Here at MiddleWeb, we’re whizzing around the Internet like everybody else. And we’re always hunting for items of interest to middle grades educators, parents and friends. Many of our resource discoveries will find their way into a MiddleWeb Resource Roundup. Others we will share on the fly, here at our Quick Links home.

•What would you do with some dollars to build your students’ learning? IncitEd, which launched its beta June 7, might be just the crowdfunding site to get you started. Started by two educators, the website invites learning related proposals to share with potential donors.

• How can writing scripts and screenplays help build students’ ELA understanding and skills? In a MW guest article, media literacy consultant Frank Baker explains how separating dialog and action benefits young writers. He also suggests advertising scripts are good starting points for students and includes links to publications providing how-to’s and sample scripts.

• Happy Blumesday! Right, Judy Blume. Two writers talk to NPR about their decision to launch Blumesday. Move over, James Joyce. June 17, 2013 reminds young readers and grownups of Blume’s books and the issues they introduced to adolescent lit over several decades.

• At his iPadapps4school site, Richard Byrne offers 10 Great Apps for a Teacher’s New iPad. Have you tried Knowmia Teach and Skitch for iPad?

• A high school teacher brings infographics to her students’ reading history. Find out how she did it in this Edutopia post. With a few changes (perhaps a more streamlined choice of infographic tools?), middle grades students could enjoy the experience as much as her older kids did.

• Plan ahead for students’ storytelling with edSurge’s article, Blast from the Past: S’cool Tools for Storytelling. Try out the mostly free, web-based resources ranging from Kerpoof to Meograph and more.

• Blogging at ASCD’s InService, Mike Anderson outlines techniques for educators to celebrate their accomplishments and set goals for next year.

• As Google and the Internet begin to push traditional sources of research (including print encyclopedias) out of the marketplace, the urgency to teach students how to find quality information online is reaching a fever pitch, says teacher Sara Shaw, quoted in this Education Week story.

• Nine Strategies for Reaching All Learners in English Language Arts – Ideas from blogger Hassan Mansaray, a teacher at Edwards Middle, a diverse urban school in Charlestown, Massachusetts.

• Writing in an Edutopia post, Todd Finley points out that teachers as well as students are bullied at school, outlining the elements of colleague bullying and providing several stories of teachers who have suffered at the hands of other adults.  In a second post, Finley lists ineffective responses to bullies and then suggests some strategies that may help. The TES Connect article he references includes online resources, most of them in the UK, which may be useful.

• How do you fit current events into your classroom? Ariel Sacks suggests a couple of middle grades options to keep news current: CNN’s free daily 10-minute school cast and Upfront, a monthly print magazine from Scholastic and the New York Times. Her school orders one class set and passes it around. In her 5th grade Title 1 classroom, Monica Burns, blogging at Edutopia, has her students keep up with current events using their iPads and such apps as Watchup, SnagFilms and more.

• We enjoyed this very May reflection by sixth grade teacher Jessica Cuthbertson on the rewards of opening your classroom door to fellow professionals who can help you sharpen aspects of your teaching. It begins… “It’s May. It’s spring in Colorado. My 6th graders are starting to sound, smell, and act like … 7th graders.” Who can resist?

• Science teachers need to learn students’ misconceptions of science as well as the facts for students to understand lessons.  Many kids are confused about why seasons change, for example.  Erik Robelen, writing for Education Week, reports on the middle school physical science research from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

• A flavorwire post features pages from famous writers’ notebooks. Now students can see how the writers planned ahead, scratched out and revised, and plotted their way to the end of books. (Students can also experience the challenges of reading cursive notes.) Some of the selections may not fit in a middle grades classroom, but J.K. Rowling (right) is a likely hit.

• MiddleWeb co-editor John Norton is busy editing an upcoming book by middle school math and science teacher Marsha Ratzel and came across her high recommendation for Dr. James Tanton’s website Thinking Mathematics and also his YouTube video collection. Just the thing, Ratzel says, for MS teachers who want to beef up their content knowledge for teaching the new Common Core math standards.

• Have you tried these Teaching Secrets: Spend Less on School Supplies posted by Cynthia Henton at Ed Week? Don’t miss the comments.

• How does “rapidly toggling between (digital) tasks” affect our brains? Does dividing our concentration this way change how we learn? If so, what should we do about it? These are questions posed to students in a recent installment of the NYT Learning Network’s Reading Club, headlined “Digital Distractions.” Students are asked to read and reflect on two short articles detailing new research on the potential costs of this rapid toggling that most of us engage in every day.

• What Teachers Really Want: Thoughts beyond a smile and a handshake for Teacher Appreciation Week. From 5th and 6th grade teacher Susan Lucille Davis at Getting Smart.

• Choice Literacy contributors explain how and why they use several tech tools in literacy instruction. Included: Padlet, Today’s Meet, Shmoop, and Symbaloo.

• Geoff Pender, politics editor at the Clarion-Ledger in Mississippi, recently commented on misleadinglaws.com, the perfect place to go to see how lawmakers have used language to market legislation, even when the titles and subheads  distort the content of a law.     

• Teaching Digital Literacy: Are your students finding images on the Web to use in their classroom blogs or other work that’s visible on the Internet? If so, you need to be sure they aren’t violating copyright law. This article by teacher Jen Carey has great suggestions for finding “legal” images – lots of links to sources.

• Sixth grade math teacher Kimber Larson shares four “grading don’ts” that she says saved her classrrom and refocused students on the real purpose of hard work – learning (not grades). EdWeek Teacher.

• In an Edutopia article adapted from his new book,  Self-Driven Learning: Teaching Strategies for Student Motivation Larry Ferlazzo provides Positive, Not Punitive, Classroom Management Tips that he’s found effective in his classroom. Ferlazzo has also updated his blog entry The Best Ideas On How To Finish The School Year Strong. He highlights our own Resource Roundup on the topic. Thanks, Larry!

• The Digital Public Library of America beta officially went live April 18 after a slight delay caused the closing of its launch site, the Boston Public Library, an effect of the Boston bombing. Information Today provides a succinct look at the DPLA’s development and notes some of the content already available.

• Persisting With Poetry in the Common-Core Era by Francesca Duffy explains how poetry and the CCSS can coexist. In this Education Week post, the author reports on a 5^th grade teacher who highlights poetry every Friday, standards which mesh with poetry, and what’s missing in the CCSS that can impact students’ experience with poetry.  Accessible through registration.

• Bring Earth Day into the ELA classroom with Read Write Think’s detailed lesson on persuasive writing capturing environmental issues.

• Is it time to trade the “deficit model” brought on by high stakes testing with an “abundance model” that builds on students’ strengths? OK, it’s a rhetorical question. :-) Thoughts from Edutopia’s Rebecca Alber.

• The Next Generation Science Standards as reported by a MS teacher who helped construct them: Marsha Ratzel. She describes the challenging process and the way the standards will work to strengthen science education. For more background on NGSS, see this MindShift article: “New Science Standards Aim to Relate Concepts to Students’ Lives.”

• Celebrate the International Year of Statistics with fully developed lesson plans from STatistics Education Web (STEW). This online journal of K-12 statistics lesson plans provides K-5, 6-8 and 9-12 sections. The International Year webpage offers lots more links here.  Brought to you by the American Statistical Association.

•“You’re Constantly Revising Yourself“: The Dispositions of a Student-Centered Teacher presents six characteristics of student-centered teachers, all derived from conversations with teachers and students at six high schools as part of a research project by What Kids Can Do. Learn more details when WKCD publishes Anytime, Anywhere: Student Centered Learning for Schools and Teachers (Harvard Education Press, spring 2013).

• For National Poetry Month the National Academy of Poets (Poets.org) links to 30 ways to celebrate. Also at Poets.org: April 18’s Poem in Your Pocket Day along with teacher resources with plentiful poems and lessons   This year students can write letters to selected poets as part of the Dear Poet Project (lesson plan included). @POETSorg

• “A new study finds that increasing enrollment in advanced math classes before high school hasn’t led to higher math performance for states, on the national assessment in the subject.” (Education Week) AND ALSO: (Middle School) Math Teachers Strive to Bring Core to At-Risk Students.

• In this 2-minute Teaching Channel video, a 7th grade teacher discusses the importance of helping students understand the goals of the common standards in English/Language Arts. And manages to get a Twilight book cover on the IWB!

• Students from NY to NC can help welcome this spring’s crop of 17 year cicadas to the surface by tracking ground temps in the next several weeks. WNYC is inviting folks to report the temps, watching for 64 degrees F when the current crop is set to emerge.  NPR’s Lizzy Duffy reports on the coming cicadapocalypse. Have your earplugs ready. April 4 2013 Update: The NYT Learning Network offers lessons and links to bring the cicadas into the classroom, more of less. With ear-straining sound effects.

• Who’s the April Fool? How about your students? Edutopia’s Matt Davis says that April 1 is the perfect day for “pulling an unexpected fast one on your students.” He points to six fun resources to help you prank (and teach) the kiddos on April Fools Day (or anytime!)

• Academic March Madness – another cool idea from middle grades educator Ian Byrd – considers the possibilities of determining the best of something, two things at a time. Spend some time at his idea-filled blog Byrdseed. Ever checked out the Differentiator?

• We were touched by these pictures of children around the world and their most prized possessions. A poignant reminder of childhood in all its different manifestations.

Dr. Edmund W. Gordon

• The Gordon Commission on the future of educational testing offers a 10-year plan to revolutionize student assessment — something that won’t happen, members say, with the soon-to-be-launched Common Core tests. The Commission, reports Education Week, “argues that future educators should use systems of aligned assessments, which would inform instruction through a balance of fine-grained classroom diagnostic tests, challenging tasks and projects, and even analytic tools to sift through background data produced by students in the classroom or online.”

• Teacher educator and AMLE author Jane Feber shares several clever teaching techniques that engaged students when she subbed in English and science classes. You’ll find more ideas in her book Student Engagement is FUNdamental.

• What would you say to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan if you met him in an elevator? Fifth grade teacher Megan Allen lays out the 2-minute version of her plan to transform education in this animated video.

• March is Middle Level Education Month, and we’ve pulled together resources and activities from a variety of organizations that support the education of young adolescents. The beginning of spring is a great time to celebrate kids in the middle grades who (as the NASSP has noted) “can be misunderstood, misguided, and even maddening—but they can also be magnificent.”

• The Common Core standards set ambitious goals for student research and expository and informational writing. In a new MiddleWeb book review, 6th grade teacher Kevin Hodgson wonders if the 2010 book Writing to Explore (Stenhouse, Gr. 3-8) can help teachers engage students and meet standards by blending the traditional research paper with narrative writing about adventures. See all our reviews here!

• Education Week has a new partnership with The Teaching Channel, and they’re sharing some of the TC’s best professional development videos. Here’s a short video demonstrating a classroom routine that helps 8th grade math students clarify concepts and prep for new learning.

• Middle school teacher Marsha Ratzel makes her case that student driven, inquiry rich learning can happen in the Common Core classroom. At the MindShift blog.

• Thinking backwards works when it comes to technology integration. Teacher and consultant Kristen Swanson walks through the steps to putting learning outcomes first and tech tools second in this SmartBlog on Education post.

