This We Believe and the Common Core

This We Believe and the Common Core 13

PROMOTING COLLEGE AND CAREER READINESS 27

A Return to the Middle School 10

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VOL. 2 NO. 7 | MARCH 2015 Association for Middle Level Education

CELEBRATE MID

DLE LEVEL

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Contents

VOLUME 2 NUMBER 7 | March 2015

22 Reviving AdvisoryNow is not the time to be cutting advisory programs in schools.

By ROBERt RUdER

13 This We Believe and the Common CoreHow does This We Believe align with the Common Core?

By NANCE S. WiLSON, LAURiE A. RAMiREz, & CARLA K. MEyER

cover stories

10 the Journey Back: A Return to the Middle SchoolA simple question prompted a whole-school transformation.

By CONNiE StOVALL

features

16 Using What We Already Know to teach Common CoreMiddle level educators can teach others a little something about “doing the Common Core.”

By HOLLy tHORNtON

19 Service-Learning: Bringing Middle Level ideals to LifeService-learning is a natural fit in middle grades schools.

By CAtHy BERgER KAyE

24 teaching the HolocaustStudents explore the Holocaust beyond the facts and figures.

By LARRy SANdOMiR

3AMLE Magazine · MARCH 2015

Tablet App EXTRA!Download the AMLE Magazine tablet issue (iPad, Kindle Fire, or Android) at www.amle.org/AMLEMagazine.

in every issue

Editor’s Note 04By PATRICIA GEORGE

Perspectives 06 CCSS ChallengesBy JANE FABER & MICHELLE SCHwARTzE

Partner Spotlight 08international Baccalaureate

Mentor Me 38Student Self-EsteemBy CASEy SIDDONS

Teacher Coach 39it’s About time… Again By RICk wORMELI

Student Voice 41Calhoun School New york, Ny

Hot Spot 42teach Like you tweet!

By BRENT ANDERSON & SuSANNE LONG

Making the Team 44Putting History in their Hands—9/11

By PATRICk kERN wITH NANCy EBEL

Megaphone 48

30 Willpower, Motivation, and Student Achievement Why do some students choose not to put forth the effort?

By ALAN HASKVitz

32 zombies, Science, and Student EngagementCreating an experience in your classroom can get students hooked on learning.

By ANdREA SzOzdA

35 the Benefits of “Not doing”Quiet time can do wonders for a student’s outlook.

By StEViE ROdiS

27 5 Strategies for Promoting College and Career Readiness Getting students ready for their future is important—and fun.

By dAVE StUARt, JR.

For the latest resources and breaking news, follow AMLE on:

AMLE Magazine was recognized with an Association Media & Publishing 2014 EXCEL Award for magazine redesign. The EXCEL Awards is the largest and most prestigious award program that exclusively recognizes excellence and leadership in nonprofit association media, publishing, and communications.


Happy Middle Level Education Month!Middle level educators celebrate all that is good and wonderful about educating young adolescents every month, but March gives us the opportunity to shine a broader light on what’s special about middle level education and to share that message with others.

When the National Middle School Association (now AMLE) published This We Believe: Keys to Educating Young Adolescents in 1982, it became the foundation upon which countless middle schools, districts, colleges and universities, policymakers, and organizations built their programs to help meet the needs of young adolescents and those who educate them. More than three decades later,

This We Believe’s basic tenets continue to guide those who are involved in and who care about creating effective schools for this age group.

This issue of AMLE Magazine highlights the many ways educators continue to use This We Believe to guide their work. We also look at how the foundational beliefs of middle level education support today’s Common Core State Standards. Interestingly, as several authors emphasize, many of the goals of the CCSS were promoted by This We Believe years ago, such as rigor, authentic assessment, and real- world connections.

Despite the seemingly constant changes in the education policy landscape—what some people call the “flavor of the week”—the basic middle level beliefs have endured. In the book The Legacy of Middle School Leaders: In Their Own Words, John Lounsbury, a founding father of the middle school movement, offered this insight when asked what can be done to ensure the future success of the movement: “Keep on doing what we’re doing, spread the message, stand up, talk to parents, talk to citizens, listen to kids, do what we know in our heart and in our professional mind is right… be active professionally, take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves, to speak up for kids and for middle level education, wherever and whenever.”

Patricia George, Editor

editor’s note

Published by the Association for Middle Level Education

(AMLE), 4151 Executive Parkway, Suite 300, Westerville, OH

43081, tel: 614.895.4730, 800.528.6672, fax: 614.895.4750,

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Middle Level Education.

Materials in this issue may not be reproduced—unless

otherwise indicated—in whole or in part in any form or

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ExEcutivE dirEctorWilliam D. Waidelich

EditorPatricia George

SENior dESigNErCynthia Ritter

PuBLicAtioN MANAgErDawn Williams

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Read this book to: • Identify and cultivate the elements of mathematics

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Free to TeachFor several years teachers have heard the cry: the Common Core is coming. With much trepidation, they began worrying and thinking “more work for me.“ Well, now that the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are being implemented in many states, teachers like me are coming to the realization that the standards being addressed now should have been implemented many years ago.

The CCSS, including each state’s adaptations of the standards, now call for students to think. Not only are language arts and reading teachers teaching critical reading, all teachers are teaching students to comprehend difficult text. Each and every teacher is being held accountable.

As an eighth grade language arts teacher, my biggest challenge is getting my students out of the mindset of responding to fiction and nonfiction using prior knowledge and teaching them to not only cite textual evidence but to also analyze, synthesize, and elaborate.

Students are asked to read several sources then respond to questions and cite textual evidence to support their response. Most of my students’ responses are quite literal. They take the information provided and just reword what the author has stated. It’s my job to help them analyze the text, help them to make connections and meaning so that their responses will be meaningful and show that they truly understand the text.

It’s About the Students Since its debut in 2010, the Common Core Standards have been under high scrutiny among educators, parents, and government officials. Everyone seems to have an opinion about Common Core—even people who are not involved at all in a classroom setting.

There have been many bumps in the road with this implementation of standards. Some challenges that I have seen in my classroom have been overcoming parent frustrations, student protests, and personal time.

Parent frustrations have been a big issue for me. I have gotten emails from parents explaining that they have college degrees and still cannot figure out this math. I have heard parents talking to each other about the evils of Common Core and how it is hurting their child’s education.

My response to parents is always this: Common Core is just a set of standards and education has always followed a set of standards. These standards are trying to get our children to think in a variety of ways and to understand deeply the mathematics they are doing. I also tell parents that if they do not understand the way I am teaching their child, they are welcome to teach them a different way at home because the point of Common Core is to show students many ways to reach the same conclusion.

I admit that some of the math is confusing at first to the adult eye, but I have seen some children really excel with Common Core methods. The fifth grade

in every issue PERSPECTIVES

QUESTION

“What are your greatest challenges in implementing the Common Core State Standards?”

MICHELLE SCHWARTZETEACHER PEORIA, IL

JANE FEBERTEACHER CROSS CITY, FL


For example, when my students see a chart that shows salaries for high school dropouts, high school graduates, and college graduates, their interpretation involves simply restating the salaries of each group. I must teach them to interpret this information and understand the implications of the charts. I want them to understand that the more education a person has, the better his or her economic standing will be.

I use the gradual release model of instruction. Before I require students to work independently citing textual evidence, I model for them. I then challenge them with a question, and we work together as a large group to find then cite textual evidence in a written response. Then, students meet in small groups to share their ideas and talk about their task. The more they talk, the more their ideas flow. As the facilitator, I sit in with each group, listening to their discussions, and with some probing, guide them in the right direction. Finally, it’s time for independent practice. As with any new concept, citing textual evidence takes time, but we’re moving in the right direction.

Common Core-ready students become critical thinkers. It’s the teacher’s job to lead them in making text-based connections from multiple sources across disciplines. The Common Core State Standards do not confine teachers; we are free to teach what we want. We just need to teach our students to think.

JANE FEBER teaches eighth grade language arts at Ruth Raines Middle School in Cross City, Florida. This is her 42nd year as a teacher.

[email protected] www.thebetterteacher.com

Bring Jane Feber to your school. Contact AMLE Director of Middle Level Services Dru Tomlin at [email protected] for more information.

curriculum uses vertical number lines for rounding decimals. This was an entirely new thing for me because I was never taught that. I saw some of my students really understand that method. I allow my students to use whichever method makes sense to them because I want them to be successful in my classroom. It should not matter how one gets to the finish line, just that they reach it successfully.

Another challenge I have seen in my classroom is student protests. Some students come in with a negative view of Common Core because of what they hear at home. Others just protest because they do not understand it right away so they blame the curriculum. To overcome these issues I try to calmly talk to my students about the positive aspects of Common Core.

My final challenge is time. That is one that, as a teacher, I will never really be able to overcome. There is just too much to do in a school day, but sometimes I feel like I could implement the Common Core standards so much better if I had more time available to plan.

Common Core, in my opinion, has been given a bad name from the start. We must not forget, though, that our students’ success is our top priority and if Common Core can help our students be successful then we should all be for it!

MiCHELLE SCHWARtzE is a middle school math teacher at Saint Mark School in Peoria, Illinois. She is also currently working on her doctorate in curriculum and instruction at Illinois State University.

[email protected]

it should not matter how one gets to the finish line, just that they reach it successfully.

the Common Core State Standards do not confine teachers; we are free to teach what we want.


Spotlight on International BaccalaureateWe asked Robert Harrison, head of International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme Development, how IB supports middle level education and prepares young adolescents for a successful future.

1. What is international Baccalaureate’s vision and how does it support middle level education?The IB is more than its educational programs and credentials. At our heart, we are motivated by a shared mission to create a better world through education. We achieve our goals by working with partners and by actively involving our stakeholders, particularly teachers.

The educational values and philosophy of the IB Middle Years Programme (MYP) are in line with the 16 characteristics of successful middle grades schools articulated in AMLE’s This We Believe. The MYP emphasizes intellectual challenge, encouraging students to make connections between their studies in traditional subjects and the real world. It fosters multilingualism (all students learn at least two languages), intercultural understanding, and global engagement.

We focus on approaches to learning that develop skills for communication, collaboration, self-management, research, and thinking. When you apply that focus to the exploration of big ideas that matter, you have an education that can meet the

unique learning needs of early and mid-adolescence.

2. Why is a global perspective so important to young adolescents?Being able to interact with people from many cultures and backgrounds is a big part of what it means to be college and career ready. It’s essential that young people understand and are able to compete and cooperate in a global economy.

In the MYP, we put teaching and learning in global contexts that help students explore identities and relationships, personal and cultural expression, orientation in space and time, scientific and technical innovation, globalization and sustainability, and fairness and development.

3. What can middle school teachers do to increase student creativity and critical thinking?The best middle school teachers are always looking for ways to channel students’ innate critical thought and creative energy. Middle school teachers can develop classroom structures, thinking routines, and an environment of trust. They also can tune into students’ need to be co-creators in the learning process and their interest in being engaged with the community in service and action. Teachers can help students build the confidence and resilience they need to investigate complex problems with messy solutions.

4. What can middle level leaders do to grow an iB Middle years Programme in their schools?Leaders can take advantage of the IB’s global community of talented educators, expanding their network and finding resources

in every issue PARTNER SPOTLIGHT

that aren’t bound by geography. They can use IB standards and practices as a roadmap for improvement.

School leaders help the MYP grow in their schools when they pave the way for—and demonstrate—a school climate in which meaningful collaboration is a way of life. Their focus is always on holistic education that helps individuals and groups become ever-more responsible members of local, national, and global communities.

5. if an international perspective was a food for middle level education, what kind of food would it be and why?Our goal is to help develop people who can work together to make a better and more peaceful world. So I’d look for a simple food that has lots of variety, tastes good, and is loved by people everywhere. Since the MYP curriculum development team works from one of the IB’s Global Centres in The Hague, Netherlands, I’ll choose the humble Dutch kroket. All around the world people enjoy crunchy snacks. Filled, shaped, coated, and fried—who can resist croquettes de fromage, bitterballen, croquant, croquetas de jamón, and the like! In each case, the basic idea’s the same, but it’s interpreted in many equally delicious ways. We want MYP students to be courageous explorers who are willing to appreciate their own culture critically, as well as the cultures they encounter as they take their place in the world.

