“Way-In” Books Encourage Exploration in Middle Grades Classrooms

Abstract

I'm required to teach specific standards in my content area. That's a good thing. My challenge is not teaching standards. It's understanding why students are bored in class and finding ways to get them engaged. Many teachers think students are just lazy. I don't think that's the problem. My hunch is they are bored with the reading materials I am using to teach the standards. I feel like a chef. Each day I plan a meal of delicious readings, but students don't even nibble. I suspect it's the curriculum. I need to find ways to make my curriculum more appetizing. A middle grades language arts teacher Developing and implementing curriculum that is relevant, challenging, integrative, and exploratory is central to successful middle grades education (Erb, 2005; Jackson & Davis, 2000; National Middle School Association [NMSA], 2003, 2010). However, as the language arts teacher quoted above suggests, it can be difficult to create curricula that meet these and engage students: ... meet these criteria and engage students. This teacher is a good example of a reflective practitioner who understands the difficulty of engaging unmotivated students and the challenge of sparking interest in learning content area material that they believe is uninteresting or irrelevant. She recognizes that finding ways to motivate disengaged students involves thinking differently, generating hypotheses, and taking risks. She does just that. She frames the problem differently than other teachers might frame it (students are bored, not lazy), she generates hypotheses (my hunch is ...), and she proposes thoughtful action (I need to find ways to make my curriculum more appetizing.). Finally, this teacher is an inquirer driven by a question all middle grades educators should consider: When addressing student motivation and engagement, is the curriculum a problem, a solution, or both? This article was inspired by this language arts teacher's inquiry. It focuses on the exploratory aspect of effective middle grades curriculum and describes books as a tool for encouraging student exploration of content in all subject areas (Keene & Zimmerman, 1997). I describe what way-in books are and how they can be used to support student exploration across the curriculum, and I share collections of way-in books organized by content area along with strategies for using them in the classroom. Way-in books Simply stated, way-in books can interest students in topics for which little or no interest currently exists. Way-in books are high-quality, often award-winning texts that provide students a in-an unexpected entry into a world of topics they might find interesting to explore. They are tools for exploration, a way to inquire-an opportunity to pose questions, arouse curiosities, and pursue anomalies about topics of unexpected interest that hopefully will capture their imagination. For example, What's Your Angle, Pythagoras (Ellis, 2004) is a way-in book in mathematics because it presents the Pythagorean theorem in simple terms students can understand and makes it relevant to real life. June 29, 1999 (Weisner, 1995) is a way-in book in science because it demystifies the scientific method and makes concepts like independent and dependent variables interesting and understandable for students. Hiroshima, No Pika (Maruka, 1982) is a way-in book in social studies because it connects a major historical event-the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and the devastating aftermath it had on human lives-to characters with whom students can identify. It is also useful to define way-in books in terms of what they are not. Way-in books are tools to support exploratory curriculum, but they are not a panacea for all problems in content area reading. Way-in books are not intended to help teachers teach topics in which they themselves have little interest but feel obligated to teach. They can not be expected to compensate for teacher dislike or apathy for a particular topic. …