• Larry Ferlazzo achieves something of an education blogging coup with his Dan Pink interview at Classroom Q&A. Pink applies some of the thinking that went into his new book To Sell Is Human to the teaching profession. One research-based observation: “…while teachers should work to understand their students are feeling, they should also work to understand what they’re thinking.”

• A new report from the US Dept of Education considers ways to help students develop the Grit, Tenacity & Perseverance needed to thrive in the 21st century. Read about the report and related resources at the Getting Smart blog.

• Thought about starting a Maker Space at your school? Not sure what that is? Learn more about the Maker movement and how schools are beginning to join in the fun at this Mind/Shift blog post (tips included).

• The MacArthur Foundation finds a digital divide that’s not based in access to technology. Closing it will be a challenge.

• Content mastery is important, says this international thinktank, but teachers need to go deeper using Seven Principles of Innovative Learning. “You may be proficient, but without adaptive expertise you can get stuck very quickly as the world shifts.” Thankfully there’s a practitioner’s guide. :)

• AMLE is offering a free chapter (a good one!) from Rick Wormeli’s new book of Collected Writings. Topic – Homework: How We Assign It.

• In her latest post at our STEM Imagineering blog, Anne Jolly riffs on several fascinating STEM-related jobs that don’t immediately come to mind during career counseling conversations. Legoland amusement park designer? Driver for Mars rover vehicles? Animatronic dinosaur maker? Globetrotting image-gatherer for a video game company? Cool!

• Mashing up the Scottish play?! Who better than middle schoolers? This teacher-authored (8th grade) NY Times Sunday Review column is a great read, as we learn how a performance of Macbeth helped convince some students that they doth “bang homework.”

• In an alternate view of Black History Month, journalist Deon Rabouin says the observance is a failure because it begins the story with Black people “in chains.”

• ASCD’s reference librarian highlights a new blog from Richard Byrne: iPad Apps for School. David Snyder says “it’s an opportune time for such a blog” with iPad outselling Macs in the school marketplace about 2 to 1.

• A new book from Stenhouse hits the middle grades sweet spot (5-9) and has an intriguing title: Caring Hearts & Critical Minds: Literature, Inquiry and Social Responsibility. All things we know ELA teachers are working hard to keep in their instruction. The entire book can be previewed at the Stenhouse site.

• Good tips from Rick Wormeli about how to classroom discussions to life at Middle E-Connections. He begins with a memorable movie scene!

• Grad students! JSTOR for free for everyone – enjoy up to three free articles every two weeks in JSTOR, the academic journal database. The Register & Read program will provide no-cost access to over 1.4 million journal articles.

• Good short article in the latest Middle Level Insider from AMLE — sixth grade teacher Brian Cook describes how he uses writing instruction “to encourage students to express their true feelings and emotions about what is going on in the world around them and to treat those feelings with respect.” He calls it Life-on-Life.

• In the new age of professional development, teachers can inspire teachers beyond the boundaries of time and space, says fifth grade teacher Susan L. Davis in this resource-rich post at the Getting Smart blog.

• Science teachers, STEM teachers — geek out with your students: littleBits is an opensource library of electronic modules that snap together with tiny magnets “for prototyping, learning, and fun.” Check out the demo video. Cited by MIT Media Lab as a techie learning trend for 2013. (Register to find out about the 15% educator discount.)

• “Data” is more than just a four-letter words, says MiddleWeb blogger Elizabeth Stein in this new article at Education Week Teacher. Elizabeth offers six ideas to help teachers and teams use data “as a powerful tool in teaching and learning.”

• You have until March 15 to apply for an Ezra Jack Keats Minigrant. The $500 grants encourage public school teachers and librarians to create “projects that foster creative expression, working together and interaction with a diverse community.”

• McREL’s Kristen Miller writes about the intersection of arts education and the Common Core standards in this ASCD article. Find more arts integration posts in a recent issue of ASCD Express.

• Valerie Strauss has posted President Obama’s plans for making schools safer, presented in his January 16 speech on controlling gun violence throughout the United States. The plans are taken from a White House release.  Included: more funding for school resource officers along with support of programs to strengthen emergency response, improve school climate, and increase mental health resources.

• More math! We overheard some folks praising this recent article at Ed Week Teacher — “The Talking Cure: Teaching Mathematical Discourse” — penned by long-time MiddleWeb friend Marsha Ratzel. Are you having significant conversations with your middle schoolers about mathematics?

• Reality-based online games may be the key to unlocking girls’ interests in math and science. Nearly 50% of online gamers are girls, who “need to see the connection from the classroom out into the real world,” says an NSF-funded researcher.

• From the earliest days of research on learning disabilities, writes Thomas Armstrong, “a multisensory strategy has been viewed as perhaps the best instructional intervention to use with students who have trouble reading and writing.” He highlights some Strength-Based Learning Strategies for Special Needs Students in this recent ASCD article.

• Do you know the difference between project-based learning and project-oriented learning? Ed Week Teacher’s Teaching Now blog can help. Liana Heitin recaps a MindShift article that shares the perspective of Azul Terronez, 8th grade humanities teacher at High Tech Middle in San Diego. There’s also a helpful teacher-made video. (Hint: in PBL, the project is the driver, not just the capstone.)

• Some fresh insight into student engagement, from blogger and Canadian teacher/ coach Shelley Wright, is gaining lots of favorable tweets this week. Here’s the post.

• Is Rick Wormeli’s new collection of writings worth 9¢ a page? You bet! And if you’re a member of the Association for Middle Level Education, you’ll get 20% off. The book includes many articles from Rick’s long-running Middle Ground magazine column and lots of other “crazy good stuff” to inspire and improve your practice. Find out more here.

• New Year resolutions are old-hat. Join middle grades teacher/blogger Bill Ferriter in the One Word 365 project, a proposal that we all choose a single focusing word for 2013. Bill’s word? See for yourself!

• Common Sense Media’s free Digital Passport resource provides online materials for kids and curriculum for teachers of grades 3-5 to help build students’ digital skills.

• Math teacher alert: The Math Reasoning Inventory (MRI) “is an online formative assessment tool designed to make teachers’ classroom instruction more effective.” How? One tool is the MRI Interview, where students “explain their thinking (and) reveal the strategies and understandings they use to compute mentally and make estimates.” Check it out, including the video library.

• In this Edutopia post, Terry Heick reflects on the challenges of web searches for everyone, including students. Teaching them how to search tops the list of priorities with giving them sites to search following behind.

• Here’s a timely Common Core topic from the latest issue of ASCD Express: Characteristics of Literacy-Rich Content-Area Classrooms. Find out what literacy-friendly classes look like in math, science and social studies.

• Two 6th graders are leading a national campaign to save the Chambered Nautilus, an endangered sea animal whose shell is prized by earring makers. Find out more about their effort to protect the 500-million year old creature at the Take Part website.

• What Kids Can Do interviews middle schoolers on their views of social and emotional learning: how interactions with peers and teachers impact their ability to succeed in school.

• In this five-minute video clip, reading expert Debbie Miller describes some of her new thinking, found in the 2nd edition of Reading with Meaning — including gradual release of responsibility and using learning targets to empower student readers.

• In this Middle Level iNSIDER article from AMLE, Jill Spencer outlines a process for setting norms for team teachers and explains how teachers can model these communications and learning techniques for  students.

• Susan Thomsen shares the annual “Best Children’s Books of 2012: A List of Lists and Awards” post at her Chicken Spaghetti blog. If you haven’t enjoyed this contribution to children’s literature before, you may be amazed at its comprehensiveness!

• Vicki Vinton, coauthor of What Readers Really Do, talks with Choice Literacy’s Franki Sibberson about leading students into deep reading, letting kids read without imposing established interpretations and avoiding strategies that distract from understanding. Vinton also raises warning flags about the impact of implementation of CCSS on reading.

• Ever heard of “Lab Lit”? In a new lesson plan, the NYT Learning Network poses the questions: “What can you learn about science from fiction? What can you learn about the elements of fiction from stories about the work of real scientists?” English and Science – together at last. And aligned with the Common Core!

• And speaking of the Common Core “wars” (see item below this one) here’s a thoughtful response from the front lines — written by 6th grade ELL teacher and author John T. Spencer — that lays out the pros and cons of Common Core implementation, from his perspective. At the WaPost Answer Sheet.

• More Common Core: Educators from all over – about 400 of them – are responding to ‘Common core sparks war over words’ by Lyndsey Layton in the Dec. 2 issue of the Washington Post. English teachers and ed profs as well as David Coleman have their say on how the CCSS on fiction versus nonfiction are being understood across the country.

• We were web-browsing recently when we came across a set of education-related “message” slides created by MiddleWeb friend Bill Ferriter, a sixth grade teacher in North Carolina who features some of these clever slides in his blog and PD talks. They’re posted in Flickr with a Creative Commons license, which means you’re free to use anything you like in your own presentations, with a nod to the Tempered Radical.

• Larry Ferlazzo’s latest series at his Classroom Q&A blog looks at “using ed tech in the learning process.” Readers are invited to respond and share practices of their own.

• It’s an odd thing that the laudable EduBlog Awards program (which showcases so many interesting blogs, wikis, apps and similar stuff we might otherwise overlook) doesn’t have a category for blogs and websites dedicated to “general” teaching and learning resources. That’s the best fit for MiddleWeb (for instance) and many other sites like Edutopia or the New York Times Learning Network or Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day, etc. Instead, sites like ours are slotted into a category called Best Blog on Educational Technology (or Best Ed Tech/Resources Blog, depending on where you look…note the slash). We were delighted to be a finalist in that category (or any category) just five months after the launch of our new site. But we can’t claim to be an ed-tech blog/site. Nor are we likely to be selected in such a category over the likes of Free Technology for Teachers! Maybe next year the wonderful EduBlogs folks will have time and opportunity to sort this out.

• Commenting on the ‘smackdown’ between fiction and nonfiction reading as efforts to implement CCSS take hold,  Sara Mosle concludes,  ‘What schools really need isn’t more nonfiction but better nonfiction, especially that which provides good models for student writing.’ She offers reading suggestions in this NYT post.

• Skype in the Classroom has grown since its 2011 launch to include 43,000 teachers and 2,400 suggested lesson plans that include the use of the free, Internet video-chatting program. Time Magazine Tech Blog via SmartBrief

• Tweenteacher Heather Wolpert-Gawron reflects on what it might mean to be a “career teacher” in a world of accelerating change, when things are constantly being remade. How long can we last?

• Over at MakerMom: a collection of top resources to help interest tweens in STEM and engineering topics — collected from the popular #stemchat discussions on Twitter.

• Children’s author and writing teacher Ralph Fletcher shares some ideas about encouraging boys to write, in a new post at the Classroom Q&A blog. One tip: don’t view boys as “defective girls.” Barf.

• Education Week finds that teacher educators are beginning to pay more attention to who they invite to be cooperating teachers and how they work with them.

• We spotted this amazing resource while cruising some 2012 EduBlog Awards nominations: The Twitteraholic’s Ultimate Guide to tweets, hashtags, and all things Twitter.

