After several years of teaching sixth grade, I walked into this school year knowing that teaching 7th and 8th grade English would be a little different - but I wasn’t entirely sure how different. 

Now that we’re about a month into the school year, I’ve started noticing some things that have surprised me, challenged me, and reminded me why I love teaching middle school. 

Looping with my students is the BEST. 

Because I taught both of these seventh and eighth grade classes in sixth grade, I got to begin the year knowing almost all of my students. 

My seventh and eighth graders couldn’t be more different from each other, and it’s been such an awesome experience to loop up with them and have those relationships from the beginning of the year - not just with students, but parents too! 

Seventh grade has the best mix of knowing when to prioritize work, and when to be silly. I know which students struggle in different areas, and where their strengths are. They ask great questions, and love to learn - most of them value independent and quiet work over collaboration, and when it comes to rewards, they prefer earning them together as a class! 

Eighth grade is vastly different! They have a lot of loud personalities, and are the chattiest class I’ve ever taught. There are so many talented writers in this class (a struggle is knowing when to put the pen down…or Chromebook away). I’ve been able to bring back a lot of the classroom management strategies I used with them two years ago. When it comes to rewards, they love a good competition with each other! I have had to curb the obnoxious tattling for attention, though. 

There’s something really special about starting a school year with students (and parents) who already know you - and who you already know. 

They’re more independent…but they still need you.

I walked into 7th grade thinking, “Okay, they’re older. They *should* know how do this from sixth grade and can do it independently.”

And then I asked them to answer comprehension questions in complete sentences…or look a word up in the dictionary. 😂

Turns out…they still need explicit instruction. Lots of it.

Independence doesn’t mean “give them an assignment and let them work.” It means gradually releasing responsibility: I do → we do → you do. We spent a whole class period last week reading a chapter of the novel and completing the comprehension questions together. I modeled how to reframe a question to include it in their answer, and what it means when a question instructs students to “explain” or “describe” something.

A lot of my elementary education training actually DOES apply to middle school. 

Here's something I didn't expect to say after earning my degree in elementary education: I'm really glad I learned how to teach younger kids.

Don't get me wrong - I was only placed in kindergarten and first-grade classrooms during my program, and I quickly learned that I did not want to teach kindergarten or first grade. 😂 But so many of the things I learned about teaching younger students have transferred surprisingly well to middle school.

One of those things is the importance of engagement.

I think sometimes we assume that as students get older, they need increasingly serious, academic lessons. And yes, obviously, the rigor needs to increase - but that doesn't mean the fun has to disappear. (And I know that not everything we do in the classroom is going to be fun! I just like to make things engaging whenever I can.)

My 7th graders are a great example. We started a mystery unit a couple of weeks ago, and I've been introducing mystery terminology through a handful of short stories before we begin The Westing Game. After we finish the novel, we'll listen to Mars Patel, and then students will work in groups of three to create their own short mystery podcast.

But before we get there, we need to review elements of plot and continue practicing our mystery terminology.

So what better way to do that than with some old Scooby-Doo episodes? 👀

We'll watch an episode and practice identifying the mystery elements, looking for clues and red herrings, and mapping the plot on a plot mountain.

They're still learning the same skills, but we're giving them a different, more engaging way to practice them.

My 8th graders are another example. We started a utopia/dystopia unit by reading Harrison Bergeron and learning about the characteristics of the genre. Then, before beginning The Giver, students had to create their own utopian society. They designed their society, figured out what problems it had solved, created rules, and thought through what life would actually be like for the people living there.

And then there's my book-based elective, where students get to spend the entire period reading books and working on creative projects. At the beginning of the year, I gave them a choice board, and they need to complete four projects in a row by the end of the semester—two projects per quarter. They can choose things like creating a book trailer, recording a book-talk podcast, or redesigning a book cover (among other options)!

None of these activities replaces the rigor. My students are still analyzing texts, identifying evidence, writing, discussing, and thinking critically.

But I've realized that rigor and engagement aren't opposites.

Maybe that's one of the biggest things my elementary education training taught me: students don't suddenly stop benefiting from creativity, choice, movement, visuals, hands-on activities, and a little bit of fun just because they're older.

In fact, I'm finding that some of my favorite middle school lessons are the ones where students are learning something challenging - and don't quite realize how much they're learning because they're having a good time doing it.

I really like teaching different classes throughout the day.

One thing I appreciate about teaching middle school is that I have different classes throughout the day.

As a former self-contained teacher, I spent most of my day with the same group of students. I loved getting to know them so well and having that consistency, but there was something about doing the same subject areas with the same group all day that could sometimes make the day feel...long. 😂

Now, my day has a lot more variety. I might go from 7th grade English to 8th grade English to math to my book-based elective, and each class has a completely different feel.

And there's something refreshing about getting to mentally switch gears throughout the day. If a class doesn't go exactly how I hoped, I don't have to carry that feeling through the entire afternoon. I get to close the door, take a breath, and move on to something completely different.

I definitely miss some things about self-contained teaching, especially the amount of time you get with your students. But I'm realizing that the variety of a middle-school schedule is something I really enjoy.

Summary

I'm still figuring things out as I settle into this new chapter, and I'm sure I'll have plenty more lessons to add to this list as the school year goes on!

If you've made a similar transition in your teaching career (from elementary to middle school, self-contained to departmentalized, or just into a completely new role) I'd love to hear what surprised you most. Hit reply and tell me about it!

And if you'd like to follow along with my 7th- and 8th-grade teaching adventure, I'm sharing a little peek into my classroom every Sunday through my email newsletter. I'll share what I taught the week before, what's coming up that week, and a few teaching ideas and resources along the way.

Join the Sunday newsletter here!

Thanks for coming along for the ride!