Offering fresh alternatives to common instructional practices that fail to get results, this accessible, highly practical guide highlights ways to motivate middle school students while enhancing content-area learning. Each chapter features an enlightening case study of a teacher whose current strategies are not supported by research; describes effective instructional alternatives, illustrated with concrete examples; and lists online resources and lesson examples. Emphasis is given to supporting critical engagement with texts and drawing on technology and new literacies. The book covers specific content areas--including science, social studies, math, and literature--as well as ways to teach oral literacy and writing across the curriculum. This book is divided into three sections. Section I, Teaching Content Literacy, contains the following: (1) If They Can't Read Their Science Books--Teach Them How (Maria Grant); (2) If They Can't Read Their Social Studies Books--Support Their Learning with Guided Instruction (Karen D. Wood, Jennifer I. Hathaway, and Lina B. Soares); (3) If You Want to Motivate the Learning of Mathematics--Use the Visual Arts as a Lens to Learning (Robin A. Ward and Susan Troutman); (4) If You Want to Move Beyond the Textbook--Add Young Adult Literature to Content Area Classes (Virginia S. Loh); (5) If You Want Students to Read--Motivate Them (Joan Kindig); (6) If You Want Students to Use New Literacies--Give Them the Opportunity (Stephanie Schmier and Marjorie Siegel); (7) If You Want Students to Evaluate Online Resources and Other New Media--Teach Them How (Jill Castek); and (8) If You Think Students Should Be Critically Literate--Show Them How (Peggy Albers). Section II, Developing Spoken and Written Language, presents: (9) If You Want to Take the Ho-Hum Out of History--Teach Writing That's Right for New Times (Dana L. Grisham and Thomas DeVere Wolsey); (10) If Students Are Unmotivated Writers--Motivate Them (Jane Hansen and Timothy Shea); (11) If Students Are Not Succeeding as Writers--Teach Them to Self-Assess Using a Rubric (Judy M. Parr and Rebecca Jesson); (12) If You Want Students to Learn Academic English--Teach It to Them (Dianna Townsend); (13) If You Want Students to Learn Vocabulary--Move Beyond Copying Words (Kathy Ganske); and (14) If You Value Student Collaboration--Hold Students Accountable for Collaborative Group Work (Heather Casey). Section III, Establishing Effective Learning Routines, includes: (15) If You Think Book Clubs Matter--Set Some Up Online (Thomas DeVere Wolsey and Dana L. Grisham, with Melissa Provost); (16) If You Want Students to Read Widely and Well--Eliminate Round-Robin Reading (Kelly Johnson and Diane Lapp); (17) If You Want to Eliminate Misconceptions and Errors--Support Learning with Questions, Prompts, Cues, and Explanations (Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey); (18) If You Want Students to Take Notes Instead of Copying Them--Teach Them How (Christianna Alger and Barbara Moss); (19) If You Want to Help Students Organize Their Learning--Fold, Think, and Write with Three-Dimensional Graphic Organizers (Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher); and (20) If Homework Really Matters--Assign Some That's Valuable (Cynthia H. Brock, Julie L. Pennington, and Jennifer D. Morrison).