Literacy Lessons: Teaching and Learning with Middle School Students

Experienced Cooks don't always use exact recipes to make their finest cuisine, just as experienced teachers don't always use an exact formula to deliver their best lessons. Both have invaluable experience which aids them in their daily jobs. However, for anyone who is starting out as a new chef or teacher, a recipe/formula for "how things should go" allows for the rookie to build confidence while gaining the invaluable experience that's characteristic to the pros. Margaret Finders and Susan Hynds' book, Literacy Lessons: Teaching and Learning with Middle School Students is the "grandma's foolproof cookie recipe" of teaching advice. The authors give you step by step instructions about teaching literacy to middle schoolers, however providing room for your own individuality and creativity to spark the skeleton of ideas that they provide for you. From instructions on how to join professional organizations to writing prompts that allow you to reflect upon your craft, this book is the "how to" that every language arts pre-service and first year teachers should never be without. Finders and Hynds sprinkle the pages with information, advice, real life case studies, problems, challenges and most importantly, questions that make the reader consider aspects of teaching that have been forgotten or perhaps misplaced in the hustle and bustle of teacher preparation. For example, in one of the fieldwork journals the writing prompt asks you to focus on one class and to describe the students in terms of grade level, age, gender ratio, ethnic diversity, socioeconomic levels, etc.. while keeping in mind questions that you may have about IEP's, the abilities and disabilities of your students, support services, ESL students, social dynamics, and many others. (55-56) This journal entry helps bring questions to the surface that new teachers have but possibly forget to ask their mentor teachers/colleagues, in the whirlwind of lesson planning, meetings, parent conferences, professional development, etc... Finders and Hynds also give you step by step examples of how to include multiple intelligences into your language arts lessons as well as keep your assessment of students in conjunction with your goals for the students as well as those of the curriculum guide and district and state standards. For example, the authors give suggestions to "secure a copy of the standardized tests given in yours state or school district, (or test booklet depending on the time of the year) and analyze what is required of your students by asking questions such as `What purposes do the test makers suggest the tests serve?, What forms of reading and writing are expected by the students?, Which of your students might have difficulties with parts of the test and how can you minimize this? and How does what your doing in your classroom on a daily basis help or hinder the students as far as this test is concerned?" (137-138) The topics of standards and testing are mentioned and loathed in