ROBERt HARRiSON is head of IB Middle Years Programme Development.

[email protected]

#AMLE2015 www.amle.org/annual @AMLE

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Marcia tateEngaging the Middle Level Brain

david HaywardAccess to Inspiration

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topics will include:• Student Motivation and Engagement

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CrEAtE, iNNovAtE, CELEbrAtE: tHE brigHt roAd AHEAd iN tHE MiddLE grAdEs

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Annual Conference for Middle Level EducationColumbus, Ohio • October 15–17, 2015


I sat confidently in the district office, awaiting my annual evaluation conference with the superintendent. I knew our spring standardized test scores were very good. Our students had shown improvement in all five tested areas (reading, language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies) and every content area had at least 95% of all students meeting or exceeding state standards.

The door opened, the superintendent came in, and after brief niceties, we moved into the evaluation. “Your test scores are excellent,” he said, obviously as pleased as I was with our standardized test performance. But then he asked a question that

changed the directional course of my school: “What else can you do?”

This was something I had never really thought about,

but he was right. What else could I do to ensure my students were not only academically prepared for their future, but also ready for the world outside school?

the year of PlanningYears of school budget cuts had led our school, Liberty Middle School in Cumming, Georgia, to return to a bit of a “junior high” model. As I pondered the challenge presented to me, I knew that I needed to brush up on best practices for middle schools and the potential outcomes from their implementation. I read all types of education books and journals, looking for the answer that would be right for my students. One publication that I revisited immediately was AMLE’s This We Believe. Rereading this document reignited my passion for all that is truly middle school.

With a vague plan in mind and through a shared leadership model, I enlisted the help of the teachers on our school’s leadership team. These teachers also began to read and research best practices and to locate schools in our area that used unique instructional programs that went beyond the traditional academic scope of the classroom.

Interested teachers were divided into teams and charged with visiting a variety of schools. They visited the Ron Clark Academy, an International Baccalaureate middle school, and a variety of academy-based schools that focused on specific areas or content, such as math/science, world languages, and gifted studies. Teachers observed and questioned staff members and students about the variety of programs/practices they saw. When teacher teams returned from their visits, they presented their findings to the school’s leadership team. Slowly but surely, a plan started coming together.

cover story

the Journey Back: A Return to the Middle SchoolA simple question prompted a whole-school transformation.

By CONNiE StOVALL

Tablet App EXTRA!To listen to a podcast with Connie Stovall, download the App at www.amle.org/AMLEMagazine.


the Return to true Middle School teaming To reiterate, we had moved toward a more traditional junior high-type operation. Because of the limited number of teacher allotments, it was easier to schedule students across teacher-content groups rather than maintain groups of students taught by a team of teachers. Our school also used a pull-out model for gifted instruction that interfered with true teaming.

Changing our organizational structure back to true “closed” teams would allow teachers the autonomy to develop schedules that would meet the instructional needs of their students without affecting other students and teachers throughout the building.

A New School StructureRather than three grade-level halls, our school is divided into three communities. Each community

includes students from grades six, seven, and eight. Within the community, students become members of one of five houses in a fun and exciting “house sorting ceremony.” Each teacher in the building becomes a house leader and works with the members of that house during daily advisement.

Within each community, eighth graders learn leadership skills by serving as student mentors to their younger sixth and seventh grade house “siblings.” The house structure also affords students the opportunity to cooperate and collaborate within their house while providing some friendly competition between houses. Students can earn points for their houses behaviorally and academically; conversely, students can lose points for their house for repeated misbehaviors through a “citations” system.

Schoolwide Behavioral and Academic ExpectationsAs teachers visited schools, they began to see the value of schoolwide expectations. Expectations should be more than a set of rules; they should include a variety of factors beyond behavior. Liberty’s Expectations have five major categories: respect, acknowledgment, interaction, preparedness, and accountability. These expectations are the foundation for the house points system described above.

innovation idealsForsyth County Schools created a learner profile that describes the attributes of students who attend and graduate from a Forsyth County school. These are academic skills and personal characteristics that Forsyth County Schools’ students need to be college and career ready.

Liberty Middle School had always provided students with the academic skills necessary for the world outside school, so we identified Innovation Ideals to provide our students with the soft skills they need to be college and career ready. The Innovation Ideals are simply 10 characteristics we ask our students to embed into their daily lives: reflective, inquisitive, risk-taker, self-disciplined, committed, honest, responsible, creative, compassionate, and open-minded.

inquiry-Based/interdisciplinary instructionJohn Dewey said, “From the standpoint of the child, the great waste in school comes from his inability to utilize the experience he gets outside, while on the other hand he is unable to apply in daily life what he


is learning in school. That is the isolation of school—its isolation from life.” Dewey made this comment in 1916. It seems almost laughable that schools are still so unchanged.

Our school made the strategic decision to implement inquiry-based, interdisciplinary instruction. Teachers participated in professional learning sessions in the year prior to whole-school implementation to investigate and develop a better understanding of these two learning strategies.

Teachers develop units featuring current real-world problems around which students pose questions. These real-world situations promote cross-curricular/interdisciplinary learning and application. Student-generated questions, along with open-response questions asked by teachers, have increased student classroom engagement and motivation for learning. Teachers, in turn, deliver key information (standards-based skills and concepts) to help students work toward possible solutions.

Students work collaboratively to research current information about the topic and then synthesize this new information with the skills and concepts the teacher provides with the goal of reaching the best solutions.

Finally, teachers are encouraged to provide ways for students to creatively communicate solutions to authentic, community-based audiences. Students and teachers have made presentations through community museum nights, engineering nights, and even Liberty’s own version of Shark Tank.

going ForwardThe 2014–2015 school year is Liberty’s first year using this plan as a school-wide model. The seeds were planted in a conversation in June 2011, and progress was made in small steps. We started with one team of five teachers leading a group of 125 seventh-grade students. The academic achievement successes evident from the 2013 standardized test scores of our pilot students versus the students who were not a part of the pilot were enough to encourage us to add two more teams for the 2013–2014 school year.

This transformation was our answer to the question “What else can you do?” Our challenge to other middle schools across the country is similar: What else can you do to increase student achievement? To teach your students to think critically? To help your students learn to be effective communicators? To lead your learners to be valuable citizens in the future? What else can you do?

A Leader’s Perspective of Change By Connie Stovall

Change is generally not easy for anyone. However as school leaders, we are called upon to make changes that are in the best interest of our young learners. The problem for principals, and actually for any leader, is that we are outnumbered by the members of our staff. Therefore, the resistance to change created by the teachers and support personnel has the potential to become the greatest challenge to overcome.

Here are the four things that have served me well as I have attempted to create changes at Liberty:

1. Have an unwavering vision and know what you believe. Mel Thompson once said, “If you don’t stand for something, you stand for nothing.” There’s a great deal of truth in that. An unwavering vision lets those around you know what you stand for and what you believe. you must also have a strong enough conviction about what you believe to stand fast without the appearance of being defensive.

2. Share your vision (over and over and over). I know most of the time we shouldn’t be a broken record, but when it comes to vision, especially a new vision, it needs to be shared over and over and over again with a variety of audiences, including teachers, parents, and students. Resisters need to hear the message multiple times in multiple ways to understand and embrace the change.

3. Change is hard! you will meet with resistance from your faculty, from parents, and maybe even from students. So when you begin to doubt yourself (and you will), ask yourself “who will be the beneficiaries of this change movement?” when the answer is “our students,” hold your head high and carry on!

4. Professional learning is the key. No one sets out to fail. If you want to ensure the success of your change efforts, you must support your teachers by providing professional learning. The professional learning should help teachers see the vision more clearly and give them the confidence they need to know they can contribute to making this vision a reality for students.

CONNiE StOVALL is principal at Liberty Middle School in Cumming, Georgia.

[email protected]


cover story

How is adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) affecting middle school instruction?

At a meeting with teachers and principals from an array of schools honored with the Schools to Watch designation, co-author Nance Wilson asked the educators how the adoption of CCSS has affected their schools. The response was an astounding “not at all.” Each person at the table described how the expectations of the standards align with their high

expectations for students and that the standards only comprise a small part of the curriculum for their schools.

Although the teachers and principals from the represented schools were in agreement, a debate over the CCSS has monopolized the public’s conversations around teaching, learning, and schools. The standards have sparked debate around issues such as states’ rights, testing, developmental responsiveness, and

This We Believe and the Common CoreHow closely do the tenets of This We Believe align with common core ELA standards?

By NANCE S. WiLSON, LAURiE A. RAMiREz, & CARLA K. MEyER


even mind control, as evidenced by a CBS Sunday Morning segment in September 2014.

The hype surrounding the CCSS has prompted people to take sides regarding the standards and whether they should play a role in our schools. The veracity of the debate convinced us to take a step back and determine how well the standards align with the landmark publication This We Believe, published by the National Middle School Association (now the Association for Middle Level Education).

This We Believe (TWB) examines all aspects of a young adolescent’s school experiences, including curriculum, instruction, and assessment; leadership and organization; and culture and community. It characterizes curriculum, instruction, and assessment as a combination of teachers’ positive dispositions toward middle school students, the application of a variety of teaching approaches, the learning environment, and a multi-faceted curriculum.

TWB asserts that curriculum is “the primary vehicle for achieving the goals and objectives of a school” and should be challenging, exploratory, integrative, and relevant. As passionate supporters of developmentally appropriate education for young adolescents, we believe that TWB is the gauge by which educational initiatives should be measured. Standards such as the CCSS inform the academic goals and objectives of a school, not how schools should achieve those goals. Therefore, it is important to carefully examine those standards in reference to our knowledge of effective middle level education.

Some BackgroundThe effort to develop the Common Core State Standards was launched in 2009 by state leaders, including governors and state commissioners of education from 48 states, two territories, and the District of Columbia. The CCSS were informed by already-existing state standards, experiences of teachers and other educators, and public feedback (www.corestandards.org). Since the development, and despite controversy surrounding the CCSS, the majority of states have adopted them. According to the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, the standards serve to “outline what a student should know and be able to do at the end of each grade.”

As English Language Arts (ELA) teachers and literacy scholars, we wanted to analyze the CCSS for ELA to determine their fit within our understanding of middle level best practices. The ELA standards examine literacy across the curriculum, illustrating

a vision of a reader as “an active, engaged reader endowed with agency.” The middle grades readers described in the CCSS cite textual evidence to support their ideas, write for different purposes, read across a variety of texts, and use academic language throughout the learning process. But do these expectations align with TWB?

is there a Match?After analyzing the content of the CCSS for the English Language Arts, we discovered that the CCSS themselves, as a document, do not give a complete or accurate picture of curriculum, instruction, and assessment in middle grades classrooms. Rather, the alignment of the CCSS depends on implementation by schools and individual teachers. For example, the CCSS do not address an exploratory curriculum as described by TWB because the CCSS are too narrowly focused. However, we did find that the standards meet the criteria for challenging, integrative, and relevant.

The standards are challenging in that they provide students with rigorous concepts as they engage in analysis within and across texts, as well as with language. Many of the standards require students to engage in performance-based activities, and they give students the responsibility and control in how to demonstrate specific skills. The CCSS challenge students with expectations that they are able to:• Analyze the extent to which a filmed or live

production of a story or drama stays faithful to or departs from the text or script, evaluating the choices made by the director or actors. (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.8.7)

• Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, using search terms effectively; assess the credibility and accuracy of each source; and quote or paraphrase the data and conclusions of others while avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation. (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.7.8)

• Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including vocabulary

the alignment of the CCSS depends on implementation by schools and individual teachers.


community network, and school leadership that builds collaboration among stakeholders.

