To Read and to Write, That is the Middle School

TO READ AND TO WRITE, THAT IS THE

MIDDLE SCHOOL

BY MUNA AL-ALUL

With the opening of the Middle School in August 2016 came a unique opportunity for King’s Academy to build a new curriculum from the ground up for its seventh and eighth grade students. With Arabic and English in particular, the Middle School is forging a revolutionary way of teaching and learning language.

The curriculum is based on awardwinning educator Nancie Atwell’s approach to teaching children to read and write; as Atwell puts it, “how to help kids become skilled, passionate, habitual, critical readers.”

14

BEYOND KING’S

SPRING 2017

15

Gone are traditional classroom furniture, lessons and the handful of pre-selected books; in their place are comfortable chairs, reading zones, writing workshops and classroom libraries illed with a generous assortment of appealing titles to choose from. Atwell’s approach is to make reading a personal art and to trust children to choose their own books. The reading zone aims to create readers for a lifetime by allowing students to actually enjoy what they are reading and by taking time out of each day for them to sit quietly in class and just read.

“The more you do something the better you are going to get at it,” says Dean of the Middle School Reem Abu Rahmeh. “So every day, and on weekends, students spend 30 minutes reading in English and in Arabic. Most kids have read over 20 books; some have read over 50.”

“If I can get the right book into their hands, they are just going to read more and more.”

Middle School English teacher Eric Hansen believes this approach is vastly superior to a traditional curriculum where the students would have read at most eight books chosen by him in a year.

“The secret to creating both enjoyment and luency is to provide choice and agency,” says Hansen.

“So the kids were given a lot of freedom about what books they wanted to read. If I can get the right book into their hands, they are just going to read more and more.”

In addition to reading, students have conversations with their teachers about books, give talks to their peers about their favorite books, or write

16

BEYOND KING’S

letters to friends about the book, author, style, characters, and what they like about it. There are no tests or worksheets, but students keep journals in which they write about what they are reading.

In the same vein, writing workshops give students regular chunks of time to write and the possibility to choose their own topics to write about. Teachers keep close tabs on their work and provide one-on-one feedback during the writing process, in addition to mini-lessons that teach the whole class the mechanics of writing.

“One of the great strengths of this model is that reading and writing go hand in hand because students are learning from the reading what they can use in their own writing,” says Hansen. “In that way, the literary devices that I teach have more value.”

The students are reading so much, according to Abu Rahmeh, that they are building a library of thoughts, ideas and literary styles in their minds that inspire them to write.

In the process of writing, however, they struggle with things like punctuation and grammar and that’s when teachers give them a minilesson on those subjects. Students get the same skills they would get in a traditional school, but they have greater meaning and students remember the lessons better as they are a part of their own work that they actually care about, not just something that they are required to do.

“It’s a problem-based approach,” Abu Rahmeh explains. “Otherwise they are just memorizing and they don’t know what to do with it.”

The small classes of the Middle School – on average 16 students to a class – allow teachers to dedicate individual time to each student.

After spending half an hour quietly

“It really is a different fundamental model of teaching, and I think it’s better for 21st century teaching.” reading, students are given the opportunity to work on their writing.

During this time, the teacher will call up students individually for a private writing conference to address areas where they are struggling. This process results in instruction that allows for much more differentiation than traditional classrooms.

“In reading and writing workshops, differentiation is built in,” says Middle School Arabic teacher Hanan Al Bqour. “I have books in my classroom library for beginners, books that are “just right” and ones that are more dificult, so students can read at their own pace or challenge themselves. We don’t want to separate them into different classes; by mixing different levels together they learn from one another and it’s the best way for them to improve.”

To Abu Rahmeh, one of the biggest surprises was how well students responded to this new approach in their Arabic classes. “They actually love reading in Arabic now the same way they do in English,” she says.

“At the start of the year, some students didn’t want to read in Arabic at all, or even if they wanted to they said they couldn’t ind anything that interested them,” says Al Bqour. “I tried to ind every book in Arabic suitable for this age group, and then illed the gaps with books from other languages and countries translated into Arabic.”

“Students coming to King’s who struggle with English or Arabic really beneit from the Middle School approach, and are better prepared for Upper School, having really digested the ability to read and think deeply,” says Hansen. “It really is a different fundamental model of teaching, and I think it’s better for 21st century teaching.”

parties” where their work is printed out and shared with the class.

Although Middle Schoolers may seem chaotic on the outside, they thrive on structure and routine, says Hansen. He explains that the workshop model provides the structure they need as well as the freedom to produce their best work.

Middle Schoolers are also social creatures who are highly motivated by the opinion of their peers, he says, which is why every couple of weeks they hold “publication

What is equally impressive is that the students are not learning for the sake of grades, in fact, there is no traditional grading system in the Middle School; instead they use a “mastery” transcript to track students’ progress.

“Peer motivation has been really powerful,” says Hansen. “It’s been sort of a tide that lifts all the boats in the room. If they know the whole class will be looking at their work, they are a lot more concerned about making it as perfect as possible.”

at the beginning of the year and now they are stringing together long complex sentences in coherent paragraphs.”

Al Bqour adds: “Everyone is capable of producing great work, it just depends on the way they are taught.

This kind of learning exposes talents students never knew they had.

Reaching this stage, of really enjoying and wanting to read and write for the journey of it, is wonderful to see.”

“There has been enormous growth since the start of the year,” says Hansen. We have students who struggled to create simple sentences

SPRING 2017

17