Differentiating Instruction With Menus: Language Arts/Middle School Edition

Differentiating Instruction With Menus: Middle School Edition offers teachers everything they need to create a student-centered learning environment based on choice. Addressing the four main subject areas (language arts, math, science, and social studies) and the major concepts taught within these areas, these books provide a number of different types of menus that middle school students can use to select exciting products that they will develop so that teachers can assess what has been learned-versus using a traditional worksheet format. Each book contains attractive reproducible menus, each based on the levels of Bloom's Revised taxonomy, for students to use to guide themselves in making decisions as to which products they will develop after studying a major concept or unit. Using creative and challenging choices found in Tic-Tac-Toe Menus, List Menus, 2-5-8 Menus, Baseball Menus, and Game Show Menus, students will look forward to sharing their newfound knowledge throughout the year. Also included are specific guidelines for products, rubrics for assessing student products, and teacher introduction pages for each menu.

Laurie Westphal experienced academic concepts in the same manner as other students--through the use of chapter reading and questions, and copying notes. After questioning this practice, she decided to break the mold when she entered the classroom as a teacher. She was given the freedom to develop engaging, product-based lessons and activities, which encouraged choice, the kind of teaching she missed as a student.
   
She used this method of teaching science for 14 years, both overseas and in the U.S., as well as presented staff development and worked in gifted education. She currently works as an independent gifted education and science consultant, sharing her message as a staff developer and nationwide speaker on menus and differentiation.