Considered in isolation, the Common Core State Standards are neither a guarantee of student achievement nor an indication of good teaching. The CCSS, while potentially in alignment with middle level philosophy and characteristics, relies heavily on individual teacher implementation. Teachers must use the CCSS to plan and implement instruction and assessment that honors the wide diversity among young adolescents. Further, for the effective teacher middle level education means, as TWB indicates, “accepting full responsibility for the success of students in his or her classroom.”

While the CCSS may offer guidelines for teachers, the teachers themselves must be the ones to ensure a curriculum that is developmentally responsive, challenging, empowering, and equitable. This We Believe calls teachers to action in this regard. The standards implore teachers to maintain the vision and commitment laid out in TWB and advocate in their classrooms, schools, and communities for what is right for young adolescents rather than what might be simply “current practice, expedient, or readily accomplished.”

NANCE S. WiLSON is associate professor in the literacy department at SUNY Cortland in Cortland, New York.

[email protected]

LAURiE A. RAMiREz is assistant professor in the department of curriculum and instruction at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina.

[email protected]

CARLA K. MEyER is assistant professor in the department of instruction and educational leadership at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

[email protected]

specific to domains related to history/social studies. (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.4)These are only a sampling of how the CCSS

encourage instruction that will challenge middle school students.

We also found that the standards were integrative within the setting of expectations for students. The speaking and listening and writing standards depend on the reading standards across the disciplines. Therefore, they support the middle grades philosophy of an integrated approach to teaching the academic subjects. For example, students should use what they are learning in content courses to “write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas, concepts, and information through the selection, organization, and analysis of relevant content” (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.7.2).

Not only do the CCSS call for integrating writing across the disciplines, they require instruction that fosters speaking and listening across the disciplines, as well.

The ELA standards ask students to generate ideas, learn across the disciplines, and share knowledge through diverse technologies. This supports TWB’s description of a relevant curriculum as one that “allows students to pursue answers to questions they have about themselves, the content, and the world.” For example, the standard for WHST.6-8.2 asks that students “Develop the topic with relevant, well-chosen facts, definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples.” As students answer their own questions, the curriculum becomes relevant.

Accepting ResponsibilityStandards are just a small part of what makes an effective middle level school. We see them as a piece of a very complex puzzle. The completed puzzle includes a school in which young adolescents are recognized as unique learners who need strong teacher involvement, a responsive student-centered learning climate, a school with a strong parent-

they support the middle grades philosophy of an integrated approach to teaching the academic subjects.

the Common Core State Standards are neither a guarantee of student achievement nor an indication of good teaching.

Check out the book, This We Believe at www.amle.org/shop.

EXTRA!


Using What We Already Know to teach Common Corethe goals of the common core State Standards are nothing new to middle level educators.

By HOLLy tHORNtON

cover story


• Looking for and expressing regularity in repeated reasoning.The CCSS English Language Arts standards

demand a greater balance between reading informational and literary texts, and stress the use of text-based evidence to support argumentation in writing and speaking. Standards focus on: • Writing arguments to

support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence.

• Writing informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas.

• Writing narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences. In addition to the focus on writing and reading,

the Common Core focuses on the skills and knowledge necessary to prepare students for life outside the classroom. They include critical thinking skills and the ability to closely and attentively read and enjoy texts. An emphasis on students using cogent reasoning and evidence collection skills is viewed as essential for success in college, career, and life. The standards are grounded in what it means to be a literate person in the 21st century.

What’s the Same?The Common Core Standards in mathematics and English Language Arts emphasize more advanced conceptual understanding, higher-level thinking, real-world context, and application of knowledge and skills—all goals that resonate with middle level teaching philosophy and practice, which strives to present challenging, relevant curriculum and bring all young adolescents to deeper levels of understanding. Three specific middle level approaches cultivate the kind of thinking that the Common Core standards seek to foster: middle level approaches to curriculum, authentic and varied assessments, and real-world connections.

Examples of strange test questions and student assignments are showing up on social media these days, leaving parents, students, and the community wondering, “What exactly is this Common Core?”

The backlash to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) is perpetuated largely by the misinterpretation of the standards as states race to implement or rail against them, depending on the political context.

What’s new about CCSS? How are these standards different from standards states have established across the decades? The answer does not lie in these pre-packaged, test-focused approaches and decontextualized test examples. The working definition of these standards is often driven by financial motivation on the part of text book publishers and test makers and misinformed policymakers. What we need is a focused examination of what the Common Core actually is, going straight to the standards themselves.

The standards define what all students are expected to know and be able to do; they do not define how teachers should teach. Educators must translate the standards into engaging and effective curriculum and instruction, and middle level teachers have the knowledge and expertise to do so.

What’s different?What are the distinctions in these new standards? The CCSS in mathematics and English Language Arts focus on more advanced conceptual understanding, higher-level thinking skills, and the use of these skills in real-world contexts, while making connections to the 21st-century skills of communication, creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking.

The CCSS math standards address topics such as the number system, expressions and equations, functions, geometry and statistics, and probability. They accentuate a focus on a smaller set of conceptually larger ideas that spiral across the grades (as opposed to simply “covering” numerous skills) with an emphasis on meaningful application using mathematical practices, including:• Making sense of problems and persevering in

solving them. • Reasoning abstractly and quantitatively.• Constructing viable arguments and critiquing

the reasoning of others.• Modeling with mathematics.• Using appropriate tools strategically.• Attending to precision.• Looking for and making use of structure.

three specific middle level approaches cultivate the kind of thinking that the Common Core standards seek to foster.

Tablet App EXTRA!To read additional content for this article, download the App at www.amle.org/AMLEMagazine.


A rigorous and relevant curriculum that embraces interdisciplinary connections and conceptual integration across content fields is fertile ground for helping all students reach the Common Core Standards. Both the English Language Arts and math standards focus on the context in which skills are used and developed and how they are related to and used in other fields of study and in the real world beyond school.

An interdisciplinary approach supports this call for complexity of understanding and application; indeed this is one of the benefits of such an approach. Middle level educators have expertise in integrated curriculum and should view the Common Core as an opportunity to teach others how interdisciplinary approaches will advance the standards’ goals of deep understanding and real-world application.

Authentic and varied assessments can ensure a focus on higher-level thinking, depth of understanding, relevancy, and application. Common Core-related assessments are being developed by the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium to get closer to the authentic evaluation of student understanding that the Common Core requires. That may be a step in the right direction, but ultimately the Common Core calls for authentic, ongoing performance assessments such as those associated with Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins’ Understanding by Design model. This type of assessment is not new to middle level thinking.

the real-world focus of the Common Core, which strives to have all students ready for college, career, and life, is best supported by student-centered approaches to learning. As Gordon Vars and James Beane remind us in their June 2000 ERIC Digest article, “Integrative Curriculum in a Standards-Based World,” students will be successful learners when they make connections to the real world and engage in integrative learning that builds on their knowledge base, questions, and interests. Developmentally responsive teaching practices cause us to look at students as individual, whole beings, and to design learning opportunities to meet their needs. This leads to meaning-making and conceptual understanding of learning and application in the world beyond school. The scaffolding and developmental nature of the Common Core fits well with this type of middle level thinking.

doing What We doThe types of learning goals associated with the Common Core standards have always been the center of middle level philosophy and practice. The Common Core is an opportunity for middle level educators and those who have been involved in the middle school movement to again take the lead in educational reform and bring middle level thinking to the fore.

The Common Core doesn’t need a pre-packaged curriculum or a new test to fulfill its goals. It needs middle level teachers to make grounded, solid decisions for their teaching practices and ultimately their students. We have already laid the groundwork. It’s time to tap into our knowledge and skills to ensure the Common Core is implemented in a way that prepares young adolescents to be the thinkers and decision makers of the future rather than “new and improved” test takers.

HOLLy tHORNtON is a professor in the department of curriculum and instruction at Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina.

[email protected]

the scaffolding and developmental nature of the Common Core fits well with this type of middle level thinking.

School group programs in southwest Colorado. Programs articulate with Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards.

CROW CANYONARCHAEOLOGICAL CENTER

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cover story

Service-Learning: Bringing Middle Level ideals to LifeA goal of middle grades education is to teach students to give of themselves.

By CAtHyRN BERgER KAyE

My first teaching experience, surprisingly, was in a one-room style schoolhouse in rural Maine. I had always lived in cities—which is why rural Maine was so surprising. When my students announced they wanted to do something about the diseased Dutch elm trees in their neighborhoods, I realized I didn’t know an oak from an elm. However, because they had such strong feelings, I knew enough to grab this opportunity.

For the next two weeks, much of the writing, science, math, and social studies centered on connecting with government agencies, learning the skills needed to do scientific observation and record keeping, analyzing the data, and writing clear, concise reports. Other work became connected—tree haiku, photography, and environmental stewardship.

What developed was a challenging curriculum that engaged students as active learners. Differentiation came about in using varied teaching approaches and building on students’ interests and strengths as they added new knowledge and skills. The impulse for learning belonged to the students; they brought questions, drive, and immediacy—they had a collective purpose that made them the generators.

As a teacher, I was alert to their process, seeing what they could do and when they needed a lesson to build various skills or information. When the time was right, I pressed “pause” and gave an overview of an appropriate topic such as state government. I met all of my curricular intentions—not as I had initially planned, but in a better way! Student attention was turned on at all times because they had a cause.

Seventh graders in Albion, New York, helped restore an historic cemetery in their community.

Students helped unveil the new cemetery marker that honors the history of the town and its residents.


They wanted to be “response-able.” They were being depended upon (by trees and their neighbors) and they were eager to learn and to serve.

What is Service-Learning? Service-learning offers a way for students to acquire and apply their knowledge and skills to meet real community needs. During the process, students continually add to what they know, confirm or reconsider attitudes and beliefs, and become more aware of their own place in the world. Students typically exceed expectations because they are invested in a purpose that becomes more important than the grade. Their learning matters, and what they do with their learning matters.

the Early daysService-learning, developed in K–12 schools in the 1980s, supported interdisciplinary teaching, making it an ideal fit for middle schools. In 1991, I visited Alvin Junior High School in Texas—a true middle school under the leadership of Principal Linda Robinson. Linda wasn’t sure service-learning was present at Alvin Junior High, but she graciously allowed us to meet with her teaching teams. This is where I first saw how perfectly service-learning fits a middle school model.

One team had followed up on an idea proposed by the math teacher whose elderly aunt was in a nursing home. The teacher was concerned that many of the nursing home residents were forgotten during the holidays. She wanted to see if the team could develop an interdisciplinary lesson around that issue. As a result: • In English, students read articles, gathered

information, and outlined roles and responsibilities. • In history, students interviewed residents about

their memories of being teenagers. They read about the relevant time period, looked at economic conditions, and crafted appropriate questions and formats for the interviews.

• In math, students applied their geometry skills to make holiday decorations.

• In science, students studied aging and life cycles, including nutrition and dietary needs, and made sugar-free cookies to take to the residents.

The teachers saw students more engaged than they had been with any other lesson, constantly coming in to share new ideas and ask questions. One student known for being unruly asked to dress as Santa Claus when they visited the nursing home. The teachers agreed under the condition that he be on his best behavior for the weeks leading to the visit—and he was. At the nursing home he was kind and caring and showed his best self. (The teachers shared that he resumed his prior behavior soon afterward, but they all knew and he knew something was different.)

Did this project advance learning? Absolutely. Teachers saw students grow and develop on myriad levels throughout the process. They recognized that they were doing service-learning, which inspired them to continue to include service-learning in their curriculum.

Service-Learning for the 21st CenturyOf course we want and expect students to meet their academic benchmarks and gain content knowledge, but if the sole purpose of learning is grades, students will do the work based on what it takes. When students have a purpose for the learning, they become more resourceful and take initiative. The work changes from What’s in it for me? to What matters to me? This is a critical question in adolescent development.

