[LALgal]

At the risk of sounding redundant, I'm wondering what people are using for middle school literacy centers. I would like to be proactive and begin gathering resources, but I am drawing a blank. I work in a verrrrrry small classroom so i know that I prefer that my centers be mobile rather than my students. Any ideas?

[hite52]

Achieve3000 is a program our school used for the past several years but funding was cut this year...it is a fantastic program - just Google. Our department is using past articles in my hs setting, where we have centers. There are 8 questions that follow the high interest 1 1/2 pg. articles; topics are geared from elementary to 12th grade levels.

We are working on predicting, which is closely related to author's purpose. Recently I had my students write a paragraph using the 6 to 8 vocab terms we were focusing on for the week - I gave an open-ended broad topic (an experience, best pets, etc). After writing the paragraph, students underline the terms in the paragraph (for you to assess: shows if they can use the words correctly, which must be remediated). Next they have to title the paragraph. Now the fun begins. Students then traded paragraphs and had a minute to read the title -NOT the PARAGRAPH - and write a prediction based on the title only: on the back of the student created paragraph, each student had to write a 5 or 6 word prediction & inital it until everyone in the class had made & initialed their prediction (for a grade). I then posted the paragraphs (I photocopy & omit student names) on a bb. Students like reading peer paragraphs! Writing can be whole group or center activity but trading is too boisterous for centers. Students can make a connection between having a title that gives a clue to identifying author's purpose.