More about Middle School - an article for Dunia

This is a recent article I wrote for Dunia, a magazine published by UWCSEA. You can find the digital version here. The version below is the original which was clipped slightly to fit into Dunia.

It follows nicely from my reflections in my last post about the changing nature of teaching and learning in Middle Schools.

Reading and Writing Workshop in the Middle School at East

“Do you like the rhythm of this?” asks Ali, as he turns to his partner.

“Yeah, but the mentor text is shorter, maybe you could cut out a few words.”

The two boys look again at the lead they’ve been using as a model: There’s no dignity in poverty. They compare their writing to the mentor text discussing what they’ve been learning about meter and rhyme and the need for a catchy phrase to help anchor their audience’s attention. After a moment more of discussion, they return to the speeches they are writing as a part of their study of the Grade 6 Development Unit.

This style of learning will be familiar to parents who have had children come through the Primary School as UWCSEA East. The “Workshop” approach uses a combination of very structured “mini-lessons” mixed with sustained periods of time for students to write and conference with their teacher and student partners. At the heart of “Workshop” is the belief that ‘children want to write’ and that instruction around writing should be very focussed and succinct leaving time for students to apply and consolidate skills.

In our Primary School, reading instruction takes a similar form with focussed lessons on particular skills and an emphasis on building student’s reading volume and stamina. The teacher’s key objective is to help the students find the right book for their reading ability and interests and to keep them reading.

Learning in High School English classes can look quite different to this. In High School students will spend sustained periods of time in whole class discussion around one common novel and teaching points will often come organically from this discussion. Writing becomes increasingly focused on the essay form and feedback will focus as much on the student’s ideas as it does on the craft of writing. This transition from learning in Primary Schools to High Schools is sometimes described as the difference between “learning to read and write and reading and writing to learn”.

What should reading and writing instruction look like in the Middle School?

Middle School is, of course, in the middle and we need to do a bit of both. Middle School students have a very particular set of developmental needs and learning instruction needs both to recognise what is unique to early adolescents and also where students are in their journey through the curriculum. Over the past twelve months, Middle School English teachers have been working with our colleagues in Primary and High school to decide how best to build on the success of the Workshop approach in Primary School as we prepare students for High School. UWCSEA’s English Standards and Benchmarks describe what we should teach; our discussions have centered on articulating how best to deliver this curriculum. What has resulted is a plan to extend the Columbia University “Workshop” approach up through Middle School but with modifications to meet the needs of our particular circumstances here at UWCSEA East. We have been trialling many of the teaching strategies from Workshop already and parents will already notice many similarities in the way writing is taught between Primary and Middle Schools.

The big challenge in our planning has been around reading. By Grade 6 or 7 students are classified as “independent” readers meaning that, whilst they need guidance in their reading choices, they don’t need the same kinds of support in learning how to read.

A lot of our discussion has been about how to encourage good independent reading habits when the diversity of demands on students’ time are increasing. The establishment of a dedicated Middle School section in the Senior Library has certainly helped, but we have also decided to establish classroom libraries in all Middle School English classrooms and High School is exploring a similar approach. The emphasis here is on maintaining stamina and engagement in a wider range of novels to supplement the common class texts that students study in Grades 7 through to 12.

As you can see in the photograph accompanying this article, students still share texts in the Middle School. One important insight into the complexities of Development comes from the novels that describe the experience of poverty and these Grade 6 students are sharing their understandings through their Literature Circle discussion. They will use what they are learning in their writing as well, building both from the ideas in the text and also learning from the skills the writer uses to construct his narrative.

Reading and Writing Workshop supports a rich environment for learning; we believe it provides the best foundation for building readers and writers who are skilled, confident and capable - ready to face the many complex communication challenges they have ahead of them.