Language Arts - Middle School and Language Arts Education, Feb 1994

Students in our classrooms aren’t preparing for life; they’re living life—as their writing will show.

Unless we have examined our own beliefs and attitudes carefully and thought about what’s fair to students, we shouldn’t ask them to write about things they really care about.

The visual arts came together with literature to extend middle schoolers’ meaning-making processes.

Poetry is not typically a favorite of middle schoolers. Yet, as this article shows, the right conditions can make them enthusiastic readers and writers of poetry.

Perhaps James Britton’s ideas about participant and spectator roles in writing can help us think about what teachers can do to promote students’ reading of literature.

Much of the poetry we read tends to create images in our minds. Illustrations in volumes of poetry for children can help to create and extend the meaning of the works.