How to Teach Middle School English Without Textbooks

Use real literature rather than textbooks to better hold the attention of middle schoolers.

As teachers battle to hold the attention of secondary students, abandoning textbook-based instruction for more engaging methods has gained popularity. Professional associations such as the ASCD, formerly known as the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, provide educators with evidence of the successful implementation of such methods. Authentic literature in all its many forms maintains a higher level of student interest than a textbook, ultimately making the teacher's job easier.

Things You'll Need

• Multiple copies of novels
• High interest, appropriate magazines
• Picture books with substantial text
• Response journals

Instructions

1. Review your curriculum requirements and create a list of all relevant learning objectives. Middle school English may include reading and writing objectives, depending on your state's curriculum. Organize the list of learning objectives into writing, reading comprehension, and reading story elements categories.

2. Provide students with a choice of high interest, popular novels to read. If possible, have multiple copies of each title available so that students can form small book club groups of three to five students. After students have formed groups, these student-led book clubs will meet periodically to discuss guided questions you provide that assist students in learning English objectives.

3. Maintain a supply of easy reading material in the form of appropriate magazines and picture books with substantial text. Use these for mini-lessons on learning objectives such as genre, story elements (character, setting, plot), and writing skills. These reading choices give the students variety and help maintain their interest.

4. Have your middle school students create an English response journal for recording their answers to inquiries and questions that you pose. Allow students to decorate and personalize their own journal for some creative fun that helps each student associate learning with fun. Ask them to divide their journal into three sections: reading comprehension, story elements and writing.

5. Create a list of comprehension questions, relevant to any story, that are based on your curriculum learning objectives. Each week, have students respond in their journal to several comprehension questions regarding topics such as main idea, summary, character motivation and vocabulary. Meet with individual students and small groups to monitor and assess their comprehension.

6. Review the story elements students must learn based on curriculum objectives. Create several graphic organizers with your middle school students that allow them to identify story elements during reading. Have students choose a graphic organizer and fill in character and setting descriptions as well as significant plot elements such as problem, resolution and action climax.

7. Use novels, magazine articles and picture book text to provide examples of high quality writing elements to students. After reviewing examples of descriptive writing or complex sentence structure, for example, have students identify similar examples in reading choices and notate these in their response journal. Students then create original writing that demonstrates the writing elements identified in the reading experiences.

Tips & Warnings

• Monitor journal responses closely to be sure that students learn the required objectives.

• Meet with struggling readers more frequently to assist and tutor them.

• Introduce fresh reading materials frequently to keep student interest high.

References

• ASCD: English Teachers Fight Back