• Did you read the Ed Week story about George Lucas and his plan to invest much of the $4 billion from the sale of Lucasfilms Ltd. into education causes? As the story notes, we can learn a lot about Lucas’ views about teaching and learning from his GLEF-sponsored website Edutopia.

• We’re loving this clever and pointed video, The Insider’s Guide to the Teenage Brain, created by the What Kids Can Do organization. It’s all about how kids learn best, and how they LIKE to learn. Short enough to share with faculty!

• If you’ve had some difficulty keeping up with all the national education news this year (we sure have), Larry Ferlazzo has a good round-up at the Washington Post’s Answer Sheet blog. How did we miss that a teacher defeated a pro-voucher incumbent for state supt of public instruction in Indiana?!

• The newly launched Powerful Learning Press is offering a free 132-pp book, The Connected Teacher: Powering Up, to celebrate. It includes short essays by an impressive group of middle grades educators, including Marsha Ratzel, Brian Crosby, Patti Grayson, Becky Bair, Jenny Luca, Renee Hawkins, Lyn Hilt and Chris Preston.

• Edutopia is featuring this collection of authentic assessment tools and resources, developed by New York’s School of the Future. Included are some good examples of teachers’ Do Your Own (DYO) Assessments, Rubrics, Data, and Data Analysis.

• Middle school girls are less likely than boys to see STEM occupations as options for them, according to a study by Simmons College and Girl Scouts of Eastern MA. A co-author concludes: “When parents tell their middle schoolers ‘do whatever makes you happy,’ this message is being heard through gendered stereotypes about careers.”

• In her NYT Learning Network post, Suzie Boss finds project based learning options in understanding uneven food distribution that leaves many Americans with limited nutritional choices as the country celebrates Thanksgiving.

• Education Week reports that advocates are squaring off on both sides of the Fiction vs. Non-fiction debate, as the Common Core standards roll into schools like the tsunami they surely are. But others wonder if it isn’t possible to find some high middle ground.

• A recent MiddleWeb SmartBrief reported that Harvard’s Project Zero is partnering with the Oakland CA schools to investigate the theory that kids learn best when they’re actively engaged in designing and creating projects to explore concepts. The original story appears at the must-read Mind/Shift blog.

• Rube Goldberg machines (complex systems to carry out a simple task) are fascinating to watch and fun to build. And there’s usually plenty of physical science to talk about! Check out Larry Ferlazzo’s collection of links and videos.

• The Stenhouse Publishers newsletter is highlighting a good Educational Leadership article by one of their authors, Anne Upczak-Garcia, describing her cross-discipline teaching approach with 4th and 5th grade English learners. She uses science as an example and provides lots of practical detail (that we know teachers love).

• Here’s an informative post from teacher Mr. Lands, explaining where #STEM education came from and why the heck it’s important. We’re pretty sure our STEM Imagineering blogger Anne Jolly will agree. Also visit Mr. Lands’ math & science oriented blog, The Landscape of Learning. Clever.

• At the Daily Show Jon Stewart focuses on an intermediate school’s highly successful chess program and the budget ax that felled it, reported in a documentary. Teacher evaluation enters the discussion.

• Sixth grade teacher and popular blogger (The Tempered Radical) Bill Ferriter suggests six ways students can use digital tools to help change the world. At the SmartBlog on Education.

• Get your Ed Hashtags here, infographically. Joyce Valenza shares an infographic from OnlineCollegeCourses.com. Not sure what an #edhashtag might be? On a macro-level, it’s the thing that transforms Twitter from silly chitchat to awe-inspiring professional development tool!

• Rumor has it that this Ed Leadership article on student motivation by Larry Ferlazzo — Eight Things Skilled Teachers Think, Say, and Do — has been a top read at the @ascd website for a couple of weeks.

• Congratulations to our Two Teachers in the Room (authors of our new MW blog about co-teaching) for making the Top 5 Posts in CEC SmartBrief last week!

• What makes group work work? Educator/speaker/writer Diana A. Laufenberg shares ideas at her blog, Living the Dream.

• At Ed Week, educator Paul Barnwell lays out ‘Five Reasons Why Teaching Is Still Great.’

• Middle grades math teachers will want to check out the Twitter hashtag group #msSunFun, aka Sunday Funday. Interested bloggers gather around their favorite tweet reader each Sunday to chat about a specific math-related topic they’ve recently blogged about. Here’s a recent sample of some resource content coming out of the group: iPad Apps and Other Technology in the Mathematics Classroom.

• American Libraries Magazine reports the online publication of Beyond Literacy, a thought experiment on what will replace reading and writing.

• Lots of buzz building about this short film on The Future of Technology and Education, which features some leading thinkers about creativity and learning in the 21st century. Here’s the teaser: “We’re still teaching our kids using a 20th-century paradigm, but many visionaries–like the ones in this video–have plans to take our advances in computing and technology and use them to explode the idea of what education can be.”

• What do plankton have to do with voting patterns? Give your students an opportunity to practice critical thinking with this post by Radiolab’s Robert Krulwich.

• If you’re a principal or district leader thinking about iPad implementation in your school, you’ll likely find many of your questions — and a good many answers — in this Edutopia post and accompanying comments. And then there’s the iPad Mini.

• At his Edutopia blog, urban middle school teacher Jose Vilson recently offered five principles for assuring that all students can enter into math studies, and also for creating the conditions for math success.”

• Angela Maiers’ list of 12 Things Kids Want from Their Teachers is enjoying a second life on Twitter this week. Here’s the February 2012 post.

• Great interview at Ed Week Teacher with National Teacher of the Year Rebecca Mieliwocki. We like her balanced view on the importance of developing career paths for teachers and the need for school leaders to put more energy and effort into helping teachers develop the knowledge and skills they need to implement the Common Core. Bill Gates? At least he took notes.

• The computer-adaptive testing being developed in connection with Common Core standards has advantages for students at either end of the ability continuum, says this article from Ed Week’s Digital Directions, but presents challenges as well.

• Do your students use ProCon.org, the great nonpartisan website that presents all sides of important issues, in a style conducive to debate preparation? They’re having a video contest (gr 6-12) and awarding a prize to the best 1-2 minute production describing “why you love ProCon.org.” Deadline extended to Dec. 16! Love up on this great site.

• As part of a letter-writing campaign by public educators, aimed at the White House and the US Department of Education, a Vermont principal penned this plea, published in the Living in Dialogue blog at Education Week.

• Be sure to check out our Common Core resource roundup, where we’ll be adding useful updates from time to time. Recent addition: Which CCSS national assessment will your state use?

• One more from Mind/Shift: A journalist published in places like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, who also happens to be a high school senior in NY State, does a nice piece of reporting about Why Learning Should Be Messy.

• The excellent Mind/Shift blog (“How We Will Learn”) has a good article about the emotional and social learning needs of preteens and teens. How Parents and Schools Can Help Build Kids’ Emotional Strength.

• You are not alone. Teacher Roxanna Elden describes what (widely shared) teacher nightmares mean, from a non-scientific point of view.  Dream interpretation! Free for 3 months from Pi Lambda Theta’s Education Horizons Magazine. (posted 10 2012). Another fully available story in this issue: How to Reach & Teach Black Males.

• The latest issue of AMLE’s Middle Ground magazine has a timely focus: The Common Core in the Middle Grades. You’ll need to be a member to read ALL of the articles, but the centerpiece story, by Susan Rakow, offers a good overview and is freely available.

• Seven Ideas for Meaningful Parent-Teacher Conferences is another good read from the Teacher in a Strange Land. Nancy Flanagan’s insightful suggestions are a perfect complement to our Resource Roundup on parent conferences.

• GRIT the new rigor?  Valerie Strauss responds to Paul Tough’s new book, “How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character.”  In ‘Grit’ becoming new reform mantra — unfortunately’ she offers a post by Katie Osgood, a teacher of students in an inpatient psychiatric hospital. Next comes Alfie Kohn’s post,  ‘Do kids really learn from failure? Why conventional wisdom may be wrong.’

• Have you introduced your students to ProCon.org? The nonpartisan nonprofit is hosting the ‘ProCon.org National Student Video Contest’ which offers cash and others prizes to students, including 6^th – 8^th graders, who create a 1 to 2 minute video telling why they love ProCon.  Deadline is Nov. 16. Students can learn about the contest here.

• In Part 3 of the NYT’s Electoral Dysfunction series, Mo Rocca takes on the Electoral College in ‘print’ and in a video featuring professors and 3^rd graders. Get a glimpse of its origins and some takes on reform.

• You can use this interactive infographic from Archives.com to follow what Americans found worth recording through all 23 census questionnaires. Three clicks lead to comparisons of housing, education and employment in 1880 and 2000. Students who click on the Search option will be taken to a page to register for the Archive.com product.

• On PBS Newshour 2012 TOY Rebecca Mieliwocki, Burbank, California 7th grade English teacher, comments on teacher development over time, the excitement of teaching middle grades kids, and the problems with standardized tests.

• We hear lots of talk about “digital literacy,” writes PD consultant Mike Fisher, but we need to drill deeper to achieve the sixth capacity of College and Career Readiness: “Students use technology and digital media strategically and capably.” Fisher says Solution Fluency is really the goal.

• At the Langwitches blog, learn how teachers are using Twitter in their intermediate grades classrooms. You’ll also find links to resources for other grade levels.

• Quality feedback is a critical element of good teaching. This special report from ASCD SmartBrief has plenty of resources to help teachers and school leaders sharpen their focus on “directed, positive, specific and tangible” feedback.

• Writing consultant Vicki Vinton, who illustrates her post  ‘More Ways to Skin the Information Writing Cat’  in a most memorable way, offers three ideas for helping students “write engaging nonfiction pieces that explain and inform.” Vinton also suggests mentor texts “that students can study for structure and craft.”

• If you love to talk about kids and books, check out the monthly hashtag chat #titletalk featuring Book Whisperer Donalyn Miller and guests. The next live chat (on Twitter) is set for Sunday, Sept 30 at 8 pm Eastern.

• Why do leaves change color in the fall? Richard Byrne points to several good resources to help answer that question, including a video from the Maine Forest Service.

• Jan Burkins, publisher of the website Literacyhead, shares insights about making connections across multiple literacies in a recent interview posted on the Stenhouse Blog.

• See what you think of the NYT’s Learning Network’s teacher created tasks following the Common Core standards. The new weekly feature follows activities created by two 9^th grade teachers.

• Grade configuration has been a hot topic for our visitors since the earliest days of MiddleWeb. What’s better, K-6, K-8, 6-8, Jr. Hi? Here’s one of the latest papers we’ve seen on the subject — based only on data from Florida. Major conclusion: “Our findings clearly support ongoing efforts in urban school districts to convert standalone elementary and middle schools into schools with K-8 configurations.” Free download.

• The Internet Scout recommends an exploration of Croak.It, a web tool that allows you to create and send out audio clips via any number of social media networks.

• If you have science students who get excited about snakes and turtles and iguanas and such — (or just have an interest in conversation and endangered species), you’ll want to explore the Herpetological Conservation and Biology site — most especially the photo gallery!

Helping girls identify their strengths and build on them is central to Lisa Hinkelman’s career. She is the Founder and Director of Ruling Our eXperiences, Inc., a non-profit with thousands of participants in urban, suburban, rural, and parochial schools. ROX is a regional organization focused on equipping girls with the information and skills necessary to live healthy, independent, and violence-free lives.

