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AdLit gathers interesting news headlines about literacy, middle grade and YA books, best practices in instruction, and other key topics related to middle school and high school teaching and learning.

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Get Outside! Outdoor Programming for Tweens and Teens (opens in a new window)

School Library Journal

May 03, 2024

An AZ library has taken teens out the library, into the mountains, and onto the trail through their Get Out programming. The library has offered outdoor events incorporating survival skills, trail safety, kayaking, and camping, as well as horse therapy, outdoor yoga, pickleball, and disc golf—all geared to provide more out-of-doors experiences for tweens and teens still recovering from the mental and physical toll of the ­COVID-19 pandemic.

Take Five: Middle Grade Anthologies and Short Story Collections (opens in a new window)

School Library Journal

April 26, 2024

As part of our Mind the Middle project focusing on middle grade books, I’m going to try to do weekly Take Five lists, which is to say, five books on a certain theme. 

As part of their Mind the Middle Project, SLJ has created Take Five lists that can help you with collection development, displays, reading lists, and more. This week’s list is comprised of books that are great for everyone, but especially for readers who may find longer narratives intimidating and like the easy stopping points and kind of pick and choose format that can come with these sorts of books.

LA Arts Education Group Fights Falling Literacy Rates Through Poetry (opens in a new window)

EdSource

April 15, 2024

Amid a deepening literacy crisis, Get Lit spreads a love of literature through spoken word poetry and performance. Founded by actor/writer Diane Luby Lane in 2006, Get Lit, which recently received $1 million from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, teaches classical poetry as well as empowers children and teens to write their own poems in over 150 Los Angeles schools, instilling a love of language in a generation often struggling with literacy.

As NYC’s Literacy Mandate Expands Citywide, Some School Communities Are Pushing Back (opens in a new window)

Chalkbeat

April 12, 2024

Educators at elementary schools across the city have been required to adopt one of three reading programs, part of a mandate under schools Chancellor David Banks to boost literacy rates by flushing out popular but increasingly discredited programs. There has been little organized opposition to the reading curriculum overhaul, as many literacy experts, the city’s teachers union, and several major education advocacy groups have supported it. But resistance may grow louder as the city has required all local districts to adopt the new reading programs by September.

Can SEL Help Students Curb Their Own Cellphone Use? (opens in a new window)

EdWeek

April 02, 2024

The problem, say experts, is that adolescents are uniquely vulnerable to the siren song of cellphones. This is where social-emotional learning might help: Educators can teach students the social-emotional skills they need to help break their addictive, unhealthy phone habits.