Students also develop transferable skills as they engage in meaningful learning. When the sixth grade students at Eastshore Elementary School in Irvine, California, took on the issue of helping pass the law banning the sale of shark fins in their state, they found many ways to apply their knowledge and abilities. After intensive study, they wrote articles about shark finning for magazines and newsletters and designed “I Love Sharks” t-shirts to raise funds. They went to their state capitol and lobbied for their

the teachers saw students more engaged than they had been with any other lesson, constantly coming in to share new ideas and ask questions.

Student attention was turned on at all times because they had a cause. they wanted to be “response-able.”


cause with a student dressed as (you guessed it) a shark. Their work contributed to the passing of a state law banning the sale of shark fins in California. Consider all the skills required to create products and a marketing campaign and to meet with legislators.

In Albion (New York) Central Schools, seventh grade students heard a speaker discuss local history, including a local cemetery with numbers on the markers instead of names. On a field trip, they found the neglected cemetery, spearheaded the renovation, and by using historical records, confirmed that 164 people are buried in the cemetery. Because a fire had destroyed the original ledger, they could not match numbers to names. The students created a book about their project and included a complete list of names with any additional information they could find (birth, cause of death if known, and occupation). Now this is a small park with a large stone marker and benches for the community to reflect and honor the past.

While attending eighth grade at Lincoln Middle School in Santa Monica, California, my daughter spent time with people suffering from memory loss. This had a profound impact on her understanding about communication and commitment. She came up with the idea to write a book to assist other children: Conversation Starters as Easy as ABC 123—How to Start Conversations with People with Memory Loss. She used this simple book to teach children in local elementary schools about memory loss, promote conversations, and teach other teens how to use a similar format to share what they have learned. As an educator and a parent, I saw firsthand the deep impact of service-learning.

giving of themselvesTo become active participants in society, students must be active learners. How else will they build the confidence and competencies that go hand-in-hand with meaningful experiences? How else do they have a chance to see who they are through real moments and interactions with their world? By enabling them to harness their interests, skills, and talents with the power of a purposeful education, students discover

their work contributed to the passing of a state law banning the sale of shark fins in California.

they can make meaningful contributions today and tomorrow.

With service-learning, we engage our students in seeing that they have the heart and the mind and a grand capacity for learning and for service.

CAtHRyN BERgER KAyE is an international education consultant and speaker. She is the author of The Complete Guide to Service-learning and two books with environmental advocate Philippe Cousteau: Going Blue and Make a Splash!

[email protected] www.cbkassociates.com

Bring Cathryn Berger Kaye to your school. Contact AMLE Director of Middle Level Services Dru Tomlin at [email protected] for more information.

investigation: Includes the inventory of student interests, skills, and talents, and social analysis and verification of an identified need, often through action research that includes use of media, interviews of experts, survey of varied populations, and direct observation/personal experiences.

Preparation: Students continue to acquire content knowledge as they deepen understanding, identify partners, organize a plan of action, clarify roles, build time lines, and continue developing skills.

Action: Students implement their plan in the form of direct service, indirect service, advocacy, or research. Action is planned with partners based on mutual understandings and perspectives.

Reflection: Reflection is ongoing and occurs as a considered summation of thoughts and feelings regarding essential questions and varied experiences to inform content knowledge, increase self-awareness, and assist in ongoing planning.

demonstration: Students capture the total experience, including what has been learned, the process of the learning, and the service or contribution accomplished and shared with an audience. Telling their story may integrate technology and further educate and inform others.

the Five Stages of Service-Learning: An Abbreviated guide


Reviving AdvisoryNow is not the time to be cutting advisory programs in schools.

By ROBERt RUdER

cover story


A few months ago, The Today Show’s Matt Lauer interviewed Sports Illustrated Editor Jon Wertheim about an October 15, 2014 SI article that told the story of a homeless student athlete who was recently drafted into the NBA. Wertheim told of the power of coaches over the destinies of these homeless students.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, nearly 1.3 million homeless children and teens were enrolled in elementary, middle, and high schools during the 2012–2013 school year—a 58% increase over the past six years.

As I watched the show, I thought about a book I was reading at the time: Laura Schroff and Alex Tresniowski’s An Invisible Thread—a true story about an 11-year-old panhandler and how his unlikely meeting with a busy sales executive (Schroff) changed two lives forever.

The book and the Today Show interview emphasized the incredible power that one individual can have over the life of a child—which is a basic premise of middle school advisory programs.

A Foundation in the MiddleAdvisory programs are considered an essential part of middle school philosophy and critically important to a student’s journey through the often-turbulent middle school years. When the middle school philosophy was championed in the early 1960s, the movement’s founders were adamant about the value of the advisory program and its support of the student-centered middle school philosophy.

In the decades since the launch of the middle school movement, much has changed. Scores of societal and educational issues have affected education and middle level thinking and philosophy. A struggling economy has forced schools to cut vital programs including, in some cases, advisory.

As evidenced by stories such as Wertheim’s and Schroff’s, homeless students need support beyond the academic. That’s why the growing number of homeless students should prompt middle level leaders to take a good look at how they support all students.

1. Is your school a middle school in name only? Do your school’s philosophy and actions endorse current middle level thinking?

2. Is your school sensitive to the needs of all students, including those who are homeless?

3. Is an advisory program part of your school’s fabric? If it is not, would an advisory program be a viable addition to your school’s overall philosophy?

Middle schools are bricks and mortar and an address on Google Maps. What makes a middle school unique is the staff, the students, and the sense of community as everyone pulls together to support all students. Don’t let any students slip through the cracks.

ROBERt RUdER, a former middle grades educator, is a consultant and writer based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

[email protected]

The Mckinney-Vento Education for Homeless Children and youth Act, passed more than two decades ago, gives educators an avenue to help students who have experienced a loss of housing.

By definition, homeless students include those whose families are living in a shelter, in a car, in a park, in a campground, in a hotel or motel or even with extended family, friends, and nonrelatives.

The federal law provides that students be allowed to enroll in school immediately, even if they do not have the paperwork normally required for school enrollment.

The law also provides students with a sense of stability by allowing them to remain in the school the students attended when they had permanent housing or in the school at which they were most recently enrolled if it is in their best interest. School districts must provide transportation to and from the school if needed.

the McKinney-Vento Act

Check out a webinar with Ellen D’Amore about advisory in the middle level at www.amle.org/webinars.

EXTRA!


At around age 12, young adolescents begin to see the world in shades of gray. Things aren’t just black and white and answers aren’t easy to come by. So they ask questions, which is what they are supposed to do. They wonder why the world is in the state it is

in—and then they discover that it has always been like that and they don’t like it.

Today’s middle grades students have access to more information than any other generation in history, and as educators, we can either be part of their quest to

teaching the HolocaustAcademic knowledge alone will not change a student’s future.

By LARRy SANdOMiR

features

Holocaust survivor Ed Lessing shares his experiences with seventh graders at The Calhoun School in New York.


learn about the world and help them frame what they find, or we can let them satisfy their curiosity in ways that likely will leave them with far more questions than answers—and certainly less hope.

Understanding the HolocaustThe Holocaust has become a staple of my seventh grade English curriculum because young adolescents finally are able to grasp the significance of this complex event. They understand why nations go to war (although they think it can be avoided), but they have a difficult time wrapping their heads and hearts around the beliefs and deeds of Hitler and the Nazis. And so they thrust their collective humanity in its direction and get inside the Holocaust as vicariously as possible. The stories shock, frighten, confuse, bewilder, and intrigue them. Their emotions run the gamut from hatred to admiration.

Because of the distance in time and the singular nature of Nazi genocide, students (at least those without a familial connection) begin their study of this period with a sense of disconnect. However, once they become intimately involved—and that doesn’t take long—they begin to see how anyone could be drawn into such a web of hate. And when the humanity of those Hitler selected for extermination is established, students’ perspective takes on complexities they are compelled to explore.

The numbers are numbing. But, we don’t say “six million Jews were killed.” Instead, we ask the students to imagine individual persons killed six million different times. They must imagine faces because they should never lose

sight of the humanity that was destroyed.

They hold it tightly when they watch Elie Wiesel walk through snow at Auschwitz—what he calls the largest cemetery in the world. They hold it when they see exhibits of hair, shoes, and glasses in a Holocaust museum. They hold it when speakers come to the school and explain the breaking and strengthening of hearts. They hold it when they stand in a cattle car at the United States Memorial Holocaust Museum where the echoes of those taken to the camps still reverberate.

Connecting then and Now

Students watch The Wave, a movie about an experiment at an American high school that proved how easy it is to be seduced by the same social forces that led to the rise of Nazi Germany. They study the Pyramid of Hate and learn about the Milgram Experiment on Obedience to Authority and Jane Elliot’s Blue/Brown Eyes Experiment and recognize how

easy it is to change people’s behavior.

They look into a figurative mirror and concede that this could happen again unless they fight against the kind of thinking and behavior that can spawn such horror.

However, more than anything else, they read. We challenge our seventh graders to read Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief and Elie Wiesel’s Night at the same time, together, in class. They begin reading Zusak’s book first, because it is so much longer, and then, later, when they are in the deepest parts of The Book Thief, we introduce Night, which we hear on audiotape as we follow along in the book.

Seeing dark and LightThe Holocaust also allows them to see both degraded and exceptional humanity. They are broken by the horrors that Hitler and the Nazis brought upon the Jews, but also upon blacks, gypsies, gays, and communists.

They are partly healed when they read of even small acts of rebellion in the concentration camps. They are empowered by responses of partisans and rebels, like those who organized and executed the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. They are heartened by stories of righteous gentiles, like Raoul Wallenberg and Miep Gies. There’s the audibly sigh of relief when they discover that not every German went to the “dark side”— there were those who helped Jews hide or leave the country.

Reflecting on Simon Wiesenthal’s The Sunflower, they wonder about forgiveness and whether it’s possible. As a Jewish prisoner, Wiesenthal was brought before a dying Nazi soldier who wanted forgiveness for his terrible

Ed Lessing shares a drawing he made of his hiding place in the forest.


acts. Students are put in a position of considering Wiesenthal’s decision, which was to walk out without a word.

They work hard to suspend judgment, because they are not in his place and they cannot possibly make real sense of what he was confronted with, but they can talk about it, mull over what the consequences of his act might have been, and think about the nature of forgiveness, what it means, and how it is reflected through the prism of life’s various experiences.

Looking insideThis subject changes people.

It makes them consider their lives and what they are doing with it that matters. Often, they are kinder to one another. They ask more considered questions. They commit themselves to being better than they were, better than the adults today, and they look for better ways to both think and act.

These young people take on the characteristics of more mature thinkers. Louis Cozolino lists these traits in The Social Neuroscience of Education:• Increased recognition of

complexity and an ability to incorporate opposites.

• An understanding that not all of the important information is apparent.

• An increased openness to unconscious processes.

• More realistic expectations and forgiveness of others.

• More information gathering.• Less concern about being in

control.• An ability to tolerate personal

limitations and ignorance.• Increased empathy and

maintained connectedness.

Having read, thought, and considered this period of time, when the center of the world fell apart, when they searched for morality in a place where morals were completely subverted, students begin to look to themselves in ways they hadn’t considered before. They see their responsibility for a future that could be changed because the adults haven’t come through and they believe they can do better.

The Pyramid of Hate, which they looked at seriously before but needed a concrete place to put it, now begins to make sense to them because they see where the bottom (the foundation) eventually becomes the top (genocide) if we/they are not careful. They recognize that the bottom doesn’t have to become a foundation because it doesn’t have to exist.

The behavior that creates a firmer footing for everything to grow doesn’t necessarily have to become reality. They know there are limitations, and reality can be a never-ending traffic jam, but they are content to know they can move on the road in a way their predecessors may not have considered.

deepening intelligenceWhat this experience creates for these newly minted teenagers is the deepening and expansion of their emotional and moral intelligence. Because they begin to consider problems outside their daily lives, outside their comfort zones, they seek ways to solve problems and make decisions that can affect those they know directly and buy into the idea of exponential change from the individual outward.

