This article focuses on middle school students analyzing product labels. The labels were analyzed in terms of which facts they purported to impart and to what extent these so-called facts tallied with actual data and scientific/health analyses of the products. Students then reworded the labels to include only documented facts. They also shared the…

The first part of this article is a discussion of the present contexts in which middle level teachers, students, and researchers learn and teach; it's a rather dismal portrait constrained by legislation and policies. The second part, in which hope begins to present itself, introduces readers to some middle level students, their teacher, and a…

This column provides an overview of the Common Core text exemplars and gives examples of ways teachers can group text exemplars and other trade books in ways that will support middle graders' understanding of complex texts. Building background by supplementing text exemplars with other titles is particularly emphasized. Suggestions for grouping…

This article synthesizes 15 years of research in middle school classrooms that have started to integrate new literacies into their daily teaching and learning. Trends of the data suggest there are certain salient characteristics of middle school teachers and students in these grade levels that make such innovations more successful with them than…

Determined to shift the balance by providing a venue for students' voices, Cordi and Masturzo reclaimed and remade a Web space to address bullying using digital storytelling (Ohler, 2009). Using "Dear Bully: 70 Authors Tell Their Stories", they guided their undergraduate students on a valuable journey of self-exploration, reflection, and…

In today's middle school classroom, grouping is an essential learning tool that enhances students' ability to collaborate with others and deepen their own thinking. Implementing group work effectively, though, can be a challenge, especially since groups tend to end their work at "ragged" or staggered times. Creating "anchor activities"--respectful…

In this era of high-stakes testing and densely packed state standards, it is too easy for writing to become a meaningless process, useful only for school. Many strategies can help to get all students writing, but this author set out to find a strategy to help students see the power of writing and to know that their voices matter. Writing groups…

Tolerance must be conceptualized based on the diversity that exists in our world, our communities, and our schools. The author posits that dealing with diversity is a 21st-century skill set and that tolerance of difference is a rudimentary element of that set. The diversity of experiences and situations that confront middle school students and…

This article describes one middle school teacher's use of literature circles using heterogeneous grouping. It begins with a brief rationale for using literature circles in the language arts classroom. Next, it describes techniques to form literature circles. Then, it shares how to build and establish a supportive environment within each group. It…

In this article, the authors describe how Jenae, a seventh-grade English language arts teacher, modified I-Charts (Hoffman, 1992; Randall, 1996) and I-Search papers (Macrorie, 1988) to support the needs of her adolescent English Language Learners (ELLs). They highlight how she improved upon two timeless instructional practices by integrating…

This article summarizes preservice teachers' experiences in a book club that read young adult literature focused on issues related to bullying. Preservice teachers learned to recognize various incidents of bullying in the books. They also began to consider how they might handle incidents of bullying in their future classrooms. (Contains 2 figures.)

Can students read difficult but self-selected texts--and if so, how? In this article we describe what we learned about middle school students' use of background knowledge and specific vocabulary from interviews and surveys in our longitudinal study of magazine reading habits. Then we discuss the implications of these findings for structuring…

As adolescents spend more and more time engaging in various on line activities, teachers are questioning the role that language arts curricula might play in helping them become savvy technology users. In this study, an eighth-grade teacher responded to her students' unauthorized participation on MySpace[TM] by initiating an inquiry into social…

A collaborative team of five international teacher educators/researchers examine the importance of student voice for authentic discourse and instructional design in contemporary classrooms. Excerpts from their perspectives on teaching, research, and innovative programs are woven together and include suggested Actions/Reflections for the reader.…

As both a teacher and a parent, Ranck-Buhr knows a little something about working with students and keeping them engaged in the reading and writing processes... even recalling a son who was a reluctant book-report writer until he was offered some choice of reading material. She suggests practical ways to implement two vital elements in the…