Professional Reading for Middle Level Educators: Service-Learning: Meaningful Civic and Academic Engagement

The books in this month’s column provide the research base, strategies, and resources to help you develop a socially relevant, critically focused curriculum that will, in turn, offer challenging and exciting community and/or global experiences for your students. Reviewed are: What Research REALLY Says about Teaching and Learning to Read, by Stephen B. Kucer; Service-Learning . . . by Degrees: How Adolescents Can Make a Difference in the Real World by Alice Terry and Jann Bohnenberger; Using Technology in Middle Grades Language Arts: Strategies to Improve Student Learning, by K. Hunter-Mintz; Teaching Writing That Matters: Tools and Projects That Motivate Adolescent Writers, by Chris W. Gallagher and Amy Lee.