This article explores our work with African American youth in an after-school community literacy program. We examine how a group of these students used a set of Internet-based technology tools to evaluate whether or not a group of colleges would affirm their cultural identity and help them succeed. What we learned from the students has caused us…

With a staggering number of students dropping out of school, widespread below-grade reading proficiency, and PISA results showing a demoralizing lag internationally in math, science, and general problem solving, teachers need to exercise all the control available to them to engage students in meaningful learning. Wilhelm suggests six steps…

Response to Intervention (RTI) is a term we hear more often these days, and it applies largely to students who fall under the purview of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Shanklin urges us to consider three questions: What students are we talking about? Whose responsibility are these students? What interventions might be helpful,…

Understanding the reality of students who aren't engaged in literacy, Kittle proposes nothing less than revolution. She asks you to evaluate whether your students read enough, write enough, and rewrite enough, then challenges: If not, what would you have to change to make that happen? She shares examples from her classroom, and leaves us with a…

Friendship lies at the very heart of the middle school experience. Here are books to help students navigate those waters, recognize what (and who) has value, and determine what kind of friend they want to be.

With the misleading descriptor of "toy for generating word clouds," Wordle can be a powerful classroom tool, says Hayes. She outlines how its use for reading skills (predicting, summarizing, and comparing) and writing skills (prewriting, revising, generating poetry, expanding multimodal literacies) can engage students and develop creative and…

Certainly a major bump in the literacy road today is the apparent conflict between school literacies and the preferred literacy activities of students outside of school. After family conversation about a nephew who was getting poor grades in language arts, Hall shares her thinking on the dilemmas of what constitutes literacy, how literacies kids…

The author, a renowned researcher and literacy expert, helps young adolescents see themselves as having potential. In the classroom, they explore the importance of building relationships, leadership styles and skills, and their roles in society to create their own identities.

Van Sluys and five eighth-grade ethnographers with a range of linguistic experiences in Spanish and English write about their processes and findings in their shared study of parent literacy practices. Here, they describe a disconnect between their own understandings of literacy and their roles in a literacy learning community. For example, their…

Gainer talks about the importance of connecting students' background knowledge, experiences, and interests to curricular goals. He highlights the voice of DeAndre, an eighth-grade boy in special education classes, whose participation in an after-school club led to the creation of a video. According to Gainer, "[W]hen given the opportunity to…

The authors describe a collaborative relationship between a new middle level language arts teacher and a teacher educator in which they implement "classroom committees." This project enabled students to be responsible for their classroom environment as they worked together to problem solve issues that were important to them. Bryant and Daniels…

The Metacognitive Teaching Framework (MTF) is explained from the initial teacher-directed think-aloud through to students' independent use of cognitive strategies. The four stages of the MTF are described and tips for implementation are offered. Using questioning as an example, the authors work through what this looks like from stage 1 through…

The increased focus on reading strategies has had a number of unintended consequences, including the creation of strategy worksheets and isolated strategy instruction. We explore these unintended consequences and provide examples of how middle school teachers can engage students in authentic reading comprehension instruction that results in…

The authors adopt the stance that, even though strategy use should be taught to help learners monitor their comprehension, such instruction is not sufficient to insure transfer or ownership. Further, such instruction often emphasizes only literal recall, limiting students' understanding. Therefore, the author argues that teachers should consider…

A teacher-researcher describes how collaborative inquiries with students into literacy has the potential to develop metacognitive awareness of language and literacy practices, inform practice, and provide opportunities for students to use literacy in meaningful and authentic ways. Drawing upon a teacher-research study into the use of argument…