| By Tracey Matthews and Julie Mellors |
Are you heading back to school and in need of resources? Whether you’re going back to the classroom or going virtual, Gale In Context: Middle School has you covered.
For starters, we added a new Social and Emotional Learning topic portal that lays out critical skills and tools in social growth to serve students throughout the school year. Empathy, goal setting, and mindfulness are just a few of the skills covered.
We also introduced over 40 English language arts (ELA) topic overviews and 13 topic portals. Examples include Reading Skills, Writing Skills, and Research topic portals, which cover key competencies in reading and writing literacy such as context clues, textual evidence, reading and analyzing informational texts, different styles of writing, citing research sources, and more. Others to explore are Grammar, Graphic Novels, Literary Devices, and Literary Genres.
And don’t forget to check out our new literature topic portals, which cover some of the most-studied works in middle schools today—like A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai, Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, The Watsons Go to Birmingham by Christopher Paul Curtis, Wonder by R. J. Palacio, Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli, The Crossover by Kwame Alexander, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare.
There are also science and history topic portals that include important people in the fields. Examples include women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), such as Elizabeth Blackwell, Katherine Johnson, and Ada Lovelace, and historical figures like Alice Paul, Geronimo, and Ruby Bridges. New science topical portals, Vaccines and Vaccinations and Viruses and Viral Diseases, have been added as well.
Lastly, ready for the fall is new content to support our ongoing efforts in diversity, equity, and inclusion. In the Racism topic portal, we have new topic overviews that cover the Black Lives Matter movement, police brutality, and anti-racism. Also in the works is a new topic portal on Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You: A Remix of the National Book Award-Winning Stamped from the Beginning by Jason Reynolds and Dr. Ibram X. Kendi.
There’s a lot going on in Gale In Context: Middle School. Learn more!
Meet the Authors
Tracey is a K12 content strategist in Gale Databases. She is passionate about family, food, volunteering, and traveling—not necessarily in that order.
Julie Mellors is a content developer at Gale. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan. Go Blue! She loves to spend as much time outdoors as possible. Some of her favorite things to do are swim