Dr. Hinkelman, who earned a PhD in Counselor Education from The Ohio State University, teaches Counseling Children and Legal and Ethical Issues in Counseling and conducts research into girls’ experiences at the university. In addition, she consults regularly for schools, organizations, and agencies on the critical issues impacting girls. This year she published Girls Without Limits: Helping Girls Achieve Healthy Relationships, Academic Success, and Interpersonal Strength.

We asked Lisa Hinkelman to share her findings about girls and her recommendations for helping girls realize their potential.

1. Why girls? Please tell us what about your experiences and education has led you to seven years of research and writing about girls’ lives and possibilities.

My interest in working with girls and women started when I was in undergraduate school. I attended Chatham College, a women’s college in Pittsburgh, PA where I had the opportunity to work with some fantastic professors who really helped me explore my options and identify my passions. Dr. Peggy Stubbs was my professor for a Psychology of Women course, and for me, that was one of the first times that things ‘clicked’ for me – that I realized how differently men and women move through the world and the unique challenges that face girls and women.

Dr. Stubbs connected me with opportunities to engage in very meaningful ways with girls and women. From coaching middle school girls’ basketball to volunteering for a rape crisis center, I was learning so much about the developmental, social, and interpersonal issues that were impacting girls and women. These early experiences proved to be the impetus for me to go to graduate school for counseling, and then begin a career of working with and researching the experiences of diverse girls and women.

During graduate school and my early years as a faculty member, I was working as a counselor in a charter school for girls who were involved in the juvenile justice system and was also working with adult women in outpatient counseling. I quickly realized that the issues that the girls were facing were markedly similar to the issues that adult women were facing. Girls were experiencing low self-esteem and self-concept, difficulty in relationships with other girls, and challenges in dating relationships with boys. The adult women that I was working with were experiencing the same sorts of challenges!

I began in earnest to try to deconstruct the variables that impact girls’ self-esteem and confidence. I wanted to understand how girls develop strength and confidence. How do the experiences that they have shape their sense of self? And, ultimately, how can we expose girls to the information and experiences that will have a positive and lasting impact on their lives?

2. What are your sources? What research by others did you consider, and how did you go about reaching out to girls?

There are so many scholars, authors, and researchers who have immersed themselves in understanding the lives of girls: Carol Gilligan, Lyn Mikel Brown, Rachel Simmons, Rosalind Wiseman, Peggy Orenstein. My educational years have been spent reading the works of these great authors, and incorporating their philosophies and approaches in my own work with girls.

I did not start working with and researching girls with a book in mind. I wanted to develop programming and interventions that would help girls navigate their challenging adolescent years and develop a strong sense of themselves and their options. I started a research study in 2006 when I was a full-time faculty member in Counselor Education at The Ohio State University. With the assistance of many talented professionals and graduate students, I developed a program for adolescent girls called ROX – which stands for Ruling Our eXperiences.

ROX was developed to address the critical issues that impact girls during adolescence – body image, self-esteem, healthy communication, girl bullying/relational aggression, safety and sexual violence prevention, academic and career development and leadership. It is a 20-week evidence-based curriculum that is delivered in schools by trained and licensed facilitators.

More than 3,000 girls have participated in the ROX program over the past seven years and the thousands of data sets from urban, suburban, and rural girls who attend public, private, and parochial schools have informed Girls Without Limits.

In the book, I was able to combine the academic framework of an extensive multi-year quantitative and qualitative data collection with the relevant, compelling, and heartfelt contributions of girls in elementary, middle, and high school. I took the time to listen to what girls actually have to say, and I allowed them to share their thoughts, feelings, and experiences without judging them or telling them what to do.

In addition, I conducted interviews and focus groups with over 100 teachers, parents, and counselors about the challenges that they face in raising, educating, and supporting girls.  Then I worked to provide a context for adults to increase their awareness, inventory their behaviors, and implement new strategies to be more communicative, empowering, and effective in their interactions with girls.

3. Beyond the cultural and regional differences you documented across the country, what challenges did you find that girls – particularly young adolescents – share?

I had the opportunity to talk with girls who are incarcerated, who are homeless, who live in middle-class homes, and who live in mansions. I learned from girls who are in two-parent families, foster care, single-parent families, divorced families, and who live with their grandparents. I spent time listening to girls in very poor urban schools, middle-class suburban schools, elite independent schools, and low-income rural schools. Girls in public, parochial, private, and charter schools participated in my research and shared their thoughts, feelings, and opinions with me.

I learned that there are vast differences among girls in regards to their experiences, their thoughts, and their opinions. Girls’ knowledge of various topics is based upon the environment where they are raised. Depending upon what they have been exposed to, girls’ perceptions of the opportunities available to them can vary greatly.

The one thing that continued to amaze me as I talked to more and more girls was that the fundamental issues that are facing girls are much more universal than they are different.”

But the one thing that continued to amaze me as I talked to more and more girls was that the fundamental issues that are facing girls are much more universal than they are different. While girls can have extremely different experiences based upon their socioeconomic status, race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, family composition, or mental health and ability, I have found that the experience of girlhood, while unique for every girl, looks amazingly similar for girls across the country.

Despite the vast differences between and among girls, the commonalities and shared experiences strongly outweigh the differences. Negotiating friendships and fitting in, experiencing insecurity about one’s body, managing dating relationships and sexual pressure, and dealing with the social, emotional, and cognitive changes of adolescence seem to be universal issues for many American teen girls. Girls are under pressure and are at-risk for negative outcomes simply because they are female. Girls are more likely than boys to: dislike their body, be on a diet, feel pressure to look sexy, experience sexual violence, have low self-esteem, experience depression, and attempt suicide.

Despite these challenges, we know that girls are strong and resilient. They consistently exceed the limited expectations that are placed upon them by society and the media, and they continue to amaze and inspire us. We also know that girls are better able to fully realize their potential when they have caring adults in their lives who nurture, challenge, encourage, and support them.

4. For the parent/teacher/counselor who picks up your book, what will they find that will help them work more effectively with girls?

My goal in writing this book is to give a voice to girls who often feel that their thoughts and opinions are unheard and devalued. There are so many professionals, psychologists, teachers, and authors who have been telling us what girls want, what girls need, and what we should do with the girls in our lives, but few have taken the time to survey and talk to thousands of girls from many backgrounds.

I wanted to know: What’s going through girls’ minds? What do they dream about? What fills them with insecurity? What do they think are the big things going on their lives that adults don’t understand? And ultimately, what can we do to help them? I want to provide adults with a glimpse into the lives of girls, as described by the girls themselves, and offer concrete strategies for how adults can better understand, communicate with, and motivate the girls in their lives.

Girls Without Limits helps parents and other influential adults in their lives “get it” by developing a real understanding of what girls think and feel about their daily challenges. I wrote this book to give girls a voice because they often feel no one is paying attention to their thoughts and opinions.

Along with what girls say about their own lives, the book provides useful action strategies to help parents, educators, counselors and other adults in their lives listen to, communicate with and motivate them. The book provides activities, case studies, reflections, and current research on various topics impacting girls and each chapter ends with a section entitled “What Can We Do?” that provides concrete strategies that can be immediately implemented with the girls in your life.

5. How can adults – especially educators in the upper elementary and middle grades – help girls realize their potential?

I think there are so many different ways that adults can be positive forces in the lives of girls, and many of these suggestions and tips are found throughout the book. But the final chapter, ‘What Girls Need,’ provides an overview of ways that we can provide girls with a safe, supportive, and limitless life.  Here is a bullet-list of the topics that are discussed in greater detail:

• Girls need to be the expert on their own lives.
• Girls need adults to communicate openly.
• Girls need opportunities to improve their confidence, self-esteem, and self-efficacy.
• Girls need exposure to realistic and positive female role models.
• Girls need specific praise and constructive reinforcement.
• Girls need us to believe them when they tell us things that we may not want to believe.
• Girls need us to take their concerns seriously and not minimize their experiences.
• Girls need help in learning how to establish healthy boundaries.
• Girls need hope for the future.

We want to help girls see beyond their current circumstances or situations, no matter how difficult, and envision a rich and fulfilling life for themselves. We know that girls’ experiences can be very different, and their lives can be full of difficulty and chaos, but girls are very resilient and possess the internal fortitude to rise above the situations where they find themselves to ultimately construct a life that they love.

Girls need to know that they can be anything that they want to be, but we have to support them to achieve these goals and prepare them for what they might face in their journey to realize their aspirations. We want girls to have access to the widest range of possibilities and options for their lives.

We want girls to love being girls, not because they can wear dresses and get their hair done but rather because being a girl means that they can be anything they want to be, do anything they want to do, and go anywhere they want to go. We want them to understand that being a girl does not mean that you’re limited in any way but rather that you are full of possibilities. Our role is to help girls see their own potential and to help them see the strength in themselves that they have difficulty identifying. We want girls to find value in themselves, so they can add value to the world.

The Art of Coaching: Effective Strategies for School Transformation
by Elena Aguilar
(Wiley/Jossey Bass, 2013 – Learn more)

Reviewed by Katie Gordon

Having Elena Aguilar’s The Art of Coaching in my bag has been like having my own coach nearby.

Just as no practiced coach would try to tackle everything at once, I don’t recommend trying to devour this book in a single sitting, or even a single week. Each section in this substantial four-part book is like a coaching cycle, and each chapter within those sections is like a handful of coaching sessions. Aguilar poses pointed questions and offers multiple illustrations from her own coaching experiences. It takes time to digest each of these. To give the book its due, I feel as though I’d need to return to it over the span of an entire year.

Aguilar offers several features that would make it easy to use The Art of Coaching as a reference and benefit from various aspects of her collected experience. Each chapter begins with a “Read this when” that includes two or three bulleted examples of who could benefit and in which circumstances. For example, in the chapter on directive coaching conversations, the “Read this when” advises readers to visit this content when “You want strategies to push your client’s thinking; you sense that he might need a stronger nudge than the ones you’ve been trying” (195).

Another useful feature is the shaded box for administrators. These boxes indicate when the upcoming information may be useful to administrators in their roles as growth leaders. Still other shaded boxes highlight key points essential to the topic at hand. Aguilar’s appendices are also valuable as a quick reference to the coaching lenses and sentence stems for coaching conversations. There’s even a transformational coaching rubric that we might want to flip open at a moment’s notice.

Valuable to coaches in every setting

Initially I felt as though Aguilar may be using more words than strictly necessary to convey her point, but as I read beyond the first chapter her voice became increasingly conversational and inviting. Honestly, I’m not sure if her voice changed or if my ability to hear her altered as it might in a true coaching session.

I initially anticipated a distance between her work and my own, because my suburban experience has been so different from the kind of urban environment that Aguilar references. Yet I soon found that I shared her view of coaching as a transformative experience with the possibility of helping not only a teacher, but the education profession to become something more than it is.

At first I shrugged off the coaching lens of “systemic oppression” because it seemed far removed from the schools in which I’ve taught. But as I read the framing questions, I saw it had relevance for any school or system. The questions probe where the power resides. Feelings of agency or powerlessness can exist regardless of racial or socioeconomic diversity. And building an individual’s agency is key to building their capacity.

