Sixth-grade students at Mahtomedi Middle School take a full year of English, and they also take a Literacy class for one semester. Literacy was a new class developed during the 2023-24 school year.
The focus of the class is to give middle school students the strategies and skills needed to “read to learn” using informational text from other content areas like social studies, science, and math. Students build essential academic skills including comprehension (like identifying key concepts and author’s purpose), summarizing, annotating, notetaking (using AVID focused notes), and academic vocabulary. One of the projects that students recently completed in the class using these skills was reading a biography or autobiography and making an informational poster.
Click here to see a behind-the-scenes look at Literacy class at Mahtomedi Middle School.