Full Description
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.
Contents
I. Teaching Content Literacy 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 8. If You Think Students Should Be Critically Literate—Show Them How, Peggy Albers II. Developing Spoken and Written Language 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 14. If You Value Student Collaboration—Hold Students Accountable for Collaborative Group Work, Heather Casey III. Establishing Effective Learning Routines 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 20. If Homework Really Matters—Assign Some That's Valuable, Cynthia H. Brock, Julie L. Pennington, and Jennifer D. Morrison