They consider the roles of bystanders and upstanders even

more closely—what it takes to be each, when it’s right or not to be one, and how challenging it is to be the other. They try to reach out, to be kind, to pay it forward, and to make the effort to stand in someone else’s shoes, even if only for short periods of time at the start.

It pushes them, in Alfie Kohn’s words, “to analyze the status quo and decide which institutions and traditions need to be changed. We ought to help them talk back to the world.”

It’s the emotional and moral intelligence that will change their approaches to life. It’s not their academic knowledge alone, except as it informs their abilities to apply their capacity for humanity.

Studying the various permutations of the Holocaust, even if it happened over 70 years ago, in its complexities and humanities/inhumanities, is like a palette of behavior for growing people, a way of looking at the most extreme kinds of actions, seeing where people who rightly shouldn’t have been able to fight back actually did, even by, as Elie Wiesel has often noted, an act not usually considered to be such a response—waking up every morning, and then reflecting on ways to create something better.

In that way, in a manner different from only considering the sad fact that this generation of survivors is the last, is the key way in which we, as human beings, will never forget.

LARRy SANdOMiR is a seventh grade English teacher at the Calhoun School in New York City. He has been working with middle school students for more than 40 years.

[email protected]


5 Strategies for Promoting College and Career Readinessgetting students ready for their future is important—and fun.

By dAVE StUARt, JR.

To most of our middle level students, college and careers seem light-years away. But we old codgers (meaning anyone not in their teens) sense with much trepidation how close our students are to their graduation. “Six years

ain’t nothin’, kid,” we say in our gravelly, ancient voices.

So here’s the question: How do we promote young adolescents’ readiness for postsecondary challenges while they’re in middle school? Clearly, there must be

more to it than trying to scare our students into preparing for [insert foreboding music here] the real world.

Several strategies can both engage kids and lay the groundwork for lives that launch.


The strategies are organized according to a non-freaked-out approach (see my blog, TeachingtheCore.com).

1. go Big on ArgumentAccording to the Common Core’s Appendix A, argument has a “special place” in the standards because of its “unique importance in college and careers.” Our students don’t come to us with this understanding, however. In fact, most teachers still visualize anger and yelling when they hear the word argument.

Yet, argument is simply getting to the bottom of a debatable question using two primary tools: evidence and reasoning. As a result, argumentation is something upon which I aim to build my classroom culture. I want my ELA and history classes to be places where we formulate ideas, test them against other ideas, and constantly hone our thinking

around them.

Why? Because I want my students

to be heard when they enter the worlds of work or academia. I want them to have the 21st-century superpower of clear, rational thought. Argument is the key to those goals, and here’s what’s crazy: it’s also pretty darn fun.

To get started, give yourself and your students lots of practice with the following two strategies.

First, form the day’s lesson around a debatable question. For example, rather than setting an objective that states “The students will demonstrate an understanding of the differences between Mayan and Aztec cultures,” ask, “Which civilization

would have been better to live in, the Mayan or the Aztec?”

The lesson can still look much the same as you would have taught it with the prior objective, except that now the exit ticket for the lesson can require students to answer the debatable question. The only way they can do this is by making a debatable claim and supporting it with evidence and reasoning. They’ll argue every day if you try this—and if your students are like mine, they will learn to love it.

Second, bring the power of argument into the classroom through simple, robust pop-up debates. The pop-up debate strategy is simple:• Every student speaks at least

once, at most times (the maximum depends on your time constraints and the breadth of the debatable question you’ve posed).

• To speak, students simply stand (“pop”) up and talk. The first person to speak has the floor. When more than one student does this simultaneously, I coach them on how to practice self-control and social intelligence, yielding the floor politely.

• In every debate, teach and assess one or two speaking skills. Sentence templates are an ideal scaffold for this.Pop-up debate has become a

favorite class activity in my room over the past few years, but keep in mind that it takes some skill to use the strategy well. You’re probably doing it right when kids start begging you for a debate.

2. Read Purposefully and OftenThe Common Core has popularized the fact that there’s a daunting gap between the text demands of K–12 schooling and those of adult

settings. We can pull our hair about this gap or work toward bridging it by simply 1) increasing the number of complex texts our students actually read and 2) excelling at simple, authentic literacy instruction that supports content-area knowledge.

To increase text quantity, count how many texts (or pages from longer texts) your students currently read each unit. Next, aim to increase that number.

One simple, powerful method for doing this is through Kelly Gallagher’s article of the week strategy, which he explains in the book Readicide.

On Monday, students receive instruction on reading and responding to an engaging, real-world article. On Friday, students turn in an annotated article and a one-page written response to the article. When time permits, students can engage in a pop-up debate or discussion around a provocative question that the text brings up.

This is a stellar, high-energy, end-of-the-week activity that doubles as an incentive for students to apply themselves when reading and responding.

3. Write Purposefully and OftenWhen it comes to reading, writing, and speaking, I suggest getting kids to do these things purposefully and often. But, when it comes to writing, that “often” part is problematic—ain’t nobody got time to read thousands of pages of student writing per week.

Yet, as many greater minds have argued, we cannot allow our inability to keep up with the paper load to keep us from having students write as much as they need to write if they’re to be college and career ready.

Tablet App EXTRA!To read additional content for this article, download the App at www.amle.org/AMLEMagazine.


As a result, I recommend that you think of writing in the three modes advocated by Harvey Silver, Thomas Dewing, and Matthew Perini in their book The Core Six: Essential Strategies for Achieving Excellence with the Common Core. The modes are: provisional, readable, and polished writing.

Provisional writing is the quick-write variety, ideal for warm-ups and exit tickets. Let’s have our kids do this type of writing daily and let’s read what they write quickly, for the formative data they have to offer. Readable writing is how we teach them to organize their thinking logically. I aim for at least one readable writing assignment each week. These often are one-paragraph compositions in response to one of the week’s debatable questions. I usually read these for formative data and occasionally go through an entire set to inform grading.

Finally, polished writing takes students through the writing process; it gets planned, drafted, read, revised, polished, and edited. This kind of writing, if it happens once a month across the content areas, is excellent practice for the high-stakes writing in the college and career worlds.

4. Speak Purposefully and OftenSimple strategies like pop-up debate or think-pair-share are perfect for providing students the quantity of speaking and listening opportunities they’ll need if they’re to become college and career ready, but those strategies by themselves don’t do the work of teaching students how to speak well.

For emphasizing speech-delivery skills, I’m in love with a strategy Erik Palmer explains in his book Well Spoken. It’s called PVLEGS.• Poise: Appear calm and

confident; avoid distracting tics and behaviors.

• Voice: Make sure every word is heard; avoid trailing off in your volume or mumbling.

• Life: Infuse passion into your voice; show us that you feel what you’re saying.

• Eye contact: Visually connect with everyone you’re talking to.

• Gestures: Use not just words, but also your hands, body, and face to communicate.

• Speed: Speak at an intentional rate of speed; use pauses for effect.After explicitly teaching and

modeling these elements for students, lead them in setting PVLEGS goals for themselves before speaking tasks. Afterward, have them reflect on whether they met or exceeded their goal for the element of PVLEGS that they chose.

5. grow CharacterThinking argumentatively, reading, writing, and speaking are fundamental skills for flourishing in the 21st century, but they are not all it takes to succeed. There is no way to approach college and career readiness without teaching students non-cognitive skills, or character strengths, as they are more popularly known.

Whether teaching kids to develop a growth mindset, or to cultivate grit, or to strengthen their self-control, the key with young adolescents is to be

explicit about what exactly these things are and, even more important, what they look like. So before telling a student he is experiencing a grit moment right now (for example when he wants to quit on an assignment), use a mini-lesson to lead students in reflecting on specific behaviors associated with grit (for example, finishing what you start), allowing them to self-assess and set goals for growth. For great, simplified, explicit information on the character strengths most predictive of college and career success, visit CharacterLab.org.

Aim for Small WinsCollege and career readiness is a daunting goal, especially when graduation still seems like forever away for our young adolescent students. However, by teaching our students to become increasingly adept at these key skills, we’ll gradually increase the likelihood that when they receive that ever-so-distant diploma, it will truly mark the start of a flourishing adult life.

dAVE StUARt, JR. is a full-time history and English teacher who also runs TeachingtheCore.com. He is the author of A Non-Freaked Out Guide to Teaching the Common Core: using the 32 Literacy Anchor Standards to Develop College- and Career-Ready Students, published by Jossey-Bass.

[email protected]

Check out a webinar with ACT promoting college and career readiness in the middle level at www.amle.org/webinars.

EXTRA!


Willpower, Motivation, and Student AchievementMotivating students to learn isn’t enough in the long run.

By ALAN HASKVitz

Perhaps nothing is as frustrating as having to write “Not working to potential” on a student’s report card. Is the problem the teacher’s inability to motivate the student, or is it the student’s lack of willpower to achieve?

Contrary to popular belief, the teacher is not solely responsible when a student does not learn. As Piaget said, a child learns when ready to learn. A teacher can make the subject matter attractive and relevant; the decision to learn comes from within the child.

Lack of willpower is not lack of motivation. Being motivated is the first step toward creating willpower, but motivation must always come from inside to have a lasting impact.

Everyone has willpower; the problem is motivating students to use it productively. It takes as much willpower not to do something as it takes to do something. Students exercise their willpower when they choose not to do assignments, knowing it may mean the difference between passing the class and having to repeat it the following year.

The Greeks had a word for students who displayed such symptoms. They called it akrasia, which essentially means “the weakness of will or the wasting of time.” Reasons for akrasia include the inability to visualize long-term goals, the need for instant gratification, impulsiveness, and emotional instability.

it takes as much willpower not to do something as it takes to do something.


Willpower on the BrainBuilding willpower is complicated by the way the brain handles data. Change comes from a conscious decision that is reinforced repeatedly and stored in the renin-angiotensin system or signaling protein. In other words, the more often a student hears something, the more the brain accepts it and the more difficult it is for change to occur.

The reticular activating system, which is located near the top of the brain stem, compares incoming data with accepted values that have been stored in memory. The system notes what action is needed and sends an impulse to the amygdala, which is located near the center of the brain. Here, the information is dealt with in a friend-or-foe format. The amygdala produces the appropriate chemicals to initiate action.

If the data challenge the person’s values, it is blocked and cannot reach the conscious executive pre-frontal lobes. The result may be actions that have no logic, yet comply with that individual’s strong belief about himself or herself. That’s why values affect willpower and motivation, and it’s why educators must involve parents in helping students develop their values and, thus, their motivation and willpower.

Motivating WillpowerTeachers can motivate students to develop positive willpower by providing positive emotional rewards. Offering a positive word or two to a student who has never known anything but kindness and praise may not be as effective as challenging that student to do better. The difficult part is

understanding the students well enough to know which rewards to offer.

It’s also important to note the relationship between setting goals and developing willpower. It is not the setting of the goal that counts; it is the goal-setting process that leads students to develop willpower. For example, a student is given a list of spelling words to learn. The student sets a goal of learning how to spell all of them by studying so many minutes every day. In the end, the student reaches the goal, spells all the words correctly, and is satisfied. But so what? There must be continuous improvement: the student must learn to apply these words for there to be real learning. This expanded goal fine tunes willpower.

To develop willpower in a student, the teacher must set objectives that challenge the student’s ego and compulsions. To maintain a continuous process of learning, the teacher must provide consistent motivation along the way. This is perhaps the most difficult task for a busy teacher because it has to tie in with the values the child cherishes and be fair to the others in the classroom.

Generally the best motivator is praise from the teacher when appropriate. Frequently using terms like, “good job,” or “that’s

wonderful” are inadequate for students who have worked much harder than their classmates. Personalizing the message makes it more motivating: “Bill, this paper is much better than your paper on the canals. What was the most important thing you learned?”

