Teaching Middle School Language Arts

Incorporating Twenty-first Century Literacies

Anna J. Small Roseboro

Teaching Middle School Language Arts is the first book on teaching middle school language arts for multiple intelligences and related 21st century literacies in technologically and ethnically diverse communities. More than 670,000 middle school teachers (grades six through eight) are responsible for educating nearly 13 million students in public and private schools. Thousands more teachers join these ranks annually, especially in the South and West, where ethnic populations are ballooning.

Teachers and administrators seek practical, time-efficient ways of teaching language arts to 21st century adolescents in increasingly multicultural, technologically diverse, socially networked communities. They seek sound understanding, practical advice, and proven strategies for connecting diverse literature to 21st century societies while meeting state and professional standards. Teaching Middle School Language Arts provides strategies and resources that work.

Roseboro's book provides an entire academic year of inspiring theory and instruction in multimedia reading, writing, and speaking for the 21st century literacies that are increasingly required in the United States and Canada. An appendix includes supplementary documents to adapt or adopt, and a companion web site is designed to continue communication with readers.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Networking Socially at the Start of a School Year
• Chapter 2: Unpacking the Story and Understanding the Genre
• Chapter 3: Exploring Traditional and Contemporary Grammars
• Chapter 4: Discussing and Writing Short Stories: Where Story Meets Genre
• Chapter 5: Checking Out a Twentieth-Century Novel
• Chapter 6: Teaching Classical Fiction: Where the Ghosts of the Past Speak Today
• Chapter 7: Taking T.I.M.E. to Teach Poetry
• Chapter 8: Versing Life Together
• Chapter 9: Opening the Past Imaginatively: Teaching Historical Fiction
• Chapter 10: Playing It Right: Reading, Performing, and Writing Drama
• Chapter 11: Speaking of Grammars: Public Speaking and Media Arts
• Chapter 12: Celebrating Names: A Unit about Community and Identity
• Afterword
• Appendix
• Notes
• Bibliography
• About the Author