Bridging the Gap

I attended the High School Back-to-School Night last week, following my ninth grader's schedule in 10-minute periods to meet her teachers and hear about their courses. I came away feeling good that my daughter and her classmates, my students last year, were ready for the increased challenges in independence and higher order thinking. I came away feeling like the teachers genuinely enjoyed the students.  I also came away thinking about how different middle school is from high school, and how often this gap is blamed for rocky starts.

So I popped into the HS English department chair's classroom for a little chat. The department chair and I worked together three years ago on the last curriculum review when the middle school switched to a workshop approach. The switch made for a smooth flow from Kindergarten through grade 8 with students applying reading and writing strategies to self-chosen texts in an ever-increasingly complex way. This spiral is really starting to pay off this year. By eighth grade, students are agents of their own literacy, choosing books that are interesting and challenging to read, and writing stories with setting details, dialogue, and style.

Then comes 9th grade and it all changes. They read whole-class novels and write literary essays. They study Romeo and Juliet for a quarter. Their only "book club", which is the last unit of the year, consists of a choice between two titles: Of Mice and Men or A Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. This year, with the support and encouragement of the secondary librarian, students are required to read at home and post reviews on shelfari, an online book sharing site.

This little chat resulted in my eighth grade teaching partner and I getting invited to the English department meeting this week to discuss our different approaches to teaching reading and writing. I am not looking to change their teaching, but I think that the shift in philosophies is something that both sides of the gap need to address. The shift in teaching reading strategies to teaching reading as content. The shift in teaching writing as craft to teaching writing as communicating reading analysis. The use of reading and writing notebooks as learning tools to... what? When I mentioned notebooks, my colleague said, "Yes, let's talk about those. They are completely off my radar."

Perhaps there are small things we can do in eighth grade to help students ease into the change. Perhaps ninth grade teachers can refer to systems we use as a way to shift students to their systems. In any case, we will understand each other's program a little better, and better understanding can only benefit the students.