Classroom in the Middle

  Classic middle grade novels are some of my favorite things to work with.  There’s just so much to draw from with great novels like Number the Stars or The Cay.  With perennial favorites like these, there is something for everyone, and plenty of connection to any reading skill you might want to work on. […]

  With the possibility of the first woman president in the US just around the corner, it seems like the perfect time for reading about other women who ran for president in the past.  There were more than you might imagine!  I’ve included links below to three news articles about this interesting and diverse group […]

  As promised, here are the second two charts in my “Starting with Stories” mini-poster set.  The first two, which I posted about a week ago included a chart of basic story elements and one on characterization.  Today’s charts are about setting and theme.  You can download them both here: Setting, Theme.     If you missed the […]

One of the most enjoyable things about being an English teacher is teaching stories.  Kids love them, and it’s fun to read new stories with an eye to which ones might work best with your class.  When you introduce kids to story elements and show them how to read closely, it’s great to see the kids […]

Task cards are a favorite item for teachers to stockpile.  They’re so versatile and can be used over and over again.  Task cards work great for a full lesson, for individual practice, or for small group activities.  So it’s not a surprise that task cards are one of those things that teachers collect over the […]

The end of the year is in sight; testing is finished.  But, with weeks of school still to go, it’s the perfect time for a novel study – at least from a teacher’s perspective. Kids, on the other hand might need some convincing!  One way to do that is with plenty of activities leading up […]

  The first story in Cynthia Rylant’s book The Van Gogh Cafe is titled “Possum,”  and this particular possum seems to be on a mission!  At least, once the possum arrives at the Van Gogh Cafe, things begin to happen. As explained in the story, the arrival of the possum is something of a story, but then […]

The back of the book describes Cynthia Rylant’s The Van Gogh Cafe as being about a place where anything can happen.  The stories in The Van Gogh Cafe are all about magic, but not magic of a very supernatural kind.  The unusual events in the stories are more unexpected, or maybe serendipitous, than any spooky kind of […]

Mysteries is another great theme that kids really get into!  In this guest post at Minds in Bloom are suggestions for a unit that combines reading, writing, and other language arts skills with a fun mysteries focus!  Included are suggestions for using fiction and informational text, finding resources, and using incentives.  And of course there is a […]

    Love to read plays but just don’t have the time!  Read my suggestions for practicing close reading skills while reading a play with the class; just check out my guest post on HoJo’s Teaching Adventures!  While you’re there, you might want to pick up my close reading FREEBIE, too!  And thank you to […]

  Do you have kids who don’t really like to read and head for the Guinness Book of World Records every time you go to the library?  I always had a few, so I thought why not make use of this interest in trivial facts by having kids do a little research into world records. […]

    With its message of acceptance and its positive outlook, Fish in a Tree, by Lynda Mullaly Hunt, is a popular novel among teachers.  So I decided to give it a try to see how it might work with older kids.   The story is about a 6th grader, Ally, who first discovers that she […]

    After reading a novel with the class, one thing I always enjoyed doing was choosing one or two of our language arts objectives to teach or review with examples from the novel.  After reading the novel SCHOOLED, by Gordon Korman, I was surprised to see that one thing which really stood out in […]

  After reading a whole-class novel, many teachers like to add follow-up activities such as class discussions, essay writings, posters, or other projects.  To make the most of these activities, it helps to have some specific topics in mind.  Since I’ve just finished working on materials for Gordon Korman’s novel SCHOOLED, I thought I would […]

    SCHOOLED, by Gordon Korman, is a fun novel to read as a class.  Kids are sure to enjoy learning about ideas that might be new to them like living on a commune and fun stuff like tie-dying.  This novel is easy to read, around fourth to fifth grade level, and provides plenty of […]

  Today, I’m looking at a simple advertisement as a way of introducing close reading. An ad can be used as an effective illustration of the layers of meaning in a picture or text.   One way to do close reading is to have the kids read the text three times, focusing on a different […]

    To write with specific, vivid verbs, students need practice, and they also need exposure to good examples.  To practice writing skills like this one, I like the idea of starting with a short story that the kids will enjoy.  The update of “The Boy Who Drew Cats,” in Fairy Tale Comics would work […]

Sometimes a handy chart just makes things easier.  This seems to be especially true for something like close reading!  There are so many steps and so many variations on how to do close reading that just getting it all organized can be a lot of work for teachers!  And keeping track of what they need […]

    So you’ve just finished reading a novel or a short story with the class, and it’s time for a fun small group activity.  But you also want to review the basic story elements and get the kids thinking about the characters and the theme of the story.  How do you combine the two? […]

    I’m re-reading, and writing, about Danny the Champion of the World, by Roald Dahl – an old favorite middle grades novel.  I picked up on chapter 4 today, but it was such a fun part of the book that I decided to write about just this one chapter.  Chapter 4, “My Father’s Deep Dark […]

I’m linking up with Focused on Fifth with some ideas about a long-time favorite novel for the middle grades!         Danny the Champion of the World, by Roald Dahl, has been a favorite of middle school kids, and many teachers, for years!  It tells a modern story – about a boy who grows […]

Fairy Tale Comics, edited by Chris Duffy, is a book that middle grade kids will love for its comic book style.  There is even one story done by the designer of the SpongeBob SquarePants movie characters!  Middle grade teachers will love this book too, because the stories in Fairy Tale Comics are perfect for demonstrating […]

Another great picture book for older kids.   Acoustic Rooster and His Barnyard Band, by Kwame Alexander, is another picture book that will appeal to kids of all ages.  Once students have learned a little about the Jazz Age and have become familiar with names like Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald, they are ready to […]

    I’m posting at Education to the Core today.  A big thank you to Emily for that!  It’s all about fun activities for students to do with a class novel.  Lots of suggestions; check them out here.    

