Welcome to MiddleWeb Substack. It’s a free, topical resource for middle grades educators, featuring a selection of MiddleWeb’s most popular and influential articles on a particular topic or theme – plus a book review blurb, and a noteworthy 4-8 resource we’ve spotted elsewhere. That’s it!
Dear paid subscribers: Thank you! You’re providing essential support that helps MiddleWeb.com continue our commitment to publish the voices of middle grades teachers – and to update and preserve our thousands of articles and reviews written for and by educators who support kids in grades 4-8.
If you’re a free subscriber, we could really use your help – consider a paid subscription when you can. ($5 month; $50 year).
Teacher leader and MiddleWeb contributor Kasey Short began putting together recommended lists of middle and young adult books for us back in 2020. She builds her lists around themes, as you can see below.
Each article begins with some background and perspective and many offer ideas for questions and discussion. Every post highlights a dozen or more of her favorites. Great if you’re putting together summer reading suggestions, planning to restock your classroom library, or picking out a book to accompany a lesson or unit plan.
We’ve sorted Kasey’s 18 posts into five informal categories. Should she write more, we’ll add them to this archive! (Click on a title to visit the MiddleWeb article.)
• Humanizing the Past with Historical Fiction
• Inspiring Understanding Using Personal Stories
• Books to Help Students Explore Body Image
• 21 Realistic YA Books Offer Us Valuable Insights
• It’s Pride Month! Books Featuring LGBTQ Teens
• Breaking Glass Ceilings: A Student Reading List
• Dystopian Fiction to Stretch Students’ Minds
• Explore Nontraditional Fantasy Novels with Kids
• Novels in Verse! The Why, Which and How
• Try Nonfiction Graphic Novels to Engage Kids
• Teaching YA Novels with Multiple Perspectives
• Tap Into the Versatility of Poetry Anthologies
• Fresh Fiction for Kids in the New School Year
• Welcome Students with New Fiction for Fall
• 13 Exciting New Titles for Your Classroom Library
• Use Novels and Stories to Explore AI’s Impact
• Relating Classic Texts to Students’ Lives Today
• SEL Picture Books for Middle School Advisory
Reluctant readers? For some ideas about boosting student interest in reading for pleasure, see Kasey’s essay Sharing the Joy of Reading.
Kasey Short is the Middle School Director of Studies and an 8th Grade English Teacher and Advisor at Charlotte (NC) Country Day School. She loves to share ideas from her classroom and her leadership roles.
Kasey attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she earned a bachelor of arts in middle school education with a concentration in English and history. She went on to earn a master’s in curriculum and instruction from Winthrop University. Browse all of Kasey’s MiddleWeb articles here.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.