MMM Chapter 15

This chapter was about getting parents involved in the classroom.  This, I think, is one of the most difficult parts about being a teacher.  One, because you have parents who will not care about their child's performance in the classroom.  And two, because you will have parents that have extremely different opinions on what their child should or should not learn in school, and will fight with you.  Wormeli gives several ways you can get parents involved with their children's education.  For the most part, I thought these examples were good, but I think that I would be uncomfortable visiting the home of a student.  I feel like as a teacher, that is a place where I should not go, because I feel like that crosses a line of professionalism.  But that's my own opinion.  As a teacher, I would love to get parents involved, because I think that opens a whole world of possibilities in the classroom!

MMM Chapter 8

This chapter was about effective assessment.  The chapter opened with a story about a student of Wormeli's that wasn't very good at writing, so he let the student write a song about The Outsiders instead of writing an essay.  I love this.  But for me, I would rather give students a choice on every project.  In my opinion, I would rather let students have a choice for every project they do in school.  I think students are definitely creative enough to come up with ways to show what they know, instead having a teacher tell them what to do in order to show what they know.  This chapter kind of goes along with the Differentiated Instruction chapter, I think.  Both have to do with tailoring a lesson or project to the particular student you are teaching.  Both, I think, are very helpful to students, and both are things I really like!

MMM Chapter 7

This chapter was about Differentiated Instruction.  I have learned about Differentiated Instruction in a lot of my education classes here at UMF.  It's something that I really support, and I think teachers should utilize it a lot more in classes.  Not every student learns the same or wants to learn the same, and teachers continue to teach the same.  I think teachers need to be more aware of that, and they should use it more often.

MMM Chapter 6

This chapter was about Accountability.  One part of the chapter that I really liked was this quote, "Instead of letting students complete additional projects to raise their grades, ask them to revise their additional work based on the standards outlined in your rubric or the comments written in the margins of their papers."  In my opinion, as a teacher, there is a reason why you assign certain assignments.  That reason is that you want students to learn what the assignment is on.  If you let students get a bad grade, and then you let a student do a different assignment later in the year, then they won't learn what you originally wanted them to.  Why not let a student revise their work?  In classes such as English and History classes, we let students revise papers, so why not let them revise other work too?  If we let students revise work, then they will learn the material a lot better.  And that's the final goal right?  To get students to learn the material?  I'm all for creative ways to get students to learn material.  The most common way to hold students accountable for learning material is tests.  And I think that's boring.  We need more creative ways to get students to learn!

Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 3 Synthesis

This chapter was about brain research, and applying that to teaching middle school.  The beginning of the chapter focused mostly on helping students make memories, so they can remember the material they are learning.  The chapter also talked about how important emotions can be for young adults, and how we, as teachers, can use this to our advantage, and use emotions to help students learn.  Another thing this chapter talked about was helping students think for themselves, and be have reasoning and logic skills, and Wormeli provided a list of argument fallacies that students can recognize.


Most of the students in class liked this chapter.  We all pretty much agreed that, at this age, children are going through a lot of changes, and need their minds and brains taken care of, as well as their bodies.  Most students pointed out that we need to cater to students' emotions, in addition to teaching them academic stuff.  And we also liked how Wormeli talked about how we need to teach students to think on their own, and use their brains to learn.

Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 3

This chapter was all about psychology and brain research, and how you can use that in a middle school classroom.  It was a fairly interesting chapter, but I thought the best part was the part about emotions, although I did have some problems with it.  During middle school, students are changing very much.  They don't always know how to feel, or how to express how they're feeling, so teaching them that emotions are good thing can be very helpful to them.  With that being said, the part in the chapter about emotions was kind of self serving, I thought.  The entire section was just him talking about how good a lesson he did on plagiarism, and why it was so good.  I thought the section would be better if he had used some research and facts and actually talked about the emotions of adolescents and how to use that in a classroom, instead of just telling us about one lesson he did.

Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 13

This chapter was about using overnight trips, and other field trips in your class.  I love field trips, and think they're great, but using overnight trips into the forest might not work.  When I was in 6th grade, my class took a weekend trip to a camp, and it was not enjoyable at all.  That's why I'm not sure if every student would really be into a trip into the forest.  Not every student is comfortable being outside, especially over a night.  But the part in the chapter about the Civil War reenactment, I thought that was great.  It might be hard to get a whole group of reenactors, but if you could, the results could be wonderful. 

Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 4

This chapter was all about how to get students physically involved in the classroom, by making them get up and do things.  I loved this chapter.  I hate sitting in the same place for an hour (or however long the class is).  I lose focus, and I can't think, so I just end up doodling in my notebook, not taking any notes at all.  There are many students who feel like that as well.  Teachers can't just stand up at the front of the room and make the students stay seated for a whole class.  Teachers need to make sure students are actively engaged in the class, and sometimes that means having them get up and do something.

Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 9

This chapter was about block scheduling.  I didn't have block scheduling in middle school, but I did have it in high school.  While in high school, I really liked it.  I had kind of a rotating block schedule, where we would have our blocks, but every day, two would get rotated out and two would get rotated in.  I really liked that scheduling, because I wouldn't have every class every day, and it was nice to have a little break from two of my classes.  Also, while I was reading this chapter, it was nice to have Wormeli gave an example of how to lesson plan for block scheduling, but as I was reading, I felt like I already learned how to do that in practicum, so I kind of felt like I was re-learning what I already knew. 

Meet Me in the Middle Chapters 11-12

In order to have a successful middle school, teams should be used to teach each grade.  And Chapter 11 dealt with how to have a successful team.  They talked about Subject Integration, which I think is something that is really great.  Every subject in school is connected, and the sooner all middle schools can have integrated curricula, the better.  I think that students will learn better if they can connect the subjects together.

MMM Chapter 17

I really enjoyed reading this chapter.  I thought the excerpts from the graffiti wall were so fun to read.  They made me laugh a lot.  This chapter made me realize how much fun it can be to be 12 years-old, and how school can either make it more fun or make it depressing.  I feel like school should be fun, and you should learn things while having fun.  I don't think that at school, you should learn things and not have fun.

MMM Chapter 2

I liked this chapter as well.  When I was in middle school, I didn't really have a lot of teachers who motivated me really well.  If I had even one teacher who did things like in the book, I would have enjoyed school a lot more!  I particularly enjoyed the section Express Enthusiasm for Your Subject.  In my opinion, the best teachers love their subjects more than anything, and are very passionate.  So in order to be the most effective teacher, I think passion and enthusiasm is what in necessary.

MMM Chapter 1

I really liked this chapter.  I really liked how Wormeli asked the readers to reevaluate and look at themselves before they could be effective teachers.  There's nothing worse than a teacher who is just burned out; because then the students suffer.  I especially liked the part about Listening.  I think this was a good part for anybody, not just teachers, to read, because I think listening is a skill necessary to any successful person, not just a successful teacher.