I accomplished something today that I wasn’t quite sure I would. I published my first of seven middle school reading units. After completing all ten middle school writing units this past summer, I knew the reading units would be next. I also knew that creating reading units would be a whole new ball game, much more complex than writing units. If I did it, I wanted to do it justice and give teachers everything I knew about teaching reading at the middle school level.
So the work began in September, as I carved out time during early mornings and late nights, in between teaching and parenting a toddler. It’s crazy the dedication it takes to stay focused and committed to a goal when time is your most precious commodity. I realized quickly that the first reading unit was going to be more of a marathon rather than a sprint. Every time I got started, another layer that I wanted to include emerged. I had charts and sticky notes with lists that seemed never-ending covering the walls of my office. There were times over these last few months when I wondered if this was just a goal I would never quite accomplish. I never gave up though, and when I finished the resource this morning I thought, “I feel like I just wrote a book.” Then as I counted up the pages included in the resource, I realized I had written a reading unit that is over 400 pages long! I hesitated before I posted it out for the world to see because this resource is personal. It’s everything I know to be best practice for reading instruction at the middle school level based on 12 years of teaching experience, literacy coaching, and intense schooling. I created this resource from the mindset of creating “my dream middle school reading unit.”
I know from experience that teaching right now has so many layers, and our top priority has to be students, their needs, and the relationships we build with them. The problem with that is this alone can consume all of our time across a day (and then some). On top of supporting students, teachers are expected to learn about and implement new initiatives AND always have engaging, rigorous curriculum materials ready to go. So many middle school ELA teachers who I’ve talked to over the years at other schools, on social media, and conferences have NO CURRICULUM to even start from. My heart is to help teachers by putting amazing curriculum in teachers’ hands that is all set to go so that they can help and serve students, and have a life as well.
Therefore, I’m releasing this unit out into the world and onto creating the next one. For anyone reading this and interested in all the details of the Middle School Realistic Fiction Reading Unit, you can preview and read more about the specifics of it here and watch a video preview of the unit here. Also, to anyone reading this, always remember that, even as an adult, especially as an adult, it’s okay to have a dream goal that you’re working toward. You have something special inside of you that only you know, and the possibilities of how you could share that knowledge with the world are endless.
