Advisory Book Building a Community of Learners Grades 5-9

by Linda Crawford

A carefully designed middle school advisory program starts the day by building social and academic competency for students. This comprehensive guidebook offers the combined wisdom of researchers and dozens of middle level teachers about how to use advisory to meet the developmental needs of young adolescents so they can thrive in school.

Genres: Professional Development

292 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Lisa Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

I work at a Responsive Classroom school, and this book has become my bible for running middle school level Morning Meetings. The section on thematic meetings includes suggested greetings, activities, and a morning message, which keeps me from having to wrack my brain to come up with them and also helps me to make my meetings more purposeful. There are also plenty of tips on dealing with preteen/teenager resistance to the meetings, which have been super-helpful with a few of my students.

[Jenny Henry · Rating 5 out of 5]

After using the Responsive Classroom approach in my fifth grade classroom, I was curious about how I could tweak the components for my middle school class. This book does a phenomenal job of outlining what they refer to as "Advisory Time" to build community in the middle school classroom. There are over 170 sample meeting ideas that follow themes like communication, witnessing bullying, and emotional well-being. This will be a go-to resource for me all year!

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

i firmly stand behind this method. i have never enjoyed a year of teaching more than last year. the growth i saw in each student i met and worked with was astonishing (slow but steady). i recommend this to every middle school teacher out there. i have experienced its power. enjoy!

[Keri · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm trying to improve my middle school advisory class, and this book provides an in-depth rationale for and explanation of numerous activities.

[Sharon Mensing · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has lots of ideas about what to do in advisory periods with Middle School students.