical information about daily routines, furniture, and much more. She starts with a concise review of first graders' common developmental characteristics and then shows how to adjust your classroom and your teaching to fit these common characteristics. The result: Students can learn, and you can teach, with minimum frustration and maximum ease and joy. In a warm, conversational style punctuated with anecdotes and examples from her own classrooms, Margaret shares practical know-how on topics like this: Arranging a circle, desks, and tables Choosing and storing supplies Scheduling a child-centered day and teaching daily routines Planning special projects and field trips that maximize learning and build community Understanding the special concerns of first graders' parents and finding the best ways to communicate
Not your typical how-to manual for new teachers, this no-nonsense, jargon-free guide offers a wide variety of tools and tactics for getting through every school day with grace and sanity. Covered in glue, glitter, orange juice—or worse? Make a quick change into the spare set of clothes you keep on hand for just this purpose. Butterflies in your stomach before your first-ever Meet the Teacher Night? Keep your cool by writing the agenda on your board—it’ll double as a crib sheet for you. These tips and hundreds more, covering virtually every aspect of teaching, have all been learned the hard way: from real-life classroom experience. Otis Kriegel’s “little black book” will be a treasured resource for teachers who want not only to survive but to thrive in any situation.
Following on the heels of the bestselling Fires in the Bathroom, which brought the insights of high school students to teachers and parents, Kathleen Cushman now turns her attention to the crucial and challenging middle grades, joining forces with adolescent psychologist Laura Rogers. As teachers, counselors, and parents cope with the roller coaster of early adolescence, too few stop to ask students what they think about these critical years. Here, middle school students in grades 5 through 8 across the country and from diverse ethnic backgrounds offer insights on what it takes to make classrooms more effective and how to forge stronger relationships between young adolescents and adults. Students tackle such critical topics as social, emotional, and academic pressures; classroom behavior; organization; and preparing for high school. Cushman and Rogers help readers hear and understand the vital messages about adolescent learning that come though in what these students say. This invaluable resource provides a unique window into how middle school students think, feel, and learn, bringing their needs to the forefront of the conversation about education.
A guide to teaching fifth grade covers such topics as classroom setup, schedules and routines, building community, special projects, field trips, and communicating with parents.
Feel empowered during your first year of teaching middle school by applying the concise tips and tools in this book. Author Stephen Katzel shows you how to create an effective system to structure your classroom, implement daily routines, plan for the short and long term, utilize technology, communicate well with parents, handle formal and informal observations, and move up the salary scale. He also shares advice on relating to the unique needs of middle schoolers, handling difficult supervisors or coworkers, and adapting to change. Perfect for beginning middle school or junior high teachers, the book offers strategies and templates you can use immediately to kick start a successful teaching career.
