Middle School English Language Arts Instructional Guide

Best Practices in ELA

READING Utilize Diverse Texts

Plan instruction around texts that are at grade level, developmentally appropriate, and are culturally relevant in a broader context. ●​ Encourage students to analyze texts from different angles. Discuss how characters’ backgrounds, experiences, and cultural contexts shape their viewpoints. ●​ Provide daily opportunities to read from a variety of sources. ●​ Provide daily opportunities to read texts of a variety of lengths.

Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors by Rudine Sims Bishop

Culturally Responsive Teaching Rubric, Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

Resource: Accessing Complex Texts Resource: Text Complexity

Student Choice Create an environment to encourage students’ intrinsic motivation in reading, there are two keys. Students are more motivated when they value what they are doing and when they believe they have a chance for success. Use text sets and literature circles to increase student choice.

Motivating Students with Book Choice from Edutopia

Student Choice is the Key to Turning Students Into Readers, by Jenni Aberli, International Literacy Association “Literature Circles: How Educators Can Make this Small Group Exercise Work Better in Classrooms” from Harvard Graduate School of Education Improving Adolescent Literacy: Effective Classroom and Intervention Practices from What Works Clearinghouse (see recommendation #2) “Does Your Comprehension Strategy Instruction Have this Key Element?” by Tim Shanahan “The Skill, Will, and Thrill of Reading Comprehension” by Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey Teaching High School Students Active Reading Skills by Sunaina Sharma, Edutopia

Explicit Reading Instruction

Instruct students on specific reading strategies, such as predicting, summarizing, visualizing, questioning, and making inferences. Model these strategies, provide guided practice, and offer opportunities for independent application across different genres and types of texts.

Active Reading Techniques

●​ Pre-Reading: Activate prior knowledge and set purpose for reading through activities like predicting and discussing key concepts. ●​ Guided Reading and Think-Alouds: Model fluent reading and comprehension strategies, pausing to ask questions and clarify misunderstandings.

Active Reading Strategies, Or Reading for Writing , Vanderbilt University

Last Updated September 23rd, 2024 Middle School ELA, Page 5