For teachers, and students, who like stories, The Lost Colony of Roanoke by Jean Fritz, is a great choice when only a non-fiction book will do.  It tells the true story of the colonists who disappeared from Roanoke Island and discusses the theories about what might have happened to them.     This story is full of […]

    A barking dog seldom bites.  What does it mean?  Well, first of all, it means that just because a dog barks and sounds scary, that doesn’t mean that he is going to bite anyone.  To me, this seems like a good place to start – have students explain the literal meaning of the […]

  The Library Card, by Jerry Spinelli, can make a great introduction to a summer reading program. What better way to motivate kids to check out the library over the summer than these mysterious short stories with their magical library cards?   The Library Card consists of four short stories that will appeal to middle grade kids. […]

    A scavenger hunt is a fun way to follow up on a class novel.  Kids will get to explore a range of reading materials, and you may end up with some good readings to use  in class – great for some “paired passages” activities!   Plan a visit to the library where you […]

    CRASH, by Jerry Spinelli, introduces several interesting themes that suggest interesting  topics for writing prompts.  Here are some ideas for questions that students could write reading responses about after reading CRASH.  For any of the questions, students might be directed to be sure to use evidence from the story, along with their own […]

Picture books are great for introducing a new topic or time period in history!  They also provide a great tie-in between language arts, or reading, and history.  Here are three of my favorite history-related picture books.     The Wall  is a fictional story about a boy and his father visiting the Vietnam Wall. Duke Ellington […]

Big Talk, by Paul Fleischman, might be just what you need if oral reading is on your list of things to do.  If you’ve read Fleischman’s previous book of choral readings, Joyful Noise, you’ll know what I’m talking about.     Joyful Noise, used by many teachers, is a book of poems for two voices, but Big Talk is, like […]

  Research doesn’t always need to involve a trip to the library or the computer lab.  Especially when you are introducing certain research skills and just want the kids get in a little practice, a kid’s almanac may be the perfect solution.  Scholastic’s Almanac for Kids is one good choice.  Ideally, you will need one […]

Theodore Taylor’s novel, The Cay, is a great one for working on the concept of theme.  You can talk about themes in a variety of categories – man against nature – with the storm, man against society – with the war, man against technology – with the ship and the torpedoes, and man against self […]

  Lois Lowry’s novel Number the Stars is a great novel to read as a whole class and then lead into a variety of other reading, writing, and even research activities.   For extended reading, Number the Stars could be paired with current events articles to provide a mix of fiction and non-fiction.  For example, […]

Making inferences is one of the most difficult reading skills that middle grade students need to master.  It involves higher level thinking skills and requires students to put their background knowledge to use and make connections between things that they have read.   Practicing with short passages can help your students become more proficient at […]

For a simple and convenient way for students to keep track of story elements as they read a novel, try this foldable story elements bookmark – a freebie from my TPT store.  It’s the most popular freebie from Classroom in the Middle!       Front of page:   Back of page:  

  Two novels that tie in well with Veterans day for middle grade kids are Number the Stars, by Lois Lowry,  and The Cay, by Theodore Taylor.  Both books are about kids who are dealing with the effects of World War II on their families and would fit in with a discussion of how kids cope […]

My guest post on Minds in Bloom, which is all about making inferences, includes inference questions for the pictures books The Stranger  by Chris Van Allsburg and Riding the Tiger by Eve Bunting. One interesting idea might be to begin a lesson on inferencing with the photo activity described in that post, and then follow up with either […]

See my guest post on Minds in Bloom!   It’s about using close-up photos to introduce the reading skill of making inferences.      

  The Cay, by Theodore Taylor, is a good choice for teaching the story element of setting.  Since the two islands where Phillip lives in The Cay are so different, students can practice looking closely at each setting, by focusing on details from the novel, to compare the two.   Curacao, the island where Phillip […]

  Schooled, by Gordon Korman, is a teenage problem story with a twist.  Much like those picture books for little kids that feature teddy bears with very kid-like problems, Schooled serves up the story of a teenager boy who doesn’t resemble everyday teenagers – a boy named Capricorn who wears tie-dyed shirts and homemade sandals […]

There is more to teaching characterization than just having students name character traits.  Another important characterization skill for students is to recognize how a character changes over the course of a novel.   The Cay, by Theodore Taylor, is a great novel for teaching this characterization skill. The main character, Phillip, matures and undergoes many […]

Here is a characterization activity for Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key by Jack Gantos; it asks students to read closely in order to select quotes from the novel.     Having students choose specific quotes to illustrate character traits is a great activity for developing characterization skills because it requires students to be specific in their […]

  Riding the Tiger, by Eve Bunting, is great for teaching inferences and extended metaphor!   Riding the Tiger is the story of ten-year-old Danny, who is offered a ride through his city neighborhood on the back of a tiger.  He would like to take the ride, but says that he has to ask his […]