Here is where you'll find resources for adolescent readers and writers.

Writing and Publishing Book Reviews with Middle School Students Erin Ocon If you've ever spent time with 8th graders, you'll find that they review EVERYTHING. Whether it's today's lunch, their teachers' outfits, their new assignment, or the latest video game, the students have an opinion. I wanted to celebrate their opinions, and utilize them to discuss the books that they had read in reading workshop. I also wanted to challenge the students to support their opinions by giving specific reasons why they held them. . . . more Middle School Classroom Redesign Part 3 (VIDEO) "The Sisters" (Gail Boushey and Joan Moser) help Erinn redesign her 7th grade classroom. In Part 3 of this series, everyone works together to redesign the desk and book storage areas. . . . more Middle School Classroom Redesign Part 2 (VIDEO) "The Sisters" (Gail Boushey and Joan Moser) help Erinn redesign her 7th grade classroom. In Part 2 of this series, everyone works together to makeover the meeting area. . . . more Middle School Classroom Redesign Part 1 (VIDEO) "The Sisters" (Gail Boushey and Joan Moser) help Erinn redesign her 7th grade classroom. . . . more Designing Comprehension Constructors: Helping Adolescent Learners Develop Reading Strategies (E-GUIDE) Comprehension instruction has value and lasting impact when teachers know how to design lessons, activities, and materials that match the needs of their students. Prefab worksheets or generic activities and routines often won't work, because students, texts, and tasks are always changing. "Comprehension Constructor" is a term coined by Cris Tovani (Stenhouse, 2001) to describe the graphic organizers she uses to assist adolescent readers as they make sense of texts. Cris tailors these organizers to the needs of students as they emerge, linked to specific reading assignments. . . . more Middle School Library Makeover: Stacks & Recap (VIDEO) The Sisters (Gail Boushey and Joan Moser) The Sisters (Gail Boushey and Joan Moser) collaborate with a middle school librarian, principal, and team of students to makeover the school library. In this final segment of the series, they redo the stacks and meeting area, and then talk with students about the transformation of the entire library. . . . more Middle School Literacy (RESOURCE ROUND-UP) We've recently increased our offerings for middle school coaches, specialists, and teachers at Choice Literacy, and we have many more in the pipeline. This resource round-up includes many of the features already posted geared to middle school educators. We'll be posting more in the coming months. . . . more Letters in the Middle School Classroom Erin Ocon I began my first year of teaching at a middle school this year. However, although I was trained in a program that focused on secondary education, it was the words of a first-grade teacher that kept ringing in my head during the first month of school. . . . more Middle School Readers at Mid-Year (SURVEY TEMPLATE) Katie Doherty It is like clockwork that at this point in the school year I start to have a mid-year crisis of sorts. I freak out. I think about how much time has gone by and how much more my kids need to learn. I start to think of all the instructional time I have wasted and really start to wonder "have my students learned anything at all this year?!" This year, as I was contemplating what has been taught, and where to take my reading instruction, what I was really wondering is what my students have gained so far this year. Are they more competent readers? Do they know what strategies to use when they get stuck? Are they taking anything away from the lessons I teach? And most importantly, do they enjoy reading more? I was feeling unsure. . . . more Finding the Hook: Using Newspapers to Connect to High School Texts Ruth Shagoury One of our struggles has been to make explicit connections from the classroom curriculum themes and topics to the contemporary world and what interests our students. I decided to organize a workshop for the teachers to do some curriculum planning together, helping each other search for those links and make real connections for our students. . . . more Middle School Classroom Makeover Part III (VIDEO) The Sisters Have you ever been assigned a classroom with no storage cabinets or cupboards? In the final section of their video series on a middle school classroom makeover, "The Sisters" (Gail Boushey and Joan Moser) help seventh-grade teacher Erin reorganize and declutter her built-in bookshelves and talk through storage issues . . . more Middle School Classroom Makeover Part II (VIDEO) The Sisters (Gail Boushey and Joan Moser) In this second of a three-part series featuring a middle school classroom makeover, The Sisters (Joan Moser and Gail Boushey) help Erin rearrange her classroom library and media cart area to create a more inviting space for her 7th grade students. . . . more Middle School Classroom Makeover Part I (VIDEO) The Sisters (Gail Boushey and Joan Moser) In this first of a three-part video series, "The Sisters" (Gail Boushey and Joan Moser) help 7th grade teacher Erin declutter and rearrange her classroom. . . . more Helping Aaron Find His Voice as a Writer...and Mine as a Teacher Erin Ocon In my first two months of teaching, Aaron was the student that kept me up at night. He was the face I saw while sipping coffee at a red light on my way to work, or on Sunday afternoon when I drew my lesson planning notebook to my lap with a sigh. He was a part of fifth period, my most rambunctious class period. In fact, Aaron had told me during a class discussion that I shouldn't expect anything out of seventh graders at two o'clock in the afternoon. "It's a scientific fact," he explained to me. "Well, that's the time we're in class," I shot back, not caring anymore if I sounded annoyed. . . . more "Grammar is a Tool That Evolves in Our Hands": An Interview with Arthur Plotnik My bookshelves groan with texts on the writing process, and many of them gather dust for years. Arthur Plotnik's guides are among the handful I reach for repeatedly for their insight, good humor, and inspiration. They wear so well over time. . . . more Fostering More Curricular Collaboration in Teams: The Meeting Notes Form (TEMPLATE) Katie Doherty It's hard to be a team leader as well as the youngest teacher on my team. It can be awkward attempting to implement new ways of doing things when everyone else has been teaching longer and has their own systems established. I felt surprisingly nervous! But as we sat together at our first staff meeting of the school year, I realized how silly I was being. . . . more A Library from Scratch: A New