There IS more to it!

The coaching that Aguilar describes and provides touches on the central facets of the coaching role: building relationships and trust, developing a coaching plan, coaching activities, and conversations for different models of coaching including directive and facilitative. Her book addresses precisely the areas of my coaching in which I felt this year that “there must be more to it.” There is! And Aguilar has laid it out from beginning to end.

I will gladly carry this book with me through my second year as a coach. I have given myself permission to begin from where I am, but this will be the resource that helps me move forward.

Katie Gordon just completed her first year as an elementary reading consultant and coach in Southbury, CT, splitting her time between building the reading capacity of students and the teaching capacity of colleagues. She writes: “I come to coaching from 10 years in middle and high school classrooms, during which time I struggled to find the answers for the challenges my own students were facing. Their struggles led me to read copiously and eventually enroll in a sixth year program in reading.”

by Frank W. Baker

My first job after college was in television news: I was a reporter and every day I had to write a script which was used as the guide to edit the video that would eventually become my “story” for that night’s newscast. Little did I know back in 1977 that years later I would be encouraging classroom teachers to teach their students not only about news (and other media), but also about the important role that the writing process plays in creating all media, including still and motion pictures.

Now some would argue that photography does not involve writing, but I would beg to differ. News photographers write captions explaining their images, for example. Even the great photographers Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange and Annie Liebowitz all had plenty to say (in writing) about their iconic work. We’ve all heard the expression “a picture is worth a thousand words” — and sometimes it really requires words to fully bring visual media to life.

The need to interpret and manipulate media has been identified as one of the “new literacies,” and many educators have discovered how to engage and motivate students using both media and technology. The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) is among the most active educational organizations recognizing the power of visual media and is active in recommending that teachers include “non-print” texts in instruction. The new Common Core ELA standards also include references to media (although they could use more).

All media starts as writing

All media start out as writing. I made that “discovery” some years ago after reading this quote from international education consultant Heidi Hayes Jacobs:

“If video is how we are communicating and persuading in this new century, why aren’t more students writing screenplays as part of their schoolwork?”

Think about that for a moment. Our students are enamored of watching television and movies (even if how and where they watch differs dramatically today from how many adults grew up accessing those media). They see video and film all of the time. But how many of them realize that their favorite TV show or movie originated as words on a page?

In my media literacy workshops around the country, I remind educators that our students only know what they see on the screen —  the final product. They rarely get a chance to witness how a production gets onto the screen — the process.

Digital storytelling begins with words on a page – be it paper or electronic. Many of our students want to push “record” on their camcorders, smart phones or e-tablets before they’ve ever written a word on a script. And that’s backwards. The script guides what’s seen (and heard) on the screen, not vice-versa.

Teachers today need to listen to Heidi Hayes Jacobs and get students involved in the kind of writing that leads to multimedia production. If you’re an educator reading this, my blunt statement might frustrate you, because you’ve probably not had any prior training that would make you more comfortable (and effective) in teaching scriptwriting or screenwriting.

I don’t want that to be an obstacle to your moving forward. After reading Jacobs’ quote, I created the “Scriptwriting In The Classroom” resource for my Media Literacy Clearinghouse website to provide teachers with some ideas, encouragement and guidance in this area. Here’s some of what I had to say.

Advertising scripts

I maintain that most ads tell a story.  Consider the following:

You see a print ad from a magazine for a new car speeding out of town. You know the car is going fast because the background has been blurred. The story — or at least what the advertiser is trying to communicate here — is that owning this new car will help you escape the confines of the hustle-and-bustle of a hectic city life.

I always imagine ad writers (like the ones portrayed in AMC TV’s Mad Men) sitting around a table, brainstorming “the story” which will eventually become the words, slogans and images of the eventual ad. Of course, most of us have never actually seen the ad writers at work: we only see their completed product.

For commercials, ad writers use a two-column script with the words audio and video at the top of each column. One 8 X11 sheet of paper represents a 30-second commercial. When teachers and students begin to create a commercial, I caution them to ignore the video column (for the time being) because it is the audio (the words, sounds, music) which must be written first. What do you want your audience to know? What do you want them to remember? After the words are finalized, the script goes into production and then filming can begin, creating images best suited for the messages embedded in the script.

(At my website, you can see examples of several commercial scripts and download a two column script template.)

Ideas for The Classroom

Your students have seen thousands of ads in their lifetime (perhaps tens of thousands) but they may have never considered them as pieces of writing. So here’s a good place to start. Why not assign students different TV programs and have them document the types of ads that are shown. What do they notice about the writing going on “behind” the commercial. What words are chosen? What themes have the writers selected? (This activity also reveals demographic information: who the program is targeting.)

If students cannot record the ads for repeated viewing, have them search for the ads on YouTube, a popular location for advertisers who hope to reach audiences beyond a specific broadcast.

Students could attempt to recreate the “script” for the ad (filling in the two column script template) and be prepared to talk about key words, phrases, sounds and other noteworthy information.

Teachers can also assign students a project in which they are given print ads for a product and tasked with creating a video script for the TV commercial. What techniques might they wish to incorporate in order to attract or persuade the audience? How can they best describe what they have mind, in writing, so that the producer/director can make the ad?

Students should consider who the audience(s) might be for the product as well as what television show, web page or movie might feature the ad. In other words, they should choose an audience and shape their work accordingly.

Screenplays: Scripts for TV & the Movies

Page from TKAM script with Gregory Peck’s handwritten notes. (Click to enlarge)

Few ELA textbooks include any references to the scriptwriting process for television or film. As a result, most students have not been exposed to screenplays, but I believe they can learn much from them.

On my website, teachers can find a good example of what a screenplay looks like. Some time ago, I created a film study guide to the classic film To Kill A Mockingbird. A sample page from the screenplay reveals that these kinds of scripts include just two elements: dialogue and action.

Students hoping to write their own screenplays will certainly want to become familiar with the screenwriting format, as well as the most common codes and conventions. One activity for students might be to take a brief fictional story and “write the screenplay,” separating the conversational (dialogue) and descriptive (atmosphere, action) elements.

Recommended resources

Today, many new theatrical releases are accompanied by companion books which contain scripts as well as features on pre-production, scouting of locations, costumes, makeup, editing, special effects and more. A search at Amazon or Barnes & Noble will reveal many options suitable for classroom use.

In mid-May, The Hollywood Reporter published a special Writers Issue, featuring writers from both television and film. THR profiled Damon Lindelof, the screenwriter of “Star Trek Into Darkness.” The magazine also reunited the writing staffs of “The X Files,” “Murphy Brown,” “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” and “The Shield” — some of the more iconic, and well-written television series of recent decades.

Websites such as Script-o-Rama, The Daily Script, and Simply Scripts offer opportunities for teachers and students to read actual scripts and to study some of the codes and conventions common to screenplays. Magazines such as Script and Creative Screenwriting offer timely articles and essays on contemporary films and frequently contain excerpts of screenplays.

I encourage teachers to seriously consider the need to include media-related writing in the curriculum. I think you’ll find your students actively engaged and more interested in creating their own media productions. The results might be a more active, critical viewer and consumer. And you will be helping students build a new literacy that will serve them well in a future where information creation and delivery is certain to be increasingly visual.

Frank W. Baker is a media literacy education consultant and the author of three books, including Media Literacy In the K-12 Classroom (ISTE, 2012). A consultant to the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), Baker maintains the nationally recognized Media Literacy Clearinghouse website and conducts media literacy workshops at conferences, schools and districts across the United States. He can be reached at fbaker1346@aol.com.

by Elizabeth Stein

As the school year comes to a close, teachers everywhere think about how students have evolved over the school year.

We say, “Wow, Tyler really improved his writing skills.” “Lauren really built her stamina for reading longer texts.” Additionally, we say things like, “I wish we had more time to guide Maya through understanding those math concepts until she was more independent in applying them.”

We think about students as individuals. And why wouldn’t we? That’s exactly what we are supposed to do. And we know that the key is to use our knowledge of our students’ individual needs and strengths all year long to provide effective instruction. That’s what the Universal Design for Learning helps us to do. UDL guides educators to truly understand and design for learners’ needs. UDL is all about learner variability. And for me, there is no other way I want to teach.

But I know, I know, summertime is here. It’s a time to have barbecues, go on vacations, visit with friends, read our list of summer reading books, and take trips to the beach. So what am I doing talking about UDL? Now that summer is here we should be in “beach and pool” mode. I say we do both.

Summertime…and I’ve got planning on my mind

Even though it’s summer, it’s also a time when we begin to plan for the upcoming school year. And for me that means I’m thinking about UDL — constantly! Not surprisingly, I see connections everywhere–even on a typical relaxing summer day.

Through my passionate study of UDL over the past few years, I’ve noticed that the use of analogies is an effective way to introduce the concept of UDL to those new to the idea.

Todd Rose, the co-founder and president of Project Variability as well as a faculty member at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, shares this video about the necessity for considering learner variability through all phases of the learning process.

Rose uses two effective analogies ( a shoe, and a Rubik’s cube) to bring forth the value of variability. Here’s another analogy I’d like to offer…

Now that summer is here, it’s easy to imagine a beach. I know it’s easier for me than some colleagues in the midwest, since I live on Long Island NY. But go with me here for awhile. If you’re not near a beach, think “lake” or “community pool.”

Let’s connect our water-related recreation to the fact that UDL is about “removing barriers in the learning environment” so that all students have access to the information in a way that maximizes student’s strengths and ability to learn.

Our trip to the beach

Imagine a trip to the beach. A typical person would need items such as:

• a bathing suit
• towel
• blanket
• water
• snacks/lunch/beverage
• sunscreen
• a watch to keep track of time
• book

Now let’s take a closer look at some of these items on the list as we imagine a group of 25-30 people going to the beach. Consider the bathing suit. (This analogy may seem a bit crazy, but I think it’s one you will never forget. The mere absurdity of it alone will create a strong memory gem to help you to remember the necessity of UDL in the classroom!)

It goes without saying that we would never expect a group of 30 people to wear the same style or size bathing suit. Just plain ridiculous. We also would never expect the same group of 30 to pack the same snack, lunch, or beverage. There are many variables that result in the fact that people need to pack different foods and beverages. And we can be pretty certain that in this group of 30 some will want to tan and use a low-SPF sunning lotion, while others will range up to 50 or even 100 SPF.

Now think of your favorite beach read. Again, we would never expect this group of 30 to read the same book at the beach. Just plain silly, unless you’re planning a particularly sandy meeting of your book club.

I think you see where I’m going with this, don’t you?

Let’s take a group of 30 students. Why would we expect all 30 to experience the learning process in the same way? We would never expect our 30 beach goers to experience their hours at the beach in the same way. Some people would want to stay in direct sun the whole time, some swim, some sit under the umbrella, some read. The process of experiencing the objective of having a relaxing day at the beach is different for all–but the overall objective is the same–relaxing at the beach.

Individual variability is expected, honored, and embraced for a group of 30 beach goers. It should be just as easy for us to see that individual variability needs to be honored and embraced for a group of 30 different learners in the classroom.

