This paper forwards discourse analysis as a productive way to consider the ways in which the possibilities available for middle grades preservice teachers in justice-oriented teacher education programs are complicated by larger discourses relating to teacher neutrality and teacher education as a transformational narrative. To illustrate this,…

This article explores the written reflections and multimodal analyses of 31 middle school students who engaged with video games as texts. For four consecutive days, students spent 30 minutes playing video games and then 30 minutes writing reflections on their experiences and perceptions, resulting in 124 total reflections. Students focused on how…

The purpose of this study was to examine how students used the elements of a historical argument to interpret how equality and opportunity affected marginalized groups in a given historical era. To do this, 150 eighth grade students wrote thirteen historical arguments, and submitted a written portfolio of their work at the end of the school year.…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore Swedish children's positive experiences of health and well-being, and their thoughts on how health literacy can be promoted. Design/methodology/approach: Totally, 121 schoolchildren between the ages of 10 and 14 from three schools in two municipalities in the northern part of Sweden shared their…

(Purpose) The purpose of this paper is to describe visual literacy and an adapted version of Visual Thinking Strategy (VTS) and its value to enhance students' inferential thinking. (Methodology) An example of a middle school VTS, art-integrated lesson is described as well as reflections of a middle school language arts teacher about what she…

American schools are becoming increasingly diverse, with an estimated 17 million first- and second-generation refugee and immigrant children residing in the United States. English learners navigate the challenges of learning how to read, write, and speak a new language, all while being expected to stay on grade level. Classroom teachers nationwide…

Distance education has potential to reach teachers from diverse areas, but the challenges of building community and promoting reflection in these settings can be considerable. In this study, photonarratives were used as an assignment in a distance education course to promote reflection on science teaching. Twenty science teachers (half from rural…

To celebrate a milestone in eighth-graders' lives--leaving middle school and moving on to high school--the author assigns them the "Coming of Age" project, which examines the big idea of identity and promotes the move from self-reflection to self-expression. The project also includes writing components that correspond to each of the nine…

The aim of this study is to describe and analyse the writing discourse in one classroom and how students learn through studying a topic, i.e. the teaching and learning of written argument. The study takes its stance from a sociocultural perspective and is influenced by discourse analyses, new literacy studies and critical literacy (Fairclough…

Empower students to take ownership of their reading and learning with "Teaching Students to Read Like Detectives." In this comprehensive guide, the authors explore the relationship between text, learner, and learning through discussion and rhetorical writing at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Prompt students to become the…

The distinction between revising and editing is a hard one for middle schoolers to grasp. Bruce Saddler knows that students must understand that writing means making meaning, and making meaning requires revision. Internalizing that concept and the steps that help achieve it requires a process characterized by peer conferencing, revision guides…

This article outlines the design of a new service-learning component central to a graduate course on teaching elementary and middle school writing. The service-learning involves course participants acting as mentors to middle school students as they write personal histories of local African American, Cape Verdean, and Puerto Rican senior citizens.…

Do you spend entirely too much time correcting your students' papers? Do your students' essays and term papers take side trips to nowhere? Is their writing riddled with mechanical errors? Do their lab reports and essays lack specificity and clarity? Writing in the Content Areas, Second Edition is for middle and high school content area teachers…

These proceedings contain the papers of the IADIS International Conference on Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age (CELDA 2013), October 22-24, 2013, which has been organized by the International Association for Development of the Information Society (IADIS), co-organized by The University of North Texas (UNT), sponsored by the…