Education Commons^™

Crossing Selma's Bridge: Integrating Visual Discovery Strategy And Young Adult Literature To Promote Dialogue And Understanding, Steven T. Bickmore, Gretchen Rumohr-Voskuil, Paul Binford

Middle Grades Review

Urban communities, separated by race and class, experience a disproportionate number of gun deaths, police shootings, crime, violent and nonviolent protests, as well as disparities in housing, education, and employment. These discussions are visual and textual, appearing in both traditional and social media outlets. How do adolescents read and make sense of these images? We discuss integrating a Social Studies practice, Visual Discovery Strategy, with Young Adult Literature to provide students with the skills to both critique images from the events in their lives and produce responses through both traditional and digital methods.

More Than Human Sacrifice: Teaching About The Aztecs In The New Latino South, Timothy Monreal

Middle Grades Review

This essay details an extended lesson I created to teach about Aztec/Mexica resistance to Spanish conquest in a sixth grade classroom within the context of the New Latino South. Rather than concentrate on the familiar tropes of human sacrifice and European exploration, I centered Aztec/Mexica philosophy, arts, and resistance in order to disrupt majoritarian narratives reified in Social Studies courses. Decentering and complicating the dominant narrative about Aztec/Mexica culture is one way educators can challenge dominant, and negative, discourse about burgeoning Latinx communities. I argue that in order for schools to help remedy deficit perspectives of Latinx people, especially in …

Why Can’T Tyrone Write: Reconceptualizing Flower And Hayes For African-American Adolescent Male Writers, Kimberly J. Stormer

Middle Grades Review

Using qualitative methods and a case study design, the perceptions and writing processes of three African-American eighth grade males were explored. Data were derived from semi-structured and informal interviews; and document analysis. The study concluded that the perceptions of the three participants’ writing processes did not adhere to the steps depicted by the cognitive process model of writing (Flower and Hayes, 1981) that has become a dominant model for describing the composing processes of students. Recommendations are made for altering the Flower and Hayes model to depict how these three, African-American eighth graders perceive school writing.

"That Sh*T Is Rude!" Religion, Picture Books, And Social Narratives In Middle School, Denise Davila, Allison Volz

Middle Grades Review

While the U.S. has a divisive history around the separation of church and state in public school, current national and state teaching standards do include curricular objectives related to the study of religion. This paper focuses on the ways a diverse group of sixth-grade public schoolchildren engaged with religious content in their English Language Arts class. Specifically, it examines the kinds of narratives the children constructed in response to diverse works of public art and children’s picturebooks, including Mora’s (2012) The Beautiful Lady: Our Lady of Guadalupe / La hermosa señora: Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (Señora), and Garza’s …

Cultivating Classroom Spaces As Homes For Learning, Laura Flynn, Sherri R. Colby

Middle Grades Review

Our action research ethnography explores sixth grade students’ perceptions of their classroom space as conducive or distracting to their learning experiences. Issues of physical environment, students’ self-governance, and disciplinary management are explored. We conclude by offering recommendations for other educators to consider.

Drawing On The Layers Of A Partnership To Prepare Middle Level Teachers, Margaret Rintamaa, Penny B. Howell

Middle Grades Review

The University of Midwest (UM) and the University of Metro Midwest (UMM) are located approximately 90 miles from each other in a central Midwestern state. They are the only two research-intensive institutions in the state, and both have middle level teacher education programs preparing candidates in school-embedded clinical sites. Both teacher preparation programs are guided by the requirements from accrediting bodies, AMLE Teacher Preparation Standards, (AMLE, 2012) and the missions of our institutions. In this essay, we will describe our collaborative partnership and how two teacher educators from two institutions utilize school-embedded clinical sites to connect and prepare middle level …

Leveraging Collaboration And Challenging Dominant Discourses: Editorial Remarks, Penny A. Bishop, James F. Nagle

Middle Grades Review

No abstract provided.

Opening The Classroom Door - A Survey Of Middle Grades Teachers Who Mentor Preservice Teachers— Lessons From Clinical Partnerships And Implications For Practice, Steven L. Turner, Carie C. Greene

Middle Grades Review

Mentor teachers that participate in school-university clinical experiences have a unique opportunity to support preservice middle grades teachers’ development and improve the schooling of young adolescents. This article investigates an early clinical experience and presents data from a survey of 38 middle school teachers who served as mentor teachers. Findings address how middle grades teachers view their role as mentors, their perceptions of the clinical experience as a collaborative learning partnership, and concludes with suggestions to improve clinical experiences for preservice middle grades teacher candidates.

Our History Clips: Collaborating For The Common Good, Beatrice N. Bailey Edd, Nora Mcmillan

Middle Grades Review

This case study reveals how middle school social studies teachers within a professional development program are encouraging their students to use multiple disciplinary literacies to create Our History Clips as they also work toward developing a classroom community of engaged student citizens.

