Big Stuff at the Middle Level: The Real World, Real Reading, and Right Action

<p> FINALE! CONCLUSION! Phantasmagoric display of FIREWORKS! Well, sorry...Since this isn't hypertext or video, I can't truly display my students' pyrotechnical virtuosity on these pages. In this book's final chapter, what I can do is to examine nonfiction use in the middle school classroom relative to big issues. In fact, let's go right after this "BIG STUFF" as my student Sean affectionately called it. After all, school should be about Big Stuff, and so should our reading. To get us started, here are some Big Questions that I think we need to ask: <ul> <li> What should middle school kids (and all others) be learning in school, and for what purposes? </li> <li> How can we tech middle level students in powerful ways that are consistent with these purposes? </li> <li> How does the classroom use of nonfiction fit into all this? </li> </ul></p>