Your teacher training may have provided sound theory and a collection of instructional techniques, but it's often the practical details that can make day-to-day survival difficult in your first days, weeks, and years of teaching. For new teachers or those just new to the middle-school environment, here is an invaluable resource from the author of Meet Me in the Middle that will help you walk in the door prepared to teach. Oriented toward the unique experience of teaching grades 5 through 9, Day One and Beyond delivers proven best practices along with often-humorous observations that provide a window into the middle school environment.

Based on his many years of research and experience in the middle school classroom, Rick offers frontline advice on:

• practical survival matters, such as what to do the first day and week, setting up the grade book and other record keeping, and what to do if you only have one computer in the classroom;
• classroom management, including discipline, getting students' attention, and roving classrooms;
• social issues, like the unique nature of middle-level students, relating to students, and positive relations with parents;
• professional concerns, from collegiality with teammates to professional resources all middle-level teachers should have.

Content and instruction are important, but so are the practical matters that enable sound teaching practice. Day One and Beyond shows middle-level teachers how to manage the physical and emotional aspects of their unique environment so they can do what they've been trained to do: successfully teach young adolescents.

Rick Wormeli is the teacher you would like to have on your team or in the room next door.
from the Foreword by Ed Brazee

Drawing on the wisdom of educators, researchers, and twenty years of personal experience in the middle school classroom, Rick Wormeli lays out a clear vision of what responsive middle-level teaching can be in Meet Me in the Middle: Becoming an Accomplished Middle-Level Teacher.

Both a "how-to" book and a thoughtful narrative on important topics, Meet Me in the Middle gives you successful strategies for addressing key middle-level teaching challenges, including:

• differentiating instruction;
• motivating early adolescents;
• teaming;
• teaching in block-length classes;
• using authentic and alternative assessment effectively;
• writing in all subjects;
• holding students and teachers accountable;
• involving parents;
• mentoring teachers;
• using games in the classroom;
• applying the latest in brain research;
• the National Board Certification process;
• understanding the young adolescent.

Rick ignites the imagination and commitment of pre-service and beginning teachers and rekindles the motivation of veteran teachers who want to create a high-performance classroom. He effectively demonstrates theory with rich examples from his own teaching. Teacher educators and staff developers will find Meet Me in the Middle to be a wonderful handbook of best practices and insights to share with new teachers, including second-career individuals coming from other professions.

In this refreshing addition to differentiated learning literature, Rick Wormeli takes readers step-by-step from the blank page to a fully crafted differentiation lesson. Along the way he shows middle and high school teachers and behind-the-scenes planning that goes into effective lesson design for diverse classrooms.

Rick demonstrates how to weave common and novel differentiation strategies into all subjects and offers clear advice about what to do when things don't go as expected. Based on nearly thirty years of experience as a teacher and instructional coach, Rick's thoughtful and imaginative classroom accommodations will help teachers succeed with advanced students, struggling students, English language learners, and students across the multiple intelligences spectrum.

A thorough and practice guide, Differentiation: From Planning to Practice also provides an overview of the cognitive science behind differentiation as well as a more than two-dozen tools that make differentiation doable in the classroom. This is an essential resource for all reflective teachers.