I have found one reading decision that will change your middle school classroom. It is pretty simple.
First, English teachers and reading teachers, have a very difficult job. We have to get students to do the one thing many of them do not like to do-READ. The majority of kids do not like to read on their own time. When it comes to their priorities, unfortunately, reading is usually last on the list. In addition, assigned reading often adds to their disinterest of reading. There is a simple decision you can make in your middle school classroom, where your students will be begging you to read more-Relevant, current, popular teenage trends. fads and novelty topics.
Know Your Audience
First, if you teach middle or high school, you know your students obsess over social media, YouTube, Netflix, Snapchat and other popular trends like Fortnite and VSCO. Teachers have their mandatory curriculum, and we have no choice but to teach it. However, when a teacher does have a choice or decision in choosing literature or non-fiction, they have to think about their audience-What would a teenager like to read to get them interesting, talking and hungry to read more? What would they not be able to take their eyes off of in your classroom? The answer? Reading that is engaging, interesting and current. Students love to keep up with the latest fads, novelties and trends. This reading decision will have your students wanting to read more, and isn’t that what we want to see from our students? We want to see they are enjoying reading and are completely interested and engaged!
Trend & Fads Reading Comprehension Activities
One way to encourage the love of reading in your classroom is to sprinkle some of these trend and fad articles into your curriculum. You can use them as ancillary material, or you can extend the reading with the reading comprehension questions.
What Activities Can I Do With These Trend Articles?
- Assess Your Students’ Reading Comprehension-These articles come with higher and lower level multiple-choice reading comprehension questions to assess your students’ knowledge of the articles. Here, you will be able to understand you students’ knowledge of inference, words in context, main idea, theme, and other important ELA skills.
2. Short Answer Response & Paragraph Writing–Teach and review paragraph writing with your students with the short answer questions that accompany the articles.
3. Teach and Practice Argument Writing or Debating- All the articles look at both sides of an argument. You can easily have your students choose a side, and find text-based evidence to support his/her side. In addition, you can teach your students how to debate and hold a mini debate in your class for any of these articles.
4. Fishbowl & Socratic Seminar Activities-Because these topics are so relevant, I guarantee your students will love to talk about them. Have your students read the articles, and let them participate in speaking activities, where their voice matters. I bet they will love to talk all about these trends!
I hope these are a hit in your classroom!