This brief article describes how Dawn Southworth, upper school art teacher at the Glen Urquhart School (GUS) (Massachusetts), devised the White Shirt Project to engage eighth-graders in art and society. Each year, Southworth purchases white shirts for her eighth grade students to transform into original works of art. Prior to the culminating art…

Over the last twenty-five years, the Minnesota Historical Society, the University of Minnesota Libraries, and Minitex have developed a partnership centered on creating pathways to higher education by engaging local middle school and high school students in immersive programs at academic libraries. These activities vary in scope and content, but…

Gaming, an integral part of many students' lives outside school, can provide an engaging platform for focusing students on important disciplinary core concepts as an entry into developing students' understanding of these concepts through science practices. This article highlights how S'cape can be used to support student learning aligned with the…

In this solar panels and alternative energy project, students were challenged to develop a researchable question about solar energy and electronics and devise a means of answering it. Students worked cooperatively, with specific roles for each member, conducting research, conducting experiments, analyzing results, and writing the final…

"Appreciation" of the arts grows most abundantly when students immerse themselves in the making of art. In this article, the author describes how she made eighth graders appreciate some of the big names from the art of the past.

Eighth-grade teacher Lesley Roessing designed an assignment that makes individual student research useful and accessible to the entire class. She outlines steps students take to create a guide to supplement their reading of "Waiting for the Rain: A Novel of South Africa." She then builds on the research experience in another unit by addressing…

The authors used the 5E learning cycle (engage, explore, explain, extend, and evaluate) and a pulmonary carbon dioxide mystery to introduce eighth grade students to the study of chemistry. The activity engages students in measurement, data collection, data analysis, media and internet research, research design, and report writing as they search…

Describes using information charts with eighth-grade language arts students. Discusses using this strategy to help students organize their research, develop critical-thinking skills, use their prior knowledge, and increase metacognitive awareness. (SR)

These series of lessons uses the process of student inquiry to teach the concepts of force and motion identified in the National Science Education Standards for grades 5-8. The lesson plan also uses technology as a teaching tool through the use of interactive Web sites. The lessons are built on the 5-E format and feature imbedded assessments.

Provides an art project for use with eighth-grade students, who choose a work of art and recreate it in an interpretive and informative manner. Explains that students re-create the background of the artwork and then the students become a part of the painting via characters or objects. (CMK)

Using children's picture books, Deborah Dean provided frameworks for student research papers that avoided the pitfalls leading to voiceless an encyclopedic writing. Research guide sheets; class analysis of text organization, sentence variety, stylistic choices; and peer review all contribute to interesting final papers. (Contains 2 figures.)

Describes how students in an 8th-grade rural English classroom were focused and engaged over a 9-week period as they investigated and researched a poem of their own choice by a Native American poet, and wrote a hypertext web of their research journey. Notes that students experienced text in a new way, as a network of links. (SR)

Describes guided research pages, which eliminate the enormous amount of time it can take to refine a World Wide Web search and give that time, instead, to student research. Discusses advantages, and presents examples of simple, interactive, and dynamic guided pages for the seventh- and eighth-grade classroom. (AEF)

Describes a successful approach to teaching a research unit in a "problem" class. Uses word processing, group work, physical movement and manipulative activities, plenty of individual choices, and respect for each individual. (SR)

Describes a skills development program based on research and writing subskills. Includes analyzing questions, devising a form to record information, researching and reporting findings, and supporting a point of view in persuasive essay. Explains that the program through three years of middle school, adding and refining skills each year. Suggests…