Imagine if going to school meant more than preparing kids for a test, teaching a canned curriculum, and training students for their future as workers. What if school were also about cultivating students to be caring, community-involved citizens and critical, creative thinkers who love to read? In Caring Hearts & Critical Minds, teacher-author Steven Wolk shows teachers how to help students become better readers as well as better people. I want [my students] to be thinkers and have rich conversations regarding critical issues in the text and be able to formulate opinions regarding these issues, says Leslie Rector, a sixth-grade teacher who collaborated with Wolk on some of the units featured in this book. Wolk demonstrates how to integrate inquiry learning, exciting and contemporary literature, and teaching for social responsibility across the curriculum. He takes teachers step-by-step through the process of designing an inquiry-based literature unit and then provides five full units used in real middle-grade classrooms. Featuring a remarkable range of recommended resources and hundreds of novels from across the literary genres, Caring Hearts & Critical Minds gives teachers a blueprint for creating dynamic units with rigorous lessons about topics kids care about'sfrom media and the environment to personal happiness and global poverty. Wolk shows teachers how to find stimulating, real-world complex texts called for in the Common Core State Standards and integrate them into literature units. I know from experience that a great book changes the reader, says Karen Tellez, an eighth-grade teacher featured in the book. For me, books have helped me escape, fall in love, recover from heartbreak, and have broken open my mind from the age of twelve. . . . I hope [my students] gain better reading comprehension, confidence as readers, connections to the characters and events, a curiosity for the world, and tolerance for others. Caring Hearts & Critical Minds shows teachers how to turn these hopes and goals into reality.

"Wolk demonstrates how to integrate inquiry learning, exciting and contemporary literature, and teaching for social responsibility across the curriculum. He takes teachers step-by-step through the process of designing an inquiry-based literature unit and then provides five full units used in real middle-grade classrooms. Featuring a remarkable range of recommended resources and hundreds of novels from across the literary genres, Caring Hearts & Critical Minds gives teachers a blueprint for creating dynamic units with rigorous lessons about topics kids care about--from media and the environment to personal happiness and global poverty. Wolk shows teachers how to find stimulating, real-world 'complex texts' called for in the Common Core State Standards and integrate them into literature units."--Publisher's website.

This volume discusses 14 different types of disasters and their implications on the social, emotional and academic development of young children, from birth through age eight. It focuses on human-related crises and disasters such as community violence exposure; war and terrorism; life in military families; child trafficking; parent migration; radiation disasters; HIV/AIDS; and poverty. The environment-related disasters addressed in this book include hunger; hurricanes; earthquakes; frostbites; wildfires; and tornadoes. The volume includes suggestions for interventions, such as using picture books with young children in coping with natural disasters and human crises. In addition, each chapter provides research-based strategies for early childhood and related professionals to be used in the classroom. Many children in our world today experience some type of disasters and/or crises. These crises or disasters can either be human- or environment-related and can interrupt children’s daily lives. They often negatively impact children’s development, education, and safety. Bringing together authors representing a variety of countries including Australia, Canada, China, Finland, Haiti, Hungary, Kenya, USA, and Zimbabwe, this book provides truly global perspectives on the various types of disasters and their implications for our work with young children.

Through an innovative approach of critical ethnography and literacy research via case-study methodologies, Enacting Adolescent Literacies across Communities: Latino/a Scribes and Their Rites analyzes Latino/a adolescents’ engagement with the elements of literacy for English language arts learning and understanding. How young people enact literacies in their bicultural lives and understand literary traditions today reveals their own interests in democracy, equity, and opportunity. Moreover, the rites they perform often recover buried histories, mirrors, and stories similar to the pre-Columbian scribes whose intellectual legacy is relevant in the twenty-first century. R. Joseph Rodríguez illustrates how adolescents experience scribal identities and language pluralism that sustains their cultural knowledge as they make meaning and enact literacies with diverse audiences in civic and schooling communities.

Politics and the American Press takes a fresh look at the origins of modern journalism's ideals and political practices. The book also provides fresh insights into the economics of journalism and documents the changes in political content of the press by a systematic content analysis of newspaper news and editorials over a span of 55 years. The book concludes by exploring the question of what should be the appropriate political role and professional ethics of journalists in a modern democracy.

Engage students in meaningful civic learning and encourage them to become active and informed citizens. With this essential book, co-published by Routledge and MiddleWeb, you will gain a variety of practical strategies for teaching civics and current events to your middle school students. Author and expert teacher Sarah Cooper takes you into her school and shares her classroom-tested methods and tools. Topics include: Fitting current events into an already-packed history curriculum Staying nonpartisan and fostering balanced discussions Helping students find their stake in the news Teaching civic literacy through primary sources, then and now Encouraging students to invest in analytical writing Fostering student ownership of our classrooms through discussion and debate Cultivating citizenship through empathy and community engagement Throughout the book, you’ll find student examples, handouts, and rubrics, so that you can easily implement the ideas in your own classroom. By getting your students to think critically about current events, you will help them become passionate writers, thinkers, and involved citizens.

This engaging book shows how teachers and schools are creating emergent, democratic, progressive education amidst the current context of high stakes accountability. In this follow-up to his bestseller, Spectacular Things Happen Along the Way, Schultz explores how today’s rhetoric and restrictive mandates result in curriculum that fails to capture the attention of students. For meaningful learning that develops transferable skills and engages students, teachers and sometimes whole schools need to find spaces to “teach in the cracks” so that students can connect with issues relevant to their lives. Teaching in the Cracks provides both a theoretical and practical foundation for incorporating an action-focused curriculum that meets academic standards and provides students with opportunities for agency and to use their voices in their own learning. Book Features: Specific tools and strategies to help teachers engage students in democratic participation and action. Examples from varied teaching contexts, including elementary and secondary classrooms and independent, charter, and public schools. Recommended organizations and resources for integrating justice-oriented civic engagement in classrooms.