Some students develop willpower when told they cannot do something, especially if that challenge creates passion in the student. For example, people once believed that it was physically impossible for a human to run faster than a four-minute mile. Roger Bannister called on willpower to put himself in superb condition and prove that a sub-four-minute mile was a mental barrier, not a physical one.

Making timeWhen willpower becomes a habit, students can reach and maintain new goals. Unfortunately, the demands on the teacher to prepare students for state testing leave little time to kindle student motivation to improve their willpower.

The first step in motivating students is to work with parents. The second step is to seek common values. The third step is to construct a reward structure to help inculcate the new values. The next step is to take the elements of the curriculum and look for ways to make them more emotionally meaningful to the student. The final step is to be prepared to accept failure.

ALAN HASKVitz, a former National Middle Level Teacher of the Year, teaches at Suzanne Middle School in Walnut, Calif.

[email protected]

it’s also important to note the relationship between setting goals and developing willpower.


zombies, Science, and Student Engagementcreating an experience in your classroom can get students hooked on learning.

By ANdREA SzOzdA

It’s your first day of ninth grade in a new school. As you walk into your science classroom, you find your science teacher wearing a white lab jacket, and funny-

looking glasses, and talking with an obviously fake British accent.

The room looks like a zombie apocalypse crime scene. Scattered around are a toothbrush, towels,

body wash, Q-tips, and a plunger. Motionless bodies (old CPR dummies) with scars on their faces and bloody eyes and ears lie on top of a bath mat in front of a shower


curtain. What looks like the heart and liver are exposed on one of the bodies. Drops of blood and bloody hand prints are splattered on the shower curtain and floor.

do i have your attention? Teaching in an urban inner-city school in Rochester, New York, is difficult. Many of my students live at or below the poverty level. They come to me with reading, writing, and math skills well below grade level. As my colleagues worry about Common Core and teacher evaluations, I worry about how to engage my students in science each day and motivate them to stay engaged beyond the year they are with me. To do that, I have to be creative.

If I can captivate my students from the first day of school, I am well on my way to engaging them for the year. If students enter the classroom on the first day, take a small jump backward as they see the zombie crime scene, then smile and begin the task I have assigned, I know I have captured them for at least that day. They experience science from the second they walk in the door.

Within that first day’s lesson, students learn about observations that lead to inferences as well as deductive reasoning. I ask them to determine what happened in this zombie apocalypse. They can share their thoughts in whatever way they feel most comfortable: sticky notes, drawings, bullet points, or paragraphs. This also gives me insight into where students are and what prior knowledge they bring with them.

By the end of the day a few teachers, other students, and even the assistant principal have stopped by because they heard the students talking about some kind of crime scene and zombies in

science class. Bingo! It worked. I hooked them.

Finding a HookBeginning the school year with exciting hands-on activities lets students know right off the bat that they will be thinking and working like scientists throughout the year. Every year, I manipulate, adapt, and adjust teacher-directed lessons so they are more inquiry-based, student-directed, and engaging for my students.

Every good inquiry lesson has a hook. Whether it’s me dressing in character, playing theme music from a television show, or setting up a crime scene in the classroom, it is important to grab their attention. If they are interested right from the start, students are often more inclined to participate regardless of their skill level. This kind of craziness continues throughout the year.

For example, when we are learning about genetic technology such as DNA, fingerprinting, restriction enzymes, and chromatography, students participate in a lesson called “Who Killed Justin Case?” They observe a crime scene and read Officer Dan D. Lyon’s police report with witness statements. Throughout the lesson students are engaged because as crime scene investigators (CSIs), they are testing evidence and trying to figure out who may have killed Justin Case. Instead of reading about it, they are doing it.

When we are discussing body systems, they participate in another CSI-themed lesson. Students dissect a deer heart as if it were a human heart and determine the probable cause of death. Because a deer heart is much larger than a human heart, students conclude that the

deceased died of complications from an enlarged heart.

My colleagues often support my lessons in an effort to motivate students. For example, during an introduction to a homeostasis laboratory on urinalysis, a math colleague came into the class to drop off his “urine sample” and even stuck toilet paper to the bottom of his shoe to make it that much more authentic. Students giggled after he left, then eagerly looked forward to testing the sample for a possible disease.

Waiting for What’s NextBy making subtle changes to create lessons that are more student-friendly for my urban students, I have been able to capture their attention and engage them in learning science.

Allowing them to experience science hands-on immerses them in their own learning regardless of their skill level. They eventually become more comfortable with reading and writing within the science classroom and ultimately are able to write full-blown lab reports like real scientists.

Of course, students are always asking when they’ll have the next zombie apocalypse lesson.

ANdREA SzOzdA is a living environment/biology teacher in the Rochester City School District in western New York.

[email protected]

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Helping middle grades educators…

Reach every student, grow professionally, and create great schools.

Did you know?

Middle Level Education is on the Move! Spread the Word! Share the Passion! Students in the middle grades benefit from engaged, active, purposeful learning. Take time in March to help parents, guardians, and community members support you in creating a great school and reaching every student. Celebrate by getting your middle level on the move!

Visit www.amle.org/mlem for • Specific ideas for engaging families and community members• Sample letters and talking points• Articles for sharing or distributing www.amle.org/MLEM

March is Middle Level Education Month


Sit down!Stop kicking the desk!Who’s tapping their pen?Leave him alone!

I cannot count the number of times I’ve heard these reactions

from teachers, me included, when students cannot sit still or focus for long periods, or when students seem incapable of calming themselves down during a conflict. Their behavior is natural to some

extent simply because they are young adolescents. However, some of that behavior has to do with the world we live in and what we expect our kids to be able to do in that world.

the Benefits of “Not doing”two or three minutes of quiet time can do wonders for a student’s outlook.

By StEViE ROdiS


There is a push to bring physical activity back into schools as a way to combat some of the “fidgetiness” and restless tendencies of adolescents. As a middle school teacher and a Yoga instructor, I support that school of thought. Programs like recess, integrating movement into content classroom lessons, and after-school sports clubs are practical ways to do that.

I’d like to throw a wrench into things, though, and bring up the importance of unplugging and doing absolutely nothing—not sitting-there-staring-at-the-wall nothing; nothing as in clearing the mind of all the jumbled mess we inundate it with on a regular basis. Meditation.

We are constantly bombarded with technology, ideas, and to-do lists. We rarely give ourselves a moment to just stop: stop thinking, stop doing, stop worrying. Our students are no different. Between sitting still in our classrooms all day, completing nightly homework, preparing for standardized tests, and worrying about getting into college, our students are under a lot of stress. That’s not to mention the pressure they feel from peers, parents, and society.

Meditation can bring a sense of calm to life. Since I started meditating almost two years ago, I have seen a significant difference in my stress levels and in my ability to regulate my emotions.

It’s been easier to manage my life and work more efficiently. Surely meditation also can have a positive effect on the students we teach—a positive effect they can carry through the rest of their lives.

the trouble with KidsYoung adolescents are expected at this early age to begin thinking about college and career and to have a plan for the future. They are going through puberty, trying to establish a persona, and struggling to find a peer group. And they are constantly comparing themselves to others, constantly questioning themselves.

Some young adolescents don’t have the resources or tools to calm themselves in times of conflict or stress. I asked more than 160 sixth, seventh, and eighth graders from South Carolina how they de-stressed; 37% listed some sort of technology as a way to calm themselves down. Some even said they played violent video games or watched violent television shows as a way to relax. Few students said they read or took a walk.

Our students need somewhere to turn besides the Internet or the television when they need to calm down. That’s where meditation comes in.

in PracticeMeditation programs are being implemented in schools and classrooms across the United States. Data support the positive effect meditation has on increasing student achievement and test scores, lessening discipline issues and conflict between students, and improving the overall well-being of students. California and Pennsylvania have had meditation-like programs in place for years.

In some schools the teachers call the practice meditation, and in some cases it’s called something like silent sitting, quiet minutes, or mindfulness. The common thread is the attempt to get students to allow their minds to be quiet and still for a period of time. It’s also about allowing them to find that quiet and stillness without music, reading, or other outside “assistance.”

A fellow middle school teacher and yogi friend of mine, Channing Powers Anderson, used meditation in her eighth grade at-risk language arts classroom to help her students prepare themselves for learning. She says that after she got to know her students, she started having “quiet minutes” with them. It was important that she knew her students well so she could build relationships and a sense of classroom community first.

In the beginning, they meditated every day for one or two minutes. Anderson invited the students to empty their minds or, if they needed something to think about, to consider a question or broad statement she wrote on the board. Students could sit quietly, head up or down, eyes closed, motionless, or quietly free write.

Anderson explains that at first, many of the students chose to write. As they continued to practice though, most of the students moved on to sit in silence. She was also able to increase the quiet time to five minutes.

The students loved having those few minutes to hit a reset button of sorts. “It really helped them settle in after class changes,” Anderson explains. “On days we couldn’t have a quiet minute—like when we had MAP testing or a shorter schedule—the students were more difficult to

We rarely give ourselves a moment to just stop: stop thinking, stop doing, stop worrying.


manage. Students would actually request to have a quiet minute.”

Some teachers are concerned that students might use the time to distract others or be off task. Anderson is clear with her students about quiet minutes being a personal time. It is a time to do what they need to do to have a better day. It has nothing to do with their neighbor or friend across the room. It didn’t take long for the students to appreciate and respect that time she gave them.

If Anderson could see a change in her students during her class period, imagine what the school climate would be like if every student were allowed to hit reset at some point during the day.

ConclusionWhen we enter the teaching profession, we know we will do far more than teach content; we will be confidants, friends, and mentors to our students, and that’s why we love it.

One of Anderson’s former students shared that when he was a student, he went to Anderson’s room several times when he needed to cool off after a high-stress situation. She provided a safe place for her students to unplug, wind down, and reset.

We expect so much of our students all the time that we forget that they need a break. We all need a break—a few minutes to clear the cobwebs in our minds. We do a disservice to our kids if we don’t help them cope with the demands life puts on them.

It’s amazing that something so little can do so much for the physical and emotional well-being of students. Meditation is a personal practice, and it’s different for everyone, but it’s something we can share with students so they have a way to put their minds

at ease. We can empower them to take responsibility for their thoughts, emotions, and actions, and address life’s challenges. And it’s a skill they will be able to use for the rest of their lives.

StEViE ROdiS taught middle school for four years. She is now a full-time graduate student and yoga instructor.

[email protected]

The word meditation can conjure up negative feelings among many parents and educators—especially in the South—because historically it is associated with the attempt to attain some sort of enlightenment or to become closer to some divine spirit.

The intention of meditating has shifted in our more modern western world. Today, it is a popular tool for stress reduction, relaxation, physical and emotional well-being, and life balance.

when I first started to consider the role of meditation in middle schools, my initial question was how parents would feel about their child meditating at school. I was also curious about how teachers would feel about giving up valuable instructional time to implement the practice.

So I asked. I surveyed 40 teachers and 45 parents about the topic of meditation in schools. Most of the respondents were from South Carolina, although there were some from other states. All but two of the teachers were from the middle grades; the parents had children ranging in age from infant to age 10.

I asked the teachers and the parents how they felt about having meditation time during school hours. Only 18% of the teachers surveyed were uncomfortable with the idea of silent sitting or meditation being used in a classroom setting. In fact, 25% of the respondents said they were comfortable with the practice being called silent sitting or meditation; 43% said they were more comfortable with a term like silent sitting.

with regard to parents, only 2% said they believed that silent sitting and meditation were the same thing and they were not comfortable with either term; 71% of the parents were comfortable with either practice being implemented in school.

I also asked the parents and the teachers if they believed that providing quiet time to students during the school day would be beneficial. Forty percent of the parents said it would be a great idea, and 51% said that it could possibly be beneficial. As for the teachers, 8% said that the practice is a great idea and 73% said it could possibly be beneficial.

Overall, parents and teachers said they thought students would benefit from some kind of daily silent reflection. Evidently, adults who are surrounded by kids every day believe students need down time and daily reflection in order to cope with the stressors in their lives.

