Drama in middle-school classrooms can provide action, experimentation, and exploration of character, motivation, and text. Because it provides expanded contexts for language learning in a cooperative social setting, drama has numerous educational benefits for young adolescents. Short drama activities for middle schoolers include story reading,…

Describes a 15-hour staff development training program on using cooperative learning strategies in middle school classrooms and evaluates subsequent implementation of these strategies. Initial parental and teacher concerns included grading procedures, group composition and membership, and classroom arrangements and constraints. After the training…

Describes six informal diagnostic strategies (paired learning, red dot, chalkboard analysis, small-group pretesting and reteaching, answer key, and calculator computation checks) designed to help middle school students gain independence through cooperative learning activities. Corrective feedback is provided through peer discussion, limited…

Describes a reading program for gifted middle school readers designed to increase critical reading ability and student appreciation of literary technique and broaden understanding of sophisticated vocabulary. (MLF)

A middle school placed spelling instruction as a regular part of the first-hour class that had extended time for writing. Each teacher was responsible once every four weeks for providing a spelling unit related to his or her subject matter. (MLF)

First in a series of profiles to trace the intellectual roots of the modern middle-school movement through the thoughts and actions of five of its most influential revolutionaries. (seven references) (MLF)

Presents, in dialogue form, the differing viewpoints of two Maine middle-school teachers who developed individual methods and rationales for implementing portfolios in their subject disciplines. Whereas the English teacher has adopted a fairly inclusive, personalized format to evaluate students, the science teacher used portfolios to help students…

Introduces five articles on teachers' role in curricular change, stressing commonalities and research needs. The foremost commonality is giving voice to teachers, middle schoolers, university students, and researchers. Other common threads are the social construction of knowledge, examination of questions related to our intellectual heritage, the…

In interdisciplinary teaming, each student belongs to a manageably sized group of students associated with an in-common, shared group of teachers. Study comparing professional and student involvement in team versus departmental organizational structures supports interdisciplinary teaming for middle schools. Teaming's participative climate is…

Many schools are implementing collaborative, interdisciplinary approaches (cooperative teaching, collaborative consultation, and teacher assistance teams) to help teachers meet students' diverse needs. This article, which shows how a rural eastern Virginia middle school developed coteaching as an alternative to special education pullout programs,…

The Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988 states that the United States will use the metric system by 1996. This act will affect much of the middle school curriculum. Teachers responsible for teaching units with measurement activities in science, math, and other curricular areas should require students to develop estimating skills while…

Since students are facing an ever-increasing number of stressful personal, social, and emotional problems, classroom guidance must be made an integral part of the middle school's guidance program. This should be accomplished through a well-integrated, overall strategy incorporating daily homeroom advisement, guidance-related units,…

Independent study is actually a range of strategies involving student participation in selecting topics to investigate; designing investigative plans, procedures, and products; establishing and employing evaluative criteria; conducting the investigation; and sharing its findings. This article shows how to gauge student readiness for structured- or…

Mentoring as remediation of the at-risk student has received scant attention. Students most likely to benefit from mentoring are those who are passing half of their classes; those with behavior problems resulting in detention, not expulsion; and those receiving little family support. Higher risk kids need professional counseling. Both top-down and…

Describes a principal-initiated advisory program at a Toronto middle school. Summarizes successful program elements, including a 6-month planning period; a staff-supported inservice program offering training in team-building and adolescent development; daily advisory group meetings, with maximum group size of 15 students, who retain the same…