Teacher's Tale Erin Ocon A few weeks ago, I saw the walls of my new classroom. And by walls, I mean that quite literally. There are only walls to see: thick concrete, with a hole in the center that looked out onto a wide suburban street. The middle school I will begin work at this fall has experienced an enormous growth in population, and so many new classrooms are being built. My new classroom will match me: a new teacher. . . . more Activities Linking Books and Visual Learners for Early in the Year Carol Wilcox I can't wait for the first day of school, but I also dread the first day of school. I dread it because my own sons, Isaiah and Kadeem, are not card-carrying members of the school literacy club. I imagine our conversations that first week of school. I will ask about school. My boys, the same kids who have read books, magazines, the newspaper, catalogues, and articles on the internet, and have chattered excitedly about basketball games and Madden videogame tournaments and sleep overs all summer, will give me descriptive one word responses like ok, good, and fine. When I ask what they did, they will respond, "Nothing." . . . more Chance Encounter Jennifer Jones It was supposed to be a casual and quick lunch with a couple of colleagues I worked with when I taught in a middle school some years ago. It turned into an experience that will stay with me every day of the rest of my life. . . . more More Than Listening Centers: Using Audio Books in Literacy Instruction Shari Frost A lanky boy in a hooded sweatshirt was sprawled across a beanbag chair in the back of the classroom. He was staring intently at the book in his hands. "Uh-oh," I thought, as I noticed the tiny earbuds tucked into his ears. "He is not reading at all. He's listening to music." Soon his teacher appeared and gently pulled the hood off his head. He took the earbuds out of his ears, clicked the tape off, and he and his teacher engaged in a quiet conversation. The teacher went on to another student, and he put the earbuds back in. I wondered what was going on. . . . more The Stories Inside Us: Reflections on Reading and Teaching Rina Moog Bookstores make me anxious. It's a good anxiety, but it is anxiety nevertheless. I see all the books I want to read seeking me out from the shelves. Some I've wanted to read for a long time, others catch my eye for the first time as I walk by: a creative title, a favorite author, a recollection from a bibliography, a recognition of a book that could be just the one for me, or someone I know, right now. They're all siren songs calling to me, to reach out, to buy, to read when I should be grading... . . . more Linda Christensen on Coaching (AUDIO) In this interview, Linda Christensen talks about her goals and beliefs as a literacy coach working with high school teachers. A transcript follows the interview. . . . more The Read-Around: Raising Writers Linda Christensen The read-around is also the place we share our lives. As students listen to each other's stories they try to feel what it's like to be in someone else's skin. While the read-around provides the writing text and it helps us share crucial stories from our lives, it can also miss some important teachable moments. For this reason, my colleague Bill Bigelow and I developed what we called the "collective text," so we could step back from the writing and figure out what our individual stories said about ourselves and our society. . . . more Ways in with African-American Students: An Interview with Linda Christensen (AUDIO) Linda Christensen is one of my literacy heroes - a wonderful writer and thinker who has spent her entire teaching career working in inner-city high schools, writing about her experiences with honesty, humor, and grit. She is unflinching in presenting the realities of public schools, and the gaps between policies and needs. Her work with the Rethinking Schools organization has given voice to teachers, students, and policy-makers who are positive activists for better schools. . . . more Comprehending Graphic Novels: A Primer for Teachers Mary Lee Hahn Graphic novels are book-length works of sequential art. Calling them graphic novels would seem to indicate that their storylines are always fiction. This could not be further from the truth, as I've come to realize. In recent months, I've read graphic fiction, graphic memoir, graphic documentary, graphic nonfiction, graphic fairy tales, and graphic mythology. I've also dipped my toe into Manga, or Japanese-style comics/graphic novels... . . . more Quotes about Content Literacy for Adolescents Unfortunately, the idea of harder textbooks has captured the attention of educators and policymakers interested in raising academic achievement. But harder books won't foster the growth of content learning. Think about your own attempts to acquire new content knowledge. Imagine you want to learn about building a website. Do you reject the books you might use because they are too easy? Do you say to yourself, "Gosh, only 11 words on this page that I can't pronounce--not hard enough for me!" Richard Allington . . . more Mapping as a Way into Story Rina Moog The mapping exercise asks each student to diagram a place where he/she has spent a lot of time. I encourage them to envision their bedrooms, classrooms, homes, schools, summer camps, parks, sports facilities, churches, theaters, and neighborhoods, and to draw the setting they feel most connected to... . . . more Writing by Choice: High School English Language Learners Talk about Writing at Home (VIDEO) In this series of interview excerpts, high school English language learners talk with Ruth Shagoury about when they choose to write at home - what inspires them, when and why they choose between English and their native languages, and what the purpose of writing by choice is for them. . . . more Writing about a War-Torn Home: Zerina Talks about Finding Her Writer's Voice In this interview with Ruth Shagoury, Zerina talks about how she has grown and changed as a writer in her high school writer's workshop. She also talks about the experience of capturing in writing the most poignant memories of war in her homeland, Bosnia, and sharing her poetry with classmates. . . . more Let's Get Some Attitude Shirley McPhillips When Edna Mae Pruitt got her back up in eighth grade everybody listened. She didn't get riled easily, but when she did everybody sat back for the gusher. One day in English Composition class Carlyle Keely within her hearing, poor boy, made the mistake of telling Franklin Colley that Geraldine would never get a boyfriend because she was too smart. Boys didn't like girls who were known to be smart. They were scary. Whoosh! Old Faithful... . . . more