—Stevie Rodis

Meditation Survey Says!


Self-confidence is defined as “confidence in oneself and in one’s powers and abilities.” As educators, we already believe in each student’s power and ability. The challenge is, how do we add this perspective into each student’s “confidence toolbox” as we enter the March Madness of standardized testing?

As with any challenge educators face, it all begins with mindset. Below are three practical ways to support student self-confidence. Preceding each step is a relevant quote that you could use as a warm-up to get students thinking about their own self-confidence and success. (All quotes are from Changing Kids’ Lives One Quote at a Time, by Steve Reifman.)

1. Stay positive, be positive.“It is better to light a candle than to complain about the darkness.” —Chinese Proverb

You have a choice every time you walk into your classroom. You can choose to be positive and proactive, or you can choose not to be. For the sake of your students’ success and your sanity, I hope you choose the former.

Show enthusiasm for your content and lessons. Find ways to make your lessons more engaging by getting kids moving and thinking simultaneously. Greet each student at the door.

2. Praise actions and decisions, not the student.“Success is not measured by what you do compared to others. Success is what you do compared to what you are capable of doing.” —Zig Ziglar

Teachers’ words have incredible power. Every word you use for feedback, praise, or admonishment can be taken to heart, so choose your words carefully.

Citing research in the Harvard Business Review, CEOs/authors Zenger and Folkman suggest in their article, “The Ideal Praise-to-Criticism Ratio,” that although true constructive criticism is necessary to motivate, there is a delicate balance to effective feedback. You must balance every negative interaction or piece of feedback with five pieces of positive feedback.

Give specific and actionable praise about students’ work and how they can improve.

3. Communicate with all parents.“It’s the job that’s never started that takes the longest to finish.” —J. R. R. Tolkien

Sometimes the only time we contact parents is when something has gone awry in the classroom. This should not be the only reason we call home.

Did a particular student say good morning to you? Call home about it! Did a high-achieving student (who rarely gets any calls home) provide some “out of the box” commentary during a lesson? Call Mom and Dad about it! Whenever I call parents, I always conclude our conversation with something like: “Thanks for your time. Tell John that Mr. Siddons says hi!” This helps ensure your positive message is loud and clear.

Ultimately, we as teachers hold incredible power to build and maintain student confidence. We must teach students about effective effort and the growth mindset—that student success is most certainly not about luck, but in the effort they put into the work.

But it all starts with the mindset of the educator standing at the front of the room!

CASEy SiddONS is a sixth grade S.U.C.C.E.S.S. teacher and social studies content specialist at Argyle Magnet Middle School in Silver Spring, Maryland.

[email protected] @chsiddons kidblog.org/projectsuccess

in every issue MENTOR ME

“As we come down the home stretch, gearing up for final assessments, I need some strategies to boost my students’ self-confidence. Can you help?”

QUESTION

CASEY SIDDONSTEACHER SILVER SPRING, MD


TE ACHER COACH in every issue

Through the years, one of the most consistently popular topics I’ve addressed in presentations and in publications is time. As educators’ list of must-dos grows, their time to do what they signed on to do—teach effectively—diminishes.

We’ve explored the topic of time in past issues, and March certainly is an appropriate month to remind ourselves that in the face of looming assessments and end-of-year preparations, we must keep our focus on meeting the needs of students while finding time to meet our needs as well. But how?

Let’s revisit some of the time-tested time-saving strategies.

time to Meet Students’ Learning NeedsSo much goes unlearned because we adhered to conventional notions of time for learning! If we’re going to really teach students, we have to go beyond accepted classroom boundaries. Here are some ways to extend students’ learning beyond the classroom experience:

Lunch Period. It’s important for teachers to get together at lunch to socialize or connect for academic discussions, but we can give up one period a week to eat and work with students as necessary. If students need several lunch work periods, we can rotate monitoring those sessions among the team or department.

Audio and Video Podcasting of daily Lessons. With today’s technology and most students’ access to technology , this is easier than ever and very helpful. Usually 5–20 minutes long, posted podcasts can be reviewed by parents trying to help their children with homework or by students reviewing the algorithm, content, and skills for themselves. As a student, I appreciate being able to go through a lesson a second time when I struggle with content.

One Assignment for two Classes. Sometimes a student has such a huge snowball of content to learn

and work to do, it’s overwhelming—they give up. In these cases, let’s combine efforts by letting a student incorporate content and skills from one subject into the work of another subject. This often results in surprisingly creative and substantive projects that increase student engagement. For example, students might:• Weave evidence of skills in probability and statistics

into an expository essay about a casino coming to the state.

• Incorporate graphic design skills into lab drawings.• Create a musical parody (with proper music terms

and dynamics) of math properties. Interdisciplinary techniques work well.

Peer tutoring Programs. Start one if your school doesn’t have one. Struggling students who need more time with specific subjects can sign up for peer assistance. Be sure to train peer tutors how to help their peers, not do the work for them.

Online tutorials. This field has exploded in the past few years and is worth investigating. It includes all forms of distance learning, including Skype. Many websites are already set up with explanations of content we teach, such as Schooltube.com, Teachertube.com, Teachingchannel.org, and Khanacademy.org.

Of course, each online explanation must be vetted for accuracy and appropriateness before we promote them to students, but using such sites creates flexibility because students can refer to them 24/7.

Volunteer Adults in the Classroom. Some parents and retirees like to stay active in local schools and this can be a meaningful experience for them and for students. Every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, for example, Mr. Hooper can sit next to David from 10:45 a.m. to 11:55 a.m. to answer his questions, keep him focused, and provide descriptive feedback on his work. Not only does this help David’s new learning, it keeps him from falling behind.

It’s About Time… AgainBy RiCK WORMELi


Alternative Assignments/Assessments. We can shorten a lot of our assignments. Consider asking students to do one page of excellent writing on a topic rather than three pages of throwing everything into the mix, hoping something will stick with the teacher.

Consider “banking” portions of tests when asking students to re-do tests and assessments. If a test is compartmentalized into sub-sections, students need only re-do the portions they struggled with, not all of them. If the test is large and interwoven, of course, they do the entire test again.

Finding time for Planning and PreparationMost of us want to differentiate instruction, incorporate the latest teaching techniques and tools, order supplies, return parent phone calls, sponsor afterschool clubs/sports/arts, unpack standards, catch up on professional reading, participate in PLCs, keep up with the pacing guide, grade papers, get some exercise, and create wonderful multimedia presentations to engage students every day. Then reality interrupts, and we spend our time lowering our expectations, wondering if airline ticket agents at Chicago O’Hare have easier jobs.

Here are some ways to find time to plan and do more of the things we’d like to do in teaching:

divide and Conquer. We can divide the units of study for the year among our subject-like colleagues. Each one of us designs multiple instructional and assessment options for the unit plus a list of great online resources so we all don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

Prioritize Standards as “Power” or Primary Standards. We have curriculum overload and we can’t do justice to all our standards, so let’s decide which ones create the most leverage in students’ lives—the power standards. Then, we can place these large “boulders” into our schedule and spend our time and students’ efforts primarily on those concepts, weaving the other standards in and around them as we can. Some will read this and say, “But they’re all important,” and my response is, “No, they’re not.”

Conduct instructional Roundtables. Someone posts a topic for discussion as well as a time and a date for the meeting a week to 10 days in advance, usually before or after school. The topic is usually specific and practical such as, “Setting up Formative/Summative Gradebooks,” “Dealing with Chronic Disruptors,” “Yoga for Busy Teachers,” and “Efficient Ways to Deal with all the Paperwork.” These roundtables are

voluntary; participants attend the topics that interest them.

Roundtables last one hour or less. Everyone brings their own snack and strategy. All are invited, but as their ticket to enter the roundtable, each participant must have in hand, at least one idea to share (photocopied at least 15 times). And here’s the cool part: For every idea shared by a participant, the larger group must add to it, improve it, or come up with a spin-off idea that also works. If seven people show up, each one will walk out with 14 practical ideas.

Participate in Online Communities. Post the question, “I need 5 creative vocabulary ideas for my force and motion unit. Any ideas?” or, “Does anyone know a good source for science probes?” and you’ll get multiple suggestions within hours. Read about one teacher’s use of six-word memoirs to get amazing insights from students about historical figures, musical composers, or math symbols, and you have your summarization method for tomorrow’s class. Join a 50-minute Webinar on how to increase text complexity for the Common Core, or how to create a Prezi for your unit on Machu Picchu. These are intensely useful professional development vehicles for busy teachers.

Establish a Faculty Portfolio of ideas. Every time we photocopy something for classroom or professional use, we can make one extra copy and insert it into the appropriate hanging file in the plastic crate next to the photocopier. When others are looking for ideas for their own lessons, they can look through these files, pullout and photocopy what they want, and replace it for the next person.

At the end of the year, these readings, worksheets, tests, puzzles, project directions, assignments, etc. can be placed into a binder and accessed in the professional library of the school for years to come. Of course, we can also provide space on the school’s Intranet for teachers to post articles, reflections, and teaching tips that can be accessed from classrooms or home while planning.

Cultivate Personal/Professional Creativity. I can’t emphasize this enough. Many times one or more doors are closed to us as we work with students or try to find time to get tasks done, and because we’re not practiced in thinking divergently, we see only a tedious plow through hardened muck as our only way forward. Take a few moments to build personal creativity, combining and re-combining tasks and ideas, to see if there is a more efficient, time-saving route.


President Kennedy once said that we must use time as a tool, not a crutch. I would add, “…or an excuse.” Time is the rarest mineral ore to teachers: so appreciated when given or discovered. Let’s get good at its mining. This means we open possibilities heretofore untouched. We can turn schools into places of real learning and teaching—it’s time we did.

RiCK WORMELi is a long-time teacher, consultant, and author living in Herndon, Virginia. His latest book, The

Collected writings (So Far) of Rick wormeli: Crazy Good Stuff I Learned about Teaching Along the way, is available from www.amle.org/store.

[email protected] @rickwormeli www.rickwormeli.net

Bring Rick Wormeli to your school. Contact AMLE Director of Middle Level Services Dru Tomlin at [email protected] for more information.

Young adolescents—evolving, developing, blossoming, taking risks, pulling back, doubting themselves, growing into themselves—on the path to who they will be. Here’s how Larry Sandomir’s students at The Calhoun School in New York expressed themselves as they learned about the events leading up to, during, and

after the Holocaust. (Larry shares more about his students’ thoughts starting on page 24 of this issue.)

Proud of your students’ work? Of course you are! Share it with middle level colleagues through AMLE’s Student Voice. Visit www.amle.org/studentvoice for more information and to submit online.

We Remember ...We remember the sounds Of those losing their breath From the chemicals of The new age...

A Thought While Reading The Book Thief A beautiful thing about this book is its ability to invade my thoughts. I constantly think about it, applying Liesel’s circumstances to my situations...

A Poem/Letter to the Universe and Words ...Without them, the Fuhrer was nothing No limping prisoners No wordy tricks to make us feel better...

Dear Death, ...Ms. Meminger is a fighter. She’s like the Jew who is going to visit in the years to come. She’s got her own little rebellion against Hitler...

1. ...I had never been exposed to so much hatred before. My reaction was somewhat similar to, “So on what planet did this happen?”...

Even the Rocks Cry Even the rocks cry, so hard and emotionless, at the injustice of it all. The Holocaust. The one endless night. And all the concentration camps. Places of work and death...

The Opposite of Hope Mother, I’m cold I need a blanket The fire from the chimneys Warms me no more...

Standby ...No witnesses just culprits and victims as joy goes to die prayers are never even heard...

Student Voice

Tablet App EXTRA!To read the full text of these poems, download the App at www.amle.org/AMLEMagazine.

in every issue

42 ASSOCIATION FOR MIDDLE LEVEL EDuCATION www.amle.org

We can never underestimate the power of belonging and relationships. As middle level educators, we know the correlation between establishing relationships and student achievement, but have we considered the need to create a sense of belonging in our schools with regard to personal and professional growth and the dynamics of student interactions? Seeking the answer to this question took us on a rewarding journey to teach like we tweet.