The Effect Of Varied Gender Groupings On Argumentation Skills Among Middle School Students In Different Cultures, Pi-Sui Hsu, Margot Van Dyke, Thomas J. Smith

Middle Grades Review

The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to explore the effect of varied gender groupings on argumentation skills among middle school students in Taiwan and the United States in a project-based learning environment that incorporated a graph-oriented computer-assisted application (GOCAA). A total of 43 students comprised the treatment condition and were engaged in the collaborative argumentation process in same-gender groupings. Of these 43 students, 20 were located in the U.S. and 23 were located in Taiwan. A total of 40 students comprised the control condition and were engaged in the collaborative argumentation process in mixed-gender groupings. Of these 40 students, …

Korean Transnational Students’ School Adjustment: An Ecological Perspective, Hyeyoung Kang, Hoe Kyeung Kim

Middle Grades Review

This research explored Korean early study abroad students’ school adjustment in the U.S., as well as how their microsystems (family, peer, school) affect their experiences. To understand their experience, we posed two research questions: 1) What are Korean early study abroad students’ experience like in adjusting to American middle schools? and 2) How do these students’ microsystems (family, peer, and school) affect their experiences in the process of adjustment? Four Korean early study abroad students participated in a collective case study. Each student was interviewed three times and observed in both their content area and ESL classes. All students described …

Young Citizens Of The World Unite! A Case For The Model United Nations In Middle School Classrooms, Stacie K. Pettit, Craig D. Albert, Juan Walker, Laura Rychly

Middle Grades Review

In this manuscript, the authors describe the benefits and theoretical connections the Junior Model United Nations (JMUN) program has with middle school classrooms. The lens used to view the JMUN program is informed by literature on the needs of young adolescents, inquiry learning, and global citizenship. Findings from this literature illuminate nuances in the interaction between inquiry learning through the C3 Framework and active learning participation. Implications for middle school students, in-service teachers, and teacher candidates are discussed.

Teaching In A Global Era: Editorial Remarks, James F. Nagle, Penny A. Bishop

Middle Grades Review

No abstract provided.

Taking It To The Streets: Teaching Methods And Curriculum Courses On-Site With Partner Schools, Amanda Wall, Christine Draper

Middle Grades Review

Our introductory middle grades course meets on-site in a partner school. This context for the course derives from an overall emphasis on partnerships in our College of Education. Meeting on-site affords teacher candidates more continuity in a middle level classroom so that they can observe young adolescents and middle level teaching. At the early stage of our program, this course meeting on-site helps prepare teacher candidates to contribute positively to schooling for young adolescents.

“You Want Me To Do What?” The Benefits Of Co-Teaching In The Middle Level, Ellis Hurd, Gary Weilbacher

Middle Grades Review

Exemplary middle schools use interdisciplinary teaming which often involves some level of co-planning, co-teaching, and co-assessing. In addition to this collaborative foundation, federal mandates for supporting students have led to frequent co-teaching between special educators, bilingual/bicultural specialists, and regular classroom teachers. Given that middle level educational frameworks, current inclusion practices, and demands for differentiation are all dependent upon teachers working together, increasing the presence of co-teaching within middle level teacher education program is both pragmatically sound and connected to foundational theories of middle level education. Middle school teachers and university faculty members who engage in co-teaching with teacher candidates can …

Mitigating First Year Burnout: How Reimagined Partnerships Could Support Urban Middle Level Teachers, Stephanie Behm Cross, Clarice Thomas

Middle Grades Review

Given what we know about new teacher attrition—most teachers leave within their first five years in the field—specialized support during early years of teaching is critical. But should this support look different across different contexts and grade bands? What does supportive teacher education and induction look like for middle level educators preparing to teach in urban settings? This essay describes steps taken to design a cross-institutional, collaborative 3-year residency program for K-8 educators, and speaks to the importance of reimagined co-teaching, critical, and cross-institutional partnerships in middle grades teacher education. The authors urge readers to consider how to implement similar …

Enacting A Mission For Change: A University Partnership For Young Adolescents, Penny B. Howell, Abigail Deweese, Alice Gnau, Laura Peavley, Caroline Sheffield

Middle Grades Review

Abstract

As practicing teachers, school personnel, and teacher educators engaged in a school-university partnership, we have worked to co-create a mutually beneficial relationship centered around the learning needs of young adolescents. In this article, we will describe our diverse perspectives on and perceptions of how the partnership enhances the learning experiences of the young adolescents with whom we learn and work. We come to this work with two interrelated goals of preparing a cadre of effective middle grades teachers while improving the educational experiences for 10-14-year-old students at Westport Middle School (WMS)--whether it is through classroom instruction, teacher education, or …

Partnering For The Common Good: Editorial Remarks, James F. Nagle, Penny A. Bishop

Middle Grades Review

No abstract provided.