Summer plans can pave the way for UDL

In addition to my plans for enjoying the lazy days of summer, my plans include participating in this online UDL summer course. I’ve been reading about and researching UDL on my own for the past few years, and I’m excited to formalize my understanding.

In addition, I invited one of my co-teachers (the one I mentioned in this post) and she agreed to join me! The slow and steady steps I am taking to bring the UDL mindset to my district are beginning to produce that collaborative feel I’ve been hoping for. And that’s how positive change happens–with collaboration!

Here’s how you may get started

• Visit the Center for Special Technology website (CAST) to peruse and delight in the art of considering learner variability.
• Read my past post, “Chiseling a Teaching Masterpiece” to get the gist of UDL from a practical classroom perspective.
• Create a free account at CAST UDL Lesson Builder to begin thinking about how to plan your lessons the UDL way!
• Join Mindy Johnson, Katie Novak, Ron Rogers, Kit Hard and me for our Twitter chat on UDL. It is the 1st and 3rd Thursday of each month. Our next chat is Thursday 6/20, from 8:00-8:30 EST. Use #udlchat to join in on the rich discussions! See you there!

And my hope is that the next time you plan your trip to the beach, you will feel a mysterious urge to start planning for learner variability for the upcoming school year!

The best part is, you do not have to do it alone. Find colleagues to plan with, find online sources to help you. And PLEASE come back here to share your experiences, ask questions, and support colleagues. Collaboration is the only way. Until we meet again…

by Anne Jolly

Headline: The need for STEM workers climbs

Okay, things are getting serious, and I’m still on the girl-power bandwagon.

In the last few years STEM has literally exploded across our national, regional, and local scenes, both in our education and workforce areas. A Georgetown University study reveals that occupations in STEM fields are the second-fastest growing in the nation. (Health occupations are first.) This raises the obvious question: Are we producing enough STEM workers to staff the workforce of expanding STEM industries?

You probably know the answer – No. Check out the numbers: The National Science Foundation estimates that about five million people now work directly in STEM fields — just over 4 percent of our workforce. Think about how much of our economic innovation and productivity depends on that small percentage of workers.

Our nation will have more than 8.6 million STEM-related jobs available in 2018, and three million of those jobs may be unfilled – or at least unfilled with American citizens. The National Math and Science Initiative points out that we already rely heavily on foreign-born workers to fill the leaks in our STEM pipeline.

Women can fill that gap

Currently our K-12 students are talented enough in math and science to fill our rapidly growing need for STEM workers. However, more than 75% of those talented students do not enter STEM majors in college.

Where will our nation get the workers to meet the needs of the STEM workforce? Here’s an idea: What about recruiting, educating, and employing women? Keep in mind that I’m not making this suggestion from a “poor persecuted girls” mentality. Frankly, this is a clear-cut issue of finding enough home-grown talent to meet our STEM needs.

Where are the women and why aren’t they there?

So, why do we have so few girls in STEM areas now? An AAUW publication, appropriately titled Why so few?, asserts that cultural factors play a strong role in suppressing girls’ enthusiasm for STEM fields. Makes sense to me. How we think about ourselves plays an important role in who we become. Societal beliefs that boys are better than girls in science and math are a real drag on girls ‘achievements and interest in those two subjects — and, consequently, in engineering.

Success in recruiting girls seems to boil down to girls believing that they can succeed in STEM fields and wanting to succeed. So here’s our K-12 mission if we care to accept it:

Create an “I can do it” learning environment in middle grades classrooms and in homes. Change that damaging mindset to the belief that girls and boys are equally capable in math (they are). With an improved belief in their abilities, the difference in performance between boys and girls essentially disappears.

So how do we make it happen?

How can we create the atmosphere, culture, and mindset that will involve more girls in STEM? Something practical and doable, if you please. In an earlier blog post, STEM Girl Power, I listed 6 things teachers can do to help engage girls in STEM. I’d like to suggest these additional 6 ideas in this post.

(For a more in-depth discussion of these and other ideas on girls and STEM, check out the resources at the end of this post. Most of these ideas come from them.)

1 – Provide girls with constructive and safe feedback about their performance in STEM areas. Emphasize the strategies they use while they are learning, as opposed to simply telling them whether they got an answer correct. Encourage them to correct misunderstandings and to learn from mistakes. Above all, allow them to learn, struggle, and grow in a risk-free environment. Point out that we don’t learn so much from what we do right – it’s what we do wrong that gives room and opportunity to grow. Then give them that chance.

2 – Expose middle grades girls to female role models who work in STEM fields. In a previous post I suggested this link to shine a spotlight on extraordinary young role models and their exciting projects. Use every chance to promote positive beliefs regarding women’s abilities in math and science.

3 – Involve middle school girls in spatial skills training. There does seem to be a gender gap in spatial skills needed for performance in math and science. However, research shows that this is a relatively easy gap to close. PBS learning media provides videos and lesson plans to help with spatial skills.

4 – Create a classroom that sparks curiosity and fosters long-term interest in STEM. All middle schoolers should love digging into STEM adventures, explorations, and challenges. Not all girls (or boys) like focusing on machinery, however. Be sure to include real life challenges in other areas such as health, life sciences, environmental challenges, forensics, and so on. Most importantly, use inquiry, inquiry, and more inquiry – combined with a search for solutions to real problems – as your basic teaching/learning approach. Maintain the “fun factor” as an avenue to learning.

5 – Focus on girls through informal education programs. Parents, as well as schools, can provide informal education programs (learning experiences delivered in out-of-school settings) to involve girls in STEM year-round. These experiences can be structured or impromptu. Informal learning is generally free of the stress of testing and can build girls confidence and excitement in both STEM courses and STEM careers. Check out my blog posts on STEM and Parent Awareness, and 10 STEM Tips for Parents for ideas on possible parent involvement in their child’s STEM learning.

6 – Maintain high energy and enthusiasm. I blinked when I saw that suggestion. Talk about a real-world challenge! Most of us have heard our middle schoolers make statements such as: “Whether I like math (or science) depends on who’s teaching it.” I’m not clear on how schools and parents are going to be able to sustain high energy levels and ongoing learning, but I do have some thoughts. I’ll likely address those in an upcoming blog post. If we keep working on this problem, we’re bound to solve it.

To wrap this one up, tell your girls to repeat these statements aloud like a mantra several times a day, whether they believe it now or not. Research shows it can make a difference!

• I like learning about science, technology, math, and engineering.
• I am good at science/math/technology.
• I like using the design process that engineers use to create a product.
• I want to be a scientist or engineer or work in technology when I grow up.

Let’s make it possible for our girls to become whoever they want to be.

Here are some articles & studies that might be useful if you care to dig deeper into girls and STEM.

Lesson in Choosing a STEM Career.

STEM by Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce

Encouraging Girls in Math and Science

Evaluating Promising Practices

Effective STEM Programs for Adolescent Girls

Images: Photo: Girls at CyberMission competition finals (US Army)
Charts: Courtesy of Georgetown Center on Education & the Workforce

Big Skills for the Common Core: Literacy Strategies for the 6 -12 Classroom
By Amy Benjamin with Michael Hugelmeyer
(Eye on Education, 2013 Learn more)

Two MiddleWeb reviewers agree: Big Skills for the Common Core provides ELA educators and content teachers with easy-to-use strategies to help students grasp the elements of the Common Core.

First up, middle grades educator and English Language Arts supervisor Joan Cansdale. 

The difference between a skill and a strategy is that a skill is automatic, but a strategy requires conscious thought about how to put a plan into action…(Students) should be continuously using strategies for learning that, through practice, become skills.”   (page xi)

Amy Benjamin and Michael Hugelmeyer believe that the overarching goal of the Common Core ELA standards is for students to develop the skill of “processing information through language.” This is the concept that connects the standards and should also connect the curriculum. With this goal in mind, they lead us through an exploration of the Big Skills for the Common Core: Literacy Strategies for the 6-12 Classroom, starting with the standards themselves.

In the introduction, Benjamin and Hugelmeyer thoughtfully distill each of the anchor standards and insert these thumbnail descriptions next to the complete wording of the standards in four charts, one for each of the four strands of the ELA CCSS: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, and Language. These “Big Skills” focus the reader on the essence of the standards, and teachers will find this chart useful in discussing the standards with students.

The rest of the book is organized into four parts, each focusing on one of the four strands. Each part begins with a breakdown of the relevant standards and ends with “Classroom Close-Ups,” anecdotes that demonstrate how particular strategies are applied in one teacher’s classroom. In between, the authors discuss a variety of strategies and rationales for their use, all the while emphasizing the importance of the shared responsibility that teachers of all content areas must take on to explicitly teach and reinforce literacy skills.

This point of view is a great strength of the book, as the authors consistently include content area examples and considerations as part of the discussion. In the Reading “Classroom Close-Up” section, for example, anecdotes include two social studies classes, two science classes, and an English class. In Part 2, Writing, we are treated to an explanation of how proper syntax supports students’ learning of scientific concepts when teacher “Mrs. L” provides students with templates using compound sentences, appositives, and punctuation as a means of expressing scientific relationships.

My favorite part of the book, however, occurs in Chapter 15: Grammar and the Common Core. In a chart that spans three pages, the authors explain “How Knowing about Parts of Speech Fits into the Writing Process.”  As an English Language Arts teacher, I’ve always struggled with integrating grammar instruction into the writing process in a way that is relevant and effective. This chart details just how to do that! The authors show how focusing on a specific part of speech during the revision process can allow students to use their understanding of grammar to improve the content and style of their writing.

Finally, Benjamin and Hugelmeyer provide appendices that include writing rubrics, academic word lists, and checklists that are also available as downloads, along with other supplemental materials, from the publisher’s website.

The authors remind us that, “Skills magnetize content. Strategies, when practiced, lead to skills.” This book will help you and your colleagues use effective and engaging literacy strategies to help your students develop the necessary skills to be truly college and career ready.

Joan Cansdale is a middle grades educator and English Language Arts supervisor. She enjoys networking with other educators on Twitter as @joancansdale. Joan also recently embarked on a mission to read all of Walter Dean Myers’s 105 published titles. She blogs about her progress at http://wdmandme.wordpress.com

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Adding her evaluation: Sandy Wisneski, lead teacher at Catalyst Charter Middle, district webmaster, and new-teacher mentor.

Common Core Standards currently is one of the hottest topics in literacy. The question asked is, “How can teachers implement these standards in daily classroom activities?” Big Skills for the Common Core; Literacy Strategies for the 6-12 Classroom by Amy Benjamin with Michael Hugelmeyer answers that question and more. The book offers clear, engaging strategies that can be used immediately to improve students’ literacy skills.

I immediately fell in love with the charts that broke down the skills for each anchor standard and put them into teacher-friendly language. What a time saver! No longer did I feel like I was muddling through similar verbiage but found a timesaving skeletal version. Charts contained the “Big Skill” for reading, writing, language, and speaking/listening. These little gems in the introduction were only the beginning.

