- Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston
- Words We Live By: Your Annotated Guide to the Constitution by Linda R. Monk
As suggested earlier, teachers should work collaboratively to plan curriculum and select
instructional materials. Interdisciplinary teams play a particularly valuable role in implementing the
CA CCSS for ELA/Literacy. Teams of teachers from different subject areas who instruct a common
group of students should plan together to select appropriate texts, create joint projects, plan lessons,
and examine student performance. Working together these teams can identify students who need
additional support and modify instruction, scheduling, and grouping as appropriate. For teachers,
teams can provide a collaborative and supportive work group. For students, teams offer stable
relationships with teachers and peers (Jackson and Davis 2000). Interdisciplinary teams can also
cultivate meaningful and regular communication with families.
Research-Based Learning Techniques (Study Skills). Students in middle school employ
a variety of strategies to learn new material. Learning to prepare efficiently for quizzes, unit tests,
and other forms of assessment is important so that students’ efforts yield the best results. A team of
cognitive and educational psychologists (Dunlosky, and others 2013) examined research studies for
10 learning techniques and rated their effectiveness in terms of low, moderate, and high utility. All of
the techniques examined were ones that students could implement without assistance. The results
of the research review identified practice testing (self-testing or taking practice tests) and distributed
practice (implementing a schedule of practice over time) as the most effective and, perhaps surprising
to some students, highlighting and underlining as two of the least effective. Techniques that were
rated as high utility because they were generalizable across a range of materials (e.g., vocabulary,
lecture content, science definitions diagrams); learning conditions (e.g., amount of practice, reading
vs. listening, incidental vs. intentional learning); student characteristics (e.g., age, verbal ability,
interests); and criterion tasks (e.g., cued recall, problem
solving, essay writing, classroom quizzes). Some techniques,
such as summarization of to-be-learned text, were rated
as low utility; however, the CA CCSS for ELA/Literacy call
for students to summarize proficiently. While summarizing
may not be effective as a study technique, summarizing for
different purposes is an important foundational writing skill.
Engaging in Research
Opportunities to engage in research contribute to
students’ content knowledge. Teachers can use writing
instruction to provide opportunities for students to conduct
research to build and present knowledge (W.6–8, Standards 7–9). Teachers can also engage students
in collaborative discussions about grade-level topics, texts, and issues (including research conducted
by students) (SL.6–8.1). A brief overview of the CA CCSS for ELA/Literacy regarding research to build
and present knowledge follows.
Students left grade five able to conduct short research projects, gather relevant information
from print and digital sources, summarize information, provide a list of sources, and draw evidence
from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research (W.5.7–9). In middle
school, research projects expand and become more complex; contributing to students’ motivation and
engagement. For example, teachers provide students choices of topics and create opportunities for
students to interact with interesting texts and resources.
New to the grade span in terms of building content knowledge through engagement in research
are the following:Students in middle school
employ a variety of strategies
to learn new material.
Learning to prepare efficiently
for quizzes, unit tests, and
other forms of assessment is
important so that students’
efforts yield the best results.536 | Chapter 6 Grades 6 to 8