Professional Learning Networks (PLNs) make our classrooms richer by giving us a growth mindset. Through PLNs, we learn new ways to think through situations collectively and to solve problems These networks can help us avoid burnout and provide us with a fresh perspective.

PLNs also allow students to look at the world through a global lens, design, collaborate, critically review, learn from entrepreneurs and authors, and get immediate feedback from each other, the school community, and the larger world.

Building relationships, developing a sense of belonging, and facilitating connections is what it is all about in middle school and beyond.

Setting the StageSo where did we begin this adventure? After setting the stage with ground rules for students and our peers, we began building our community of teachers and learners with simple free backchannels like TodaysMeet (https://todaysmeet.com). Backchannels allow conversations to go on behind the scenes.

Participants can be a part of the conversation without interrupting the delivery and flow of the lesson. They can ask questions, give examples, take polls, gather feedback, share links, and more. Reluctant students have an avenue to voice ideas and

ask questions. Virtual rooms can be opened for a day, a week, a month, or longer, and transcripts can be printed for student portfolio use or other needs.

introducing twitterTwitter supports the Common Core in many ways, including developing a “deliberate, fewer, clearer, and higher” articulated skill set. Media literacy standards are also woven throughout the Common Core and align nicely with the use of Twitter. How so? • Media messages are produced for particular

purposes and as such are constructs. It is our role to teach students to question specifically and purposefully, and 140 characters is pretty specific.

• Media messages expand the concepts of literacy and encompass both analysis and expression. Students need an ever-evolving continuum of skills, knowledge, attitudes, and actions to become the reflective and engaged participants that are essential for a democratic society.

• Using Twitter can help students look beyond late-breaking or “gotcha” news. While media is a part of our culture, we must help students see its social and political implications, how to make informed choices, and how to avoid doing harm.Armed with a list of digital etiquette do’s and

don’ts and a “paper tweet” design that helped students conform to the 140-character limits of Twitter, we began modeling how to teach fact or opinion, summarizing novels, editing and revising peer paper tweets, writing tweets from a differing global lens, and searching hashtags for collaborative activities. Learning to be clear, concise, and deliberate through a paper tweet and learning what makes a “favorite” or “retweet” proved to be engaging, meaningful work for all of us.

Teach Like You Tweet!By BRENt ANdERSON & SUSANNE LONg

HOT SPOT


Full-Force twitterFull-fledged use of Twitter came next, with modeling, monitoring, and more. We all used Twitter—teachers and students—to debate the best ways to solve math problems, teach grammar rules, make predictions, hypothesize, compare and contrast. The skill of communicating in 140 characters or less allowed us to explore, ponder, and think more deeply than ever before.

We also used Twitter to formatively assess a newly learned skill, as students’ short tweets allowed us to see if participants were on track. Twitter also helped us with goal setting, creating connections, crafting ongoing stories and poems, and expressing learning through Common Core “I Can” statements.

Over time the opportunities for using Twitter increased and became more complex: tracking a hashtag, solving a logic problem, tweeting through the voice of a novel’s character, promoting service-learning projects, and posting pics of collaborative work or end products. Twitter started conversations, helped participants find answers to their questions, and created change in our classrooms and schools.

As our students became Twitter power users, we introduced TweetDeck, (https://tweetdeck.twitter.com) as a platform for following multiple Twitter

feeds, hashtags, and users. With TweetDeck, students can zero in on specific conversations and ideas. TweetDeck facilitates participation in TweetChats. (http://tweetchat.com)—exchanges built around a specific topic or hashtag such as #edchat or #AMLEwebchat.

Finally we introduced paper.li, a free app that allows users to collect tweets and curate them into a newspaper-style format. Think about the possibilities of using Twitter plus paper.li to produce team, grade level, or school news through a format of 140 characters or less!

Expanding the Classroom WallsThe increased use of Twitter and the development of PLNs helped us realize the answer is, and always has been, “in the room.” The only difference is that the room is suddenly larger. Twitter helped us build a sense of belonging, create an increased positive culture, and improve student performance and engagement. Facilitating connections helped us grow as teachers and leaders. Learning outcomes improved and social media helped us get there.

BRENt ANdERSON is director of secondary services for Onslow County Schools in Jacksonville, North Carolina.

[email protected]

SUSANNE LONg is director of curriculum, research, and development services for Onslow County Schools in Jacksonville, North Carolina.

[email protected]

AMLE Magazine eMarketplace a directory of the advertisers in this issue and their websites

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AMLE Middle Level Education Month ....................................... page 34 www.amle.org/mlem

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Solution Tree .................................................................................... page 5 www.solution-tree.com

the skill of communicating in 140 characters or less allowed us to explore, ponder, and think more deeply than ever before.

Check out the Twitter event with Brent Anderson and Susanne Long on Teaching with Twitter. March 19 at 8–9pm ET. #mschat

EXTRA!


MAKING THE TE AM

Putting History in Their Hands—September 11By PAtRiCK KERN WitH NANCy EBEL

For 24 years, Nancy Ebel and I collaborated on interdisciplinary projects at Bulkeley Middle School in Rhinebeck, New York. Nancy was a seventh grade English Language Arts teacher and I was a seventh grade social studies teacher. Our goal was to develop projects that put history into the hands of our students. Each of our projects was meant to be shared and celebrated with others, not simply turned in for a grade.

In the February issue of AMLE Magazine, I shared two interdisciplinary projects that Nancy and I implemented: the historical game project and the historical children’s books project. This month, I’d like to share a project we developed around the events of September 11, 2001.

the 9/11 MagazineDuring the summer of 2001, Nancy and I once again gathered in her Saugerties, New York, home to plan a new learning adventure for the coming school year. Whatever that project was (neither of us can remember), it was quickly discarded on the morning of September 11.

Like everyone who experienced that terrible day, I remember the moment when I learned what happened in New York City. It was a bright sunny morning, and I was at my desk during third period study hall when Nancy came in and whispered to me that a plane had crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. Thinking it must have been an accident, like the time a plane flew into the Empire State Building,

I quickly turned on the TV in my classroom. When the second tower was hit, it was obvious it was no accident. We kept the TVs out of our students’ sight as the cameras caught the sickening scenes of people jumping to their deaths and the collapse of the towers.

During the days that followed, our seventh graders were as confused and shaken as we were. Nancy and I quickly came to the conclusion that our 12-year-olds needed time to process what had happened to their world. Thus, the 9/11 Magazine project was born.

The project sequence was as follows:Because we often had back-to-back block

schedules, Nancy and I could combine our classes for 80 minutes whenever we wished. We brought our classes together to introduce and explain the project. Each of our five classes would create its own magazine that would become a time capsule of the historic weeks following September 11.

Students, based on their strengths and interests, volunteered for the following jobs: contributing editors, layout specialists, artists, and technical support.

Each class brainstormed and voted on a name for its magazine. The winners were: The Skyline, The Tribute, Reality Strikes, Tears of Fire, and Flight of Infamy. Artists in each class submitted drafts for their magazine’s front and back cover. Students voted for two of them.

in every issue

Students covered many aspects of the events surrounding September 11, including the role of the Taliban.


Nancy and I required that each magazine have an article about the attack, Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, and anthrax. Each would also have letters to the editor, editorial cartoons, poetry, and a discussion of the impact the attack had on sports.

As with other projects, some days Nancy and I combined our classes for 80-minute workshop sessions but on other days one of us would work on the project while the other resumed with our normal curriculum.

The layout specialists worked with a publishing program they had learned in their computer class. I often stood behind them watching in silent admiration as they inserted text and visuals.

As the magazines neared completion, Nancy and I approached our district’s parent-teacher-student association to ask for funding to get the magazines printed. They generously provided hundreds of dollars to do so.

A teachable MomentFor Nancy and me, September 11 was the most teachable moment we ever had. Here is what we wrote on the last page of each of the five student-created magazines:

“Never in our fifteen years of collaborating together on interdisciplinary Language Arts/social studies projects had we experienced a more teachable moment than during the weeks following September 11, 2001. As we saw our students struggling to make sense of this unthinkable tragedy, we quickly scrapped a previously planned project and embarked

The search for Osama Bin Laden played a major role in students’ news coverage.

Students did the production work, including the layout, using a publishing program they learned in computer class.


Awakening of the towersBy: Amy C.

The day begins like any other,

Light trickling as if poured from a glass,

slowly

Cascading over hills and trees.

The sun rises, waking from its night-

long sleep.

Rays shine down upon those giants,

Full of majesty and power,

Watchful over the city that never sleeps,

Their shadows darken the windows of

Lesser buildings,

Expressing their authority in ways more

Powerful than words.

The giants start their day, tall and

strong,

Only to end with destruction

MemoriesBy: Samantha M.

The towers

Now a wisp of smoke

A phantom

With a thousand

Voices

Combined into one

Memory

A reminder of shock

Despair

Misery

on the creation of this magazine. Our instincts were quickly rewarded when we saw how eagerly the students threw themselves into discussing, researching, and writing about everything from the Taliban to anthrax.

“After many hard weeks of work our magazines were finally ready to be published. We are very proud of our students for their dedication to seeing this project through (particularly our layout people who willingly gave up more than a few lunch and recess periods). Each student was given a copy of this magazine to take home to their families. It is our hope that these magazines will be put away in a safe place as a time capsule that our students may someday share with their children when they look back on this historic moment.”

PAtRiCK KERN, a retired middle school social studies teacher, is an adjunct in the Secondary Education Department at SUNY New Paltz.

[email protected]

NANCy EBEL teaches at Bulkeley Middle School, Rhinebeck Central Schools, New York.

[email protected]

Students expressed themselves in a variety of ways.

School Improvement Assessment

Contact Dru Tomlin, AMLE Director of Middle Level Services at [email protected] to get more information and to start your School Improvement Assessment process! www.amle.org/sia

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in every issue

Megaph o neAmusing, interesting, and provocative comments from the field of education

“…when principals grab titles like ‘instructional leader’ or ‘lead learner,’ they inadvertently cheapen the expertise of the classroom teachers and students in their schools and reinforce the hierarchies that make schools such dysfunctional places.”

— Bill Ferriter, The Tempered Radical, http://blog.williamferriter.com

“My personal reasons [for continuing to teach] focus on the students as well, not just as students, but as people, fully capable of exerting their energies towards positive movement. Yet, I’d be happy if they didn’t ask to go to the bathroom every five minutes.”

— Jose Vilson, thejosevilson.com

“Though teachers do not have superpowers, we do have more in common with a superhero like Spider-Man than one would previously think: We both are selfless in our behavior; we both have committed our lives to help others though it would be much easier to quit; we both are often demonized and vilified by the media; and most importantly, we both understand that the children of America desperately need us.”

— Nicholas Ferroni, “why Teachers Are Real Life Superheroes,” The Huffington Post, January 20, 2015.

“When you test you should already know what they know. You should know if your students understand your content EVERY SINGLE DAY. Two weeks or two days is too long to wait to know what they know.”

— Vicki Davis, @coolcatteacher

MIDGE MADDEN & VALARIE LEE

In this comprehensive resource, educators Midge Madden and Valarie Lee describe the teaching shifts needed to help students meet the rigorous demands of the new standards, showing teachers how they can build upon good practice already in place and take it up a notch to address higher standards. With charts highlighting changes, sample lessons that take instruction to the next level, and teacher reflections, this will be a welcome companion for any teacher working with rigorous standards. Includes online videos and downloadable teaching resources!

Grades 5 & Up

Client: Scholastic • Eileen Hillebrand 212.965.7222 Publication: AMLE Magazine Size: 4/C• Full Page 8.625 x 11.25 Approv:

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This We Believe and the Common Core

Documents

Transcript of This We Believe and the Common Core