This paper reports on a study conducted on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2005 database. The purpose of the study was to examine predictors of student achievement using middle school mathematics teacher professional development items as criterion variables, such as the number of mathematics courses taken, the number of…

In this study, we examined the associations between organized activity participation during early adolescence and adjustment in a large and economically diverse sample of African American and European American youth. The sample included 1,047 youth (51% female and 49% male and 67% African American and 33% European American). We used analysis of…

Validity data are presented for a new measure of threat appraisals in response to community violence. Adolescents (N = 358; 45% male; 91% African American, M = 12.10 years, SD = 1.63) and their maternal caregivers participated in two waves of a longitudinal interview study focused on the consequences of exposure to community violence. Structural…

This textbook aims to set forth the elements of English grammar in their relation to thought and the expression of thought. This object has been the guiding principle in the selection and arrangement of material, in the treatment of forms and constructions, and in the fashioning of the very numerous illustrative exercises. The Introduction…

This study explored a career readiness typology of 629 8th-grade students using the Career Factors Inventory. Data revealed developmentally appropriate elevated needs for information, specifically self-knowledge. In addition, cluster analysis demonstrated the heterogeneity of career development needs of 8th-grade students. Typal membership…

Writers thrive when they are motivated to work hard, have regular opportunities to practice and reflect, and benefit from a knowledgeable teacher who knows writing. Student feedback to lessons during writing workshop helped guide Nancie Atwell in her quest to provide the richest and most efficient path to better writing.

In this article, the author relates her teaching experience with seventh and eighth graders using poetry activities, and she describes how she teaches poetry by using "published" poems and by engaging the students in classroom activities. Though students in seventh grade usually have knowledge of poetic conventions, the author takes time to review…

Various explanations and solutions have been proposed over the last ten years in relation to the ongoing problem of student lack of engagement with the middle years' curriculum in Australia. Identified contributors to this problem include an irrelevant or trivial curricular focus and ineffectual teaching and learning strategies. In this paper we…

This study chronicles the responses of middle school students to their teachers' efforts to re-engage them in school. Working with two teachers and their team of 42 eighth graders selected as at-risk of failure, researchers interviewed participants, observed interactions, and gathered data from students' first semester of high school. Teachers…

One of the most challenging daily experiences of teaching young adolescents is helping them transition from Piaget's concrete to the formal operational stage of cognitive development during the middle school years. Students who have reached formal operations can design and test hypotheses, engage in deductive reasoning, use flexible thinking,…

The aim of this study was to investigate the factors affecting the implementation of Multiple Intelligences (MI) Theory in K-8 classrooms in Turkey. First, it was made meetings in small groups (3 or 4) with 38 teachers in one of the first MI schools in Turkey during the first semesters. They were 22 elementary teachers from Grades 1 to 5 and 16…

Role-plays and other dramatic activities fulfill tweens' urge to try out different life roles, to explore the world beyond their own reality, and to learn new areas of competence. Wilhelm's research into reading and motivation has shown that students value learning that they can see as immediately meaningful. He argues that drama strategies bring…

Students experience many forms of victimization at school, yet few studies address more than one form of victimization. In this study, we explored the incidence of multiple forms of peer victimization, including direct verbal and physical, relational, and sexual harassment victimization among urban middle school students. We examined the overlap…

Five eighth grade science classes of students in at a middle school were assigned to three treatment groups: those who individually concept mapped, those who collaboratively concept mapped, and those who independently used their study time. The findings revealed that individually generating concept maps on computers during study time positively…

The authors test biosocial models that posit interactions between biological variables (testosterone, estradiol, pubertal status, and pubertal timing) and social context variables (family, peer, school, and neighborhood) in predicting adolescent involvement with cigarettes and alcohol in a sample of 409 adolescents in Grades 6 and 8. Models…