Inquiring minds want to know!!! My students are naturally curious middle schoolers with questions about everything from plants to animals, people and places, to space and beyond. One of our biggest challenges to fostering this curiosity is a lack of reading resources that inspire them to explore.
My students are part of a very large, and very diverse urban population.
The student body is 35% black, 15% Hispanic, 15% Asian; and 35% white, with a free and reduced lunch rate of 80%. They are middle school students attending the district's only separate middle school after the other middle school was closed down two years ago.
My students are all very unique and many of them have to deal with things outside of school that no one should ever have to encounter in their lifetime. I admire their strength and try to let them know every day that no matter what happens to them outside of my classroom, they are always welcomed, believed in, and supported when they are in school.
One of the most exciting things about my students is that they always come in on that first day of school, loving to read! They love books and magazines! Reading and observing drives their curiosity which is so important right now. I hope that they will leave middle school with the same love of information!
My Project
Common Core Skills are so important right now, so picture this. Each student in my room is reading a current and relevant scientific text, that they have chosen. Looking closer you will see that each of them are also picking out and explaining text features, identifying themes and main ideas, making connections to their personal lives, posing questions, and determining the author's purpose in writing that particular piece of text. What I haven't told you is that each of these students reads at a different level, some are ESL students, some are special education students but all of them are feeling confident in their skills and enjoying the process because they have an input. Some of them are reading at a 2nd grade level, some at 9th grade level but we are all in the same class and we are all working toward the same goal; improving our literacy skills through the use really awesome science texts!!
Even though my students love to read, it is hard to find them relevant science topics that are written for middle school students.
It is my hope that by including these magazines in my classroom, I will help my students feel as if they are a part of the process. So often, teaching skills can feel mundane and rote and text books can be boring. I hope that bringing in these magazines with their exciting stories and bright colorful pictures will continue to spark the curiosity in my students!!
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