The heart of the book breaks down each of the standards in depth. Reading and the Common Core addresses two modes of reading. The first mode is meticulous reading at a range of increasingly complex text. This mode of reading requires “grappling with a challenging text.” Big Skills for the Common Core defines text complexity by the following:

• Subtleties. Are there layers of meaning?
• Author’s assumption about the reader. How much background knowledge does the author assume that the reader has?
• Eye appeal. Does the physical layout of the text make it easier or more challenging for the reading?
• Vocabulary. How rare are the words?
• Level of abstraction. The less we can picture and touch something, the more difficult it is to understand it.
• Era in which the text was written. Was it written before the 20th century?

Practice and strategies are divided into two categories: those that are internal and those that are external. Specific strategies for each are interspersed throughout the chapter, including “the punctuation strategy,” “the best title question” and the “why is this part here question.” The toolbox of strategies prepares students for complex texts and a deeper level of complexity. Explanations are practical and can be used at all levels.

While even recreational readers need direct instruction in reading strategies (including guided practice) for specific kinds of text, strategy instruction in the absence of substantial practice in reading (i.e. recreational reading) will never establish the momentum derived from being an actual self-motivated, voluntary reader.”

Amy Benjamin

What a true quote. To become a better reader you need to read a lot. You need to become immersed in books. The classroom needs to become a community of readers. Amy Benjamin points out the drop in “aggressive encouragement for recreational reading” at the middle school level. She emphasizes the need for choice. References to Jim Trelease (2009) and Stephen D. Krashen (2004) support the claims made in the book. “Balance between meticulous reading and recreational reading needs to be a staple in every classroom for the Common Core to be achieved.”

The book’s “Classroom Close-Ups” bring a practical application side to the Common Core. Real classrooms demonstrate how each of the Common Core standards can be implemented. Solid strategies like “THINK Card!” offer an active reader’s model.

• Thoughts: What are your thoughts while reading the selection?
• How: How do the conflicts in the selection drive the overall plot?
• Interpret: Identify and interpret the key quotes that assist in the progression of the selection.
• Need: How are the characters in the selection driven by their needs?
• Know: What do you know about the emerging themes and symbols after reading this section?

It’s a great tool to model active reading!

The same format continues for writing, language, and speaking/listening. Each section breaks down the Common Core Standards into practical strategies that can be used immediately in the classroom. Practical methods teach argumentative, informative, and narrative writing. A favorite section is the mapping and framing structures. The authors present writing structures that break down the process for students into simple guidelines like the “TORT” formula.

• Topic Sentence
• Opinion or argument
• Reason Number 1
• Reason Number 2
• Transition/closing sentences

The book goes beyond the philosophy of the Common Core Standards. It offers research-based ideas that can be implemented in all classes. The authors tackled the Common Core Standards and created a user-friendly book for the busy teacher.

Sandy Wisneski is lead teacher at Catalyst Charter Middle School which opened in the fall of 2013. She is the district webmaster, tech mentor, yearbook advisory as well as new teacher mentor. Over the past 37 years she has become certified as a Flat Classroom Teacher and obtained her masters in reading. She enjoys challenging students to “take ownership” for their learning and to be effective digital citizens in the world.

Mentoring and Coaching Tips: How Educators Can Help Each Other
By Sheryn Waterman
(Eye on Education, Inc. 2013 Learn more)

Reviewed by Jenni Miller

When I began to host student teachers in my classroom many years ago, I attended a training session to learn how to be a good mentor teacher. One of the trainers made an observation that has always stayed with me. She said that teaching was one of the only professions in which a brand new, first year teacher has all of the same rights and responsibilities as a 30-year veteran.

That comment struck me because, while new teachers do have all of the same rights and responsibilities, they usually do not have the experience to know how to deal with many everyday situations, which can quickly become overwhelming. Often, they are not sure who to turn to in order to get that help. That’s where a book like this one, Mentoring and Coaching Tips : How Educators Can Help Each Other, can be a lifesaver.

Building Trust

The relationship between veteran teachers and younger teachers can be one of a school’s strongest assets, if that relationship is nurtured intentionally. This book provides a guide to do just that. It is filled with practical, ready-to-use advice, ranging from activities that would build trust and communication between two teachers as well as some that would translate well to a school-wide faculty inservice team-building time.

The author is quick to stress Mentoring & Coaching Tips is not a one-size-fits-all solution. She encourages the reader to pay attention to the culture of an individual school; she’s not offering a packaged program in a book. But based on my experience, it is a helpful road map for creating strong, trusting bonds between teachers.

Challenges to Meet

In many ways, teaching is a very solitary and individual process. Once student teachers graduate, are certified and begin teaching in their own classrooms, they often stop seeing models of good teaching in action. Even talented young teachers sometimes feel as though they are on their own in a sink-or-swim situation. New teachers need someone in whom they can trust and confide, someone wise enough to listen and to help them find perspective.

For any teachers who struggle (which, honestly, could be any teacher on any given day), it’s easy to give in to self-doubt. Teaching can sometimes feel like trying to assemble a 1000-piece puzzle only to discover that the box top with the picture guide is missing. Without that guide, it’s easy to lose your way.

Many teachers don’t feel safe asking for help because they think they should have all of the answers. This book opens the door to very necessary conversations (like a conversation about how nobody has all of the answers!) and it offers suggestions to build trust among colleagues in a coaching relationship.

Guides for Getting Started

The author also notes some potential pitfalls (and offers remedies for them) while implementing this process:

• A teacher + a coach should be carefully and thoughtfully matched; this must be an intentional process, not a haphazard slapping together of names. The process of building trust can be differentiated for adults as we differentiate our instruction for our students – meeting individual needs while working toward the same goal.

• Teachers face many restrictions, such as confidentiality, the pressure of standardized testing, muddied roles with colleagues. These issues must be addressed and dealt with when matching people in a coaching relationship, otherwise things can get sticky.

• Time must be given, above and beyond the teaching day, for coaching to take place. Teachers are already stretched quite thin and adding one more thing to an already full day can be counter-productive; instead of both parties feeling energized by the relationship, they can become frazzled and see coaching as one more thing to check off the never-ending to-do list.

• Veteran teachers shouldn’t assume that they have all of the answers, or that what works for them in their own classrooms will work for everyone.

• Strong coaches practice reflective listening and share options, not decrees, with their colleagues.

• Administrators can be crucial to the success of a coaching culture in their schools. They can model this at faculty meetings, provide time for conflict resolution, be available to assist as the relationship develops and know when to step back as the relationship flourishes.

• Jealousies may arise if non-coaching teachers interpret coaches as having special privileges or as being an extension of the administration. This is another area where the administration plays a crucial role. By creating a culture of coaching in the school, all teachers realize that they play a part in each others’ successes. This tone must be set from the top and flow down.

• Those involved in coaching must create time for regular, thoughtful interactions with each other, whether over email or in face-to-face meetings. It’s important to nurture this connection with frequent communication, however brief.

• As a coach, actions speak louder than words. Saying that you have an open door policy but appearing frustrated or complaining about interruptions when others ask for help will send mixed messages.

• Don’t assume that all new teachers need the same amount of help or that all veteran teachers will be strong coaches. One size definitely does not fit all.

As teachers, we are in the business of helping others to grow and learn and become increasingly independent. This shouldn’t be limited just to our students. Teachers can have the same impact on those colleagues around us who might be struggling.

By investing the time and energy needed to create a school environment that comes together to help each other succeed, our schools will become models of success. This book offers a way to help build each other up, which benefits not only our profession, but our students as well.

Jenni Miller is a 6^th grade Language Arts teacher at Montevideo Middle School in Penn Laird, Virginia. She has been teaching there for 19 years and absolutely loves reading and writing with her middle school students every day.

Making Teamwork Meaningful: Leading Progress-Driven Collaboration in a PLC at Work
by William M. Ferriter, Parry Graham, and Matt Wight
(Solution Tree, 2012 – Learn more)

Reviewed by Elisa Waingort

When I was browsing the list of books available for review on the MiddleWeb site, I naturally gravitated towards Making Teamwork Meaningful by William M. Ferriter, Parry Graham, and Matt Wight. The concept and implementation of teacher professional groups is a topic near and dear to my heart. I am particularly interested in the relationship among collaboration, collegiality and teacher autonomy. In fact, this was the focus of my doctoral research proposal.

So I read this book with lots of prior knowledge and some biases, all rolled into one, and predictably I had mixed reactions to what I read. (It is also important to note that I am not currently teaching in the United States but at an American International School in South America. I do not have to contend with the kinds of high-stakes accountability pressures that the authors and other educators are experiencing at their school sites. As an outsider, so to speak, I nevertheless offer this review with insider knowledge.)

The audience for this book is primarily school-based administrators and teacher leaders trying to improve the work of the PLC’s in their schools. While I found some parts of this book compelling, particularly the reproducibles section at the end of each of the five chapters in the book, I also found some chapters, such as the one on assessment, objectionable on the basis of the tools that were suggested as helpful for getting a “quick” read on students’ abilities and levels at the beginning of the year. Quick isn’t always appropriate.

The pursuit of “achievement”

As the subtitle states, Making Teamwork Meaningful is about “leading progress-driven collaboration in a PLC at work.” In other words, it is about leadership that is focused on improvements. No argument here. We all want to improve. Yet the unwavering attention to “student achievement” does not leave room for other ways to arrive at improving schools and classrooms, in my opinion.

PLC’s, as conceived by DuFour et al., are characterized by an emphasis on “learning” to the exclusion of “teaching.” It is very difficult to separate the two since both students and teachers learn and teach at the same time. By separating out the two concepts, we are creating a dichotomy that raises more problems than it solves. Furthermore, the focus on achievement necessarily means that we need to focus on standardized testing since this is the current wave that is sweeping schools in the US and elsewhere.

No matter what language we use to talk about this, we end up in the same place: teachers need to teach to the tests because that is how student achievement (learning?) is now being measured and how teachers are being evaluated. To do otherwise amounts to professional suicide. Classroom-based assessments and teacher professional expertise and knowledge don’t count anymore. See Ferriter’s own post about this issue in this May 2013 reflection at his blog The Tempered Radical.

Valuable elements of the book

Despite my general disagreement with some of the premises of this book, I found valuable parts that teacher leaders and administrators could use in the never-ending quest to improve schools. Chapter 1, “Getting the Right People in the Right Places,” reminded me of an emergent conversation at my previous school. How do we get the right people in the right roles? Although this is critical, in practice it may sometimes result in teachers who are not respected by the majority of the faculty being appointed to leadership positions . It seems that what often becomes important are teachers’ “qualifications” only, rather than their ability to work with people and to develop trusting relationships. This is something that the authors warn against.

The constant focus on the group to the detriment of individual teacher learning and improvement leaves a sour taste in my mouth. There needs to be a balance between creating professional groups that work well together to accomplish their goals, and individual teacher learning that is sensitive to the needs of teachers themselves. As the authors themselves note, “progress in complex organizations is dependent to a large degree on the professional happiness of employees” (p.16). The blurring of the individual in favor of improved test scores (the success of PLC’s is always couched in terms of that which can be measured) isn’t a good thing. As someone famous once said, “Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot be necessarily be counted”, or measured.

Chapter 2, “Incorporating Singletons and Noninstructional Staff,” has some good suggestions for how to deal with teachers who are the only ones teaching their subject or grade, or teachers who do not teach a core subject. There are good examples for how to think outside the box in terms of grouping faculty in a school, including creating online collaborations.

