The task of providing all students an engaging education is a particularly difficult challenge in the middle grades as young adolescents are on the cusp of intellectual thought. Because they are forming their identities as students who will or will not go on to successfully complete high school or postsecondary education, their experiences with…

This study examines vodcasting as an effective instructional activity that can transform students' negative feelings about reading and book reports into more positive experiences. The study employed a qualitative research paradigm and single-case study research design to investigate the impact of using vodcasting in a middle grades language…

As young adolescents, middle grades students experience a wide variety of changes related to their cognitive capabilities, social and emotional well-being, and use of self-regulation strategies. Authentic performance tasks challenge students to apply their knowledge and skills to realistic problems to create products or performances--consistent…

This article examines students' participation in Boalian Theater activities to role-play, rehearse, and develop strategies to use when bullied or witnessing bullying. One intention of the theater was for students to respond and to engage in perspective-taking and empathy as one of the ways of responding to bullying experiences and making…

A successful middle school team of teachers employed effective middle level philosophy to structure a curriculum around themes that were relevant, challenging, integrative, and engaging for their particular students and community. Realizing that their young adolescents were involved in tough, delicate issues in their out-of-school lives, the…

Discourse requires students to evaluate and interpret the perspectives, ideas, and mathematical arguments of others as well as construct valid arguments of their own. That is, students develop deeper understandings of mathematics when they engage in meaningful social interactions such as whole class discourse. Both the National Council of Teachers…

Engaging students in both hands-on and minds-on experiences is needed for education that is relevant and complete. Many middle school students enter science classrooms with pre-conceived ideas about their world. Some of these ideas are misconceptions that hinder students from developing accepted concepts in science, such as those related to…

To gain a deeper understanding of young adolescent motivation and developmental needs as the nation plunges ahead with the national Common Core Standards and their implications for writing instruction, the authors of this article pondered five questions as they studied their own middle school writing team: (1) What intrinsic motivators drive these…

Middle level educators around the country aim to create a classroom environment and a way of teaching that is developmentally responsive, challenging, empowering, and equitable for every student. One way to ensure this is to include instruction that promotes creativity. This article offers guiding principles and shares instructional lessons that…

Notebooks are commonly used in middle school classrooms as a place for students to record information delivered via lecture, classroom discussion, or independent work. A primary reason teachers ask students to use notebooks is to capture and organize information. In many cases, students are expected to use these tools with little direction,…

This article examines the use of narrative identity analysis of the life-story theory approach to guide the career paths of middle grades teachers. It presents the views of middle grades teachers and education students on the integral role of narrative and on the impact of life-story approach in their careers and their identities. It explores how…

This article describes how researchers take a multidisciplinary approach to investigating how middle grades students learn science vocabulary. The authors investigated teaching strategies for increasing retention of science vocabulary with seventh graders and stumbled upon an interesting finding that was not even a target for their study, yet it…

This article describes the middle grades teacher preparation program at Augusta State University in Georgia. It describes the negotiation between the middle school concept and the standardized testing culture of the local schools as the faculty redesigned the undergraduate middle grades program to adequately address both. Ways in which new…

This article describes the middle grades program at Georgia College's John H. Lounsbury College of Education, which educates and trains middle school teachers. It describes the school's field-based teacher preparation program in which a mentor leader guides the candidates. The middle grades education program is a two-year,…

Guided reading is an instructional practice commonly used in primary and intermediate grades (Ford & Opitz, 2008; Fountas & Pinnell, 2001). It is used less in middle grades settings (Allen, 2000) where "one size-fits-all instruction" prevails (Allington, 2012). While teachers can read about the principles of guided reading in…