Learning, Laughter, and Love in Middle School English

I supplement the Read 180 program with many of my own lessons and activities.  Two key components of my class are Newsela (which I've blogged about already) and Scholastic Action magazine.  My students look forward to getting our monthly magazine and enjoy having a tangible copy to hold in their hands.  It's filled with high-interest, age-appropriate articles. Students also appreciate the colorful pictures, graphs, and charts.  Although the magazines could easily stand on their own, I often like to develop my own lessons to complement them. This month's magazine features an article called ICY HISTORY  and is followed by another called ICE CREAM FOR ALL .  I immediately knew I had a great excuse to bring in ice cream for my kiddos! Any excuse for ice cream! I numbered the paragraphs for them I began my pre-teaching a few key words from the article.  I use  Kate Kinsella's  method for teaching vocabulary. ...

When I read through my past blogs, I realize that they are overwhelmingly positive. I make it sounds like everything always goes as planned and students follow directions. Let me assure you that things do not always go as planned and students rarely follow directions.  Yet, at this point in my career, I both embrace and accept this! Kids fall out of their chairs in the middle of deep discussions, kids get up to sharpen pencils (mine is electric) when I am in mid sentence, kids ask to use the bathroom in the middle of instruction... Heck! We've even had a bird fly in our classroom. You get the idea!  It's called teaching middle school.   Sometimes my lessons don't go as planned either.  Last week is a perfect example!  We had just read "The Pedestrian" by Ray Bradbury.  Written in 1951, Bradbury envisions a futuristic society where television has taken over the world.   Walter Meade, the protagonist,  refuses to embrace this kind of world and en...