Chapter 3, “Aligning a Master Schedule with PLC Priorities,” outlines a variety of ways that administrators and teacher leaders can work with the school schedule so that teachers can meet in their PLC groups. The authors acknowledge that schedules are a red herring in schools (although they may not use this exact term). Everyone wants a piece of the schedule. Therefore, it’s important to go through a series of reflective exercises (see the reproducibles at the end of this chapter) to help the school staff set priorities and stick with them when designing the school schedule.

Homogenized assessment

I found that Chapter 4, Building an Intervention System, tried to address too many areas and to provide too many quick fixes. One example: promoting DIBELS as a good test to measure early literacy skills. Why this is not so would require several pages to explain. Suffice it to say that testing children on nonsense words to determine a literacy level or whether additional services are required is anti-pedagogical. Furthermore, the focus on quick online assessments despite the authors’ warning that there should be multiple and varied assessments used throughout the year was contradictory.

Finally, common assessments are supposed to level the playing field and help teachers identify which students in which classes are learning or not learning. In fact, common assessments have the effect of homogenizing teaching in an attempt to create a level playing field. While this is laudable it disrespects the uniqueness of each classroom and teacher; no two classes are the same and neither are their teachers. To rely on common assessments to reveal critical data that can move a PLC forward to improve student achievement isn’t sensible. A much more useful approach may be to adopt a model such as Japanese Lesson Study. In this model, a group of teachers designs a lesson and someone teaches it while the rest of the group observes. Later the group gathers to critique the lesson with the goal of improving for the future.

Helpful ideas to build collaboration

Chapter 5, Improving Collaborative Capacity, is probably the most useful for teachers trying to maximize their PLC work. Sometimes we forget that just putting teachers together in a group doesn’t mean that they will be able to collaborate and extend their learning. There were some helpful sections regarding the skills needed to run an efficient and effective PLC meeting, such as ‘Helping Teams Master Personal Dynamics’ and ‘Helping Teams Master Sophisticated Collaborative Tasks.’ I also appreciated the authors’ advice to administrators about the importance of taking small steps towards improving PLC’s by evaluating where each PLC is currently in their work.

Great tools for learning communities

It bears repeating that the reproducibles at the end of each chapter offer great opportunities for teachers and administrators to determine what’s important to their particular school. We often leave out this step when working together, and this causes problems later on. If nothing else, these exercises have the potential for revealing inconsistencies and conflicts in staff viewpoints on matters critical to the functioning of PLC’s. Thank you to the authors of Making Teamwork Meaningful for providing such carefully thought out tools that school staffs could use right away to improve the work of their PLC’s.

Elisa Waingort has been teaching in bilingual settings for more than 25 years in public and international schools in North and South America. She is currently teaching ESL to fourth through eighth grade students at Academia Cotopaxi, an American International School in Quito, Ecuador. Elisa blogs at A Teacher’s Ruminations and at the Cooperative Catalyst. She is also a member of the Elementary Section Steering Committee of the National Council of Teachers of English and serves on NCTE’s Executive Committee. She’s also uncovering Twitter’s power @elisaw5.

In a new MiddleWeb blog, three outstanding middle grades teachers explore the Future of History in a connected world, from multiple perspectives. We hope you’ll join the conversation!

by Shara Peters, Jody Passanisi and Aaron Brock

The future of history depends on its connection to the present.

Some students have trouble relating to the events in history. No matter where they are (an independent or public school – an urban, suburban or rural environment), the study of history can, at times, seem disconnected from the students’ experiences. History teachers attempt to bridge this divide, trying to make figures from the past come to life, and to make events relatable and relevant.

In order to give a broader understanding of the experience of teaching social studies across different settings, Jody and Shara will blog about the ways they try to bridge the divide between the past and the present from their perspectives as independent school teachers in Los Angeles.

Aaron Brock, a teacher in the Compton (CA) Unified School District, will do the same from his public, urban perspective. The three of us have collaborated on aspects of our eighth grade U.S. History curriculum and will at times join blogging forces to look at the same topic from our different perspectives.

Jody Passanisi and Shara Peters

Eighth Grade U.S. History in an Independent School

What is the “Future of History?” Our Philosophy

What is the Future of History in the classroom? One thing is certain: it is not going to look like our own middle school history experience. In eighth grade, we received a study guide that was basically an outline of the textbook and were required to fill in the information from the text. This, repeated week after week, was most of our curriculum. What do we remember? …not so much.

Jody & Shara

With the advent of the Internet, social studies pedagogy has to be vastly different than it was. With information available to everyone, the value of memorizing facts and details about historical events, people, and places is, well, just not all that valuable anymore.

So then, what should the study of history look like? Students don’t need to know just the “who, what, where, when, why” of history, since that information is readily available online. More importantly, they need to know the significance of those events. Students in the 21st century history classroom need to be able to evaluate and analyze more than they need to be able to remember facts. They should be able to work together to discern the most important points from a swath of the abundant available information. They need to be able to synthesize information learned in history across disciplines. In short, the study of history in middle school is more complex now than it was when we were growing up.

We strive to be reflective practitioners in our approach to teaching history. This reflection has led us to be huge proponents of constructivist, student-centered learning experiences, and we look at history curriculum and strategies through this lens. In our classrooms, we strive to find teaching tools and techniques that will help encourage our students to work collaboratively and think critically.

Three years ago, our students defined history as: “…a narrative of a series of events that is pieced together from evidence and the opinions of interpreters.” It is our goal to push students to identify and analyze these perspectives in history in order to gain analytical skills, as well as a more nuanced view of historical events. To that end, we teach students to detect bias and to write about these historical events with author’s perspective in mind. We aid the students in uncovering information, analyzing that information, synthesizing and connecting broader themes, events, and historical trends, and evaluating historical choices.

Our Setting

While our independent school’s history curriculum is informed and guided by the California State Standards (and now, the Common Core Standards), we have a great deal of autonomy in planning and executing lessons that we feel are meaningful and purposeful. We are supported by our administration in this and have the creative space to be able to develop our curriculum. We are lucky enough to have many technological resources at our disposal (iPads, Smartboards, etc.) so that we can incorporate technology into our lessons and our students’ learning experiences. Many of our students also have access to their own technological, internet-based devices.

As history teachers in the 21st century, one way we make learning history relevant to our students is to help them incorporate our content with skills they can use. By integrating technology and preparing students for the world we can only imagine, we bridge the study of history to the 21st Century.

Our Hopes for the “Future of History” Blog

Though we teach U.S. History in the eighth grade, we will look at strategies, pedagogies, and historical themes that can be applied to other middle grade social studies content areas. We will blog about broad educational themes, the use of technology in the history classroom, and ultimately examine strategies to teach students how to approach this discipline in the digital age.

Also, we will keep an eye on the horizon for new teaching tools that can have an impact on our discipline, and write about what we find. We hope that in doing this we will become even more reflective practitioners, examining what we are doing in our social studies classroom. Even more, we hope to be able to learn from contributions from our readers about what is working in your classrooms.

Though we teach U.S. History in the eighth grade, we will look at strategies, pedagogies, and historical themes that can be applied to other middle grade social studies content areas.”

Aaron Brock

Eighth Grade U.S. History in a Public School

What is the “Future of History” in public schools? My Philosophy

Every year my district brings in a new consultant during the first week of school to rehash sound pedagogical practice. The most significant difference between any of these motivational speakers is the preferred shape of the bullets in their PowerPoint presentations. The message is always the same: we must promote critical thinking and engage students actively in the learning process.

Within a month, with the equivalent of a teacher’s salary safely in the pocket of our esteemed guest speaker, I will receive a multiple-choice test from my school district that rewards rote memorization and permits no room for critical thinking. This test will even, at times, include historically inaccurate information.

Unfortunately, my district is by no means unique in this respect. And while this experience rings true for public school teachers in any subject, historical instruction feels particularly vulnerable to such inconsistency in educational policy. As a traditionally “boring” subject in which few adolescents see any inherent value, it is often seen as the history teacher’s job to liven up the classroom and make history relevant. Visiting principals or superintendents are frequently most impressed by those classrooms in which students are engaged in a lively debate or in the midst of a hands-on project. Unfortunately, such activities rarely leave time to cover all of the content on district standardized tests.

What then, is our job? Is it possible to cover all of the content, promote all of the necessary skills, and at the same time keep students engaged? No. It is not.

We must, at some point, decide what is best for our students. Whether this is knowing their rights according the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution or being able to recognize the bias of a primary source document depends on the character of the class and the skill level of each individual student. This means that our curriculum cannot be static, and our teaching must adapt to the needs of each new group of students. History is the study of change in human patterns and behavior over time. If we do not change with history, we risk being left in the past.

My Setting

The preferred euphemism for my work environment is “urban school district.” This politely describes an area in which a majority of the students are poor and academically behind. Few of my students read at grade level, and most have difficulty with texts of any kind. They also face a range of other challenges that, while not directly related to school, have a very real and significant impact on their academic performance. My access to technology in the classroom is inconsistent, and easily half of my students do not have computers or access to the internet at home. Research and independent reading assignments are, at best, extremely difficult for my students to complete outside of class.

My limited resources and the literacy level of my students have led me to write many of the texts used in my classroom. While this is time-consuming, it allows me to tailor lessons more closely to the needs of my students. My primary goal is to help students improve their reading and writing skills; historical content is merely the vehicle by which we work toward that goal.

My Hopes for the “Future of History” Blog

My hope is that this becomes a place where middle school social studies teachers can engage in honest, meaningful dialogue about their experience and ideas. That could mean a philosophical debate about social justice in the history classroom or pragmatic advice about teaching specific content.

Even when engaging broad themes, I will attempt to provide concrete examples and lessons that I hope other teachers will be able to adapt and use for their own classrooms. I look forward to getting ideas and resources from other teachers and discussing our successes and challenges in an open and supportive forum.

The Future of History is Now . . .

Just as history is shaped by those who lived through it, the study of history is shaped by those who research, think and write about it. If as educators, we want our students to consider historical ideas and address important historical questions, we, too must engage in dialogue about what history was, is and can be. We sincerely hope that our posts on this blog will open up a dialogue in which we talk about content, strategy, practice, grading, setting, and the broader concepts of history and education themselves. The Future of History is now.

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Aaron Brock has been a middle school social studies teacher in the Compton Unified School District for five years. He has a BA in History from California State University Northridge and received his teaching credential through University of California Los Angeles’ TeachLA program. His love of history dates back to his own adolescence, and it is his goal to help students discover the aspects of history about which they can get excited. Follow Aaron on Twitter @HistoryBrock.

Jody Passanisi is an eighth grade U.S. History teacher at an independent school in the Los Angeles area. She earned her teaching credential and an M.S. in education from Mount St. Mary’s College and an M.A. in religious studies from the Graduate Theological Union.

Shara Peters teaches eighth grade U.S. History in a Los Angeles independent school. She earned her teaching credential from Hebrew Union College and her M.A. in teaching from American Jewish University.

Jody and Shara’s articles have been featured at the Scientific American blog and at Education Week Teacher. Follow them their blog and on Twitter @21centuryteachr.