Examines what happens when seventh-grade students share their personal reading with peers as "Reader of the Day," a way for them to define themselves publicly as they interact within the literacy community of the classroom. Discusses cultural value associated with "Reader of the Day," operations and task demands, and scripts for reader and…

Presents a model for motivating seventh- and tenth-grade Ethiopian students to write poetry about their personal feelings and experiences. Describes four strategies for the poetry workshop: acrostic, lune, counting pattern, and one that explores feelings and personal emotion. Notes that all exercises encouraged children to express themselves on…

Argues that literacy workshop classrooms, though they may appear chaotic, are highly organized environments. Reviews six model theories of organizations and their management. Describes a typical day in a seventh-grade literacy workshop. Outlines revisions needed in educators' thinking about their professional practice, and suggests strategies to…

Describes an unusual set of circumstances that paved the way for an interdisciplinary year-long United States History course involving reading and language arts that relied heavily on trade books to support the curriculum. Describes choosing the books and using them in the program. (SR)

Describes the "quick book share," an activity used by a seventh-grade reading and language arts teacher, in which students in small groups share with each other their passion for a particular book, thus getting recommendations from each other, and letting the teacher know what books are being read in the reading workshop. (SR)

Describes seven different written response formats (which all use reading response strategies) used with seventh graders. Discusses how the formats improve the quality of thinking put forth in students' responses to their self-selected adolescent novels. Discusses which response formats illicit more higher-level thinking. (SR)

Describes how the writing process is the foundation for writing instruction in a seventh-grade class with full special education inclusion. Describes how daily writing, lots of choice, modeling, and examples of rich writing help all students move ahead to become better writers. (SR)

Attempts to help students think critically about violence and masculinity in order to point out options for life beyond their urban neighborhood. Builds activities around events and characters from the book chapters, striving to bring the seventh graders to a broader awareness of the prevalence of violent masculinities. (SG)

Considers how adolescent discourse patterns outside of school can illuminate the stance students take in the classroom. Presents a narrative of two seventh-grade students, both marginalized by the academic and social aspects of school. Notes how in attempts to be accepted, both boys used the power of language to establish a dominant stance in the…

In an effort to make reading more visible and find out what goes on in the minds of adolescent readers, the author led a group of seventh-grade students in creating Symbolic Reading Inventories. The students created "snapshot" scenes from the books they were reading and placed themselves, as readers, in or around the picture. Reading is a complex…

Presents some easy ways to individualize instruction in the classroom. Examines the use of dialogue journals as modeled in "In The Middle: New Understandings About Writing, Reading, and Learning" (Atwell, 1998) as a means of differentiating reading instruction for individual seventh-grade students. Examines how the teachers used the dialogue…

Describes the collaboration between a seventh-grade English class of unmotivated readers and a group of reading methods students at a nearby university. Discusses how both classes read Carolyn Meyer's "Rio Grande Stories," wrote to each other as pen pals, made a quilt together, visited the university class, and enjoyed a visit from Meyer. (SR)

Explores vocabulary-learning opportunities in a seventh-grade literature-based reading program. Discusses how this program supported vocabulary teaching and learning both explicitly and implicitly, and shows how varying classroom configurations expanded learners' word knowledge and enhanced their word-learning abilities. (SR)

Discusses how pretending to be a character or to help a character with a problem made reading and writing meaningful for middle school students. Describes activities that promoted writing about thinking, thinking as a character would, character integration, creating character journals, and relating to characters. (SR)

Describes the implementation and evaluation of a cross-age tutoring program in which 21 struggling seventh-grade readers tutored third-graders, based on strategies and preparation they learned in their own Strategic Reading class. Notes that reading skills and enjoyment of these seventh-grade students were significantly expanded. Discusses factors…