The Next Chapter of Why the Middle School Years Matter: Inside the Learning of English Language Arts

This year, we’re taking you inside Eaton Middle School’s English Language Arts classrooms to show you how our students are becoming stronger readers, writers, thinkers, and communicators through our new curriculum! Principal Leigh Florita kicks off the series by sharing more about the new curriculum and the importance of literacy. Throughout the series, you’ll learn why our educators chose the books students are reading, how companion texts help students make meaningful connections, and how reading, discussion, and writing work together to deepen learning. Each quarter, we’ll highlight a new text and bring you into our 6th, 7th, and 8th grade classrooms to hear from teachers and students about what they’re learning, the connections they’re making, and what they love about the books they’re reading.

Show Transcript

hello Eaton Middle School families I'm Lee Flora your principal as part of the continuation of our video series why the middle school years matter I'm excited to highlight something essential to the learning and everyday lives of your students literacy we're implementing a new curriculum designed to do much more than teach students how to read a book or write a paper we are teaching students how to become thoughtful readers strong writers and effective communicators the most importantly lifelong Learners traits that will carry them far into their future throughout this series will take you inside our classrooms to see what students are reading what they're learning and most importantly how they're thinking about literature our fantastic language arts teachers will show you how this new curriculum is encouraging students not just to read a novel and answer questions but to recognize the connections within and between stories they'll learn to connect what they're reading to themselves to other texts and to the world around them students will pair anchor texts with companion texts read complete novels which today is a rarity in many language arts curriculums and read articles and poems to build knowledge that carries them from 1 text to another those anchor texts create a thematic anchor that they will go back to throughout the entire quarter to make those connections and really deepen in their thinking about certain themes we'll show you how reading and writing work together students will learn to be critical and observational thinkers as they read adopting ideas from text to make their own writing better by reading strong writing and analyzing how authors make choices students learn how to become stronger writers themselves and stronger writers are stronger thinkers you'll get to see all of this in action our 67th and eighth graders are reading new every quarter so throughout the year we'll bring you into the classroom to see their progress hear directly from our teachers and most importantly hear from our students about what they are learning the connections they're making and what they love about the book they're reading we want to show you why the books we choose matter how our students are learning from them and how those lessons extend far beyond the pages of a book we hope you'll follow along as we explore why the middle school years matter and a powerful role literacy plays in helping our students understand themselves others and the world around them

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The Next Chapter of Why the Middle School Years Matter: Inside the Learning of English Language Arts