Exemplary Instruction in the Middle Grades

Noting that most teachers continue to use methods based on their comfort level and not effectiveness, Lapp and Moss (education and literacy education, San Diego State U.) offer a guide for middle school teachers to improving content-area literacy learning in science, social studies, math, and literature, as well as teaching oral literacy and writing across the curriculum. In 20 chapters, education scholars mostly from the US identify familiar practices that are ineffective and not research-supported and offer examples of alternative, easy-to-implement research-supported instruction. They demonstrate how to implement literacy practices by making connections that promote thinking, conversing, evaluating, analyzing, and questioning information and motives in informational texts. They define differences between academic and content-based language, suggest ways to teach and assess collaborative oral language and writing across the curriculum, and give examples of vocabulary instruction and rubrics that support writing instruction and assessment. Each chapter details case studies, the research base, and multiple instructional alternatives, with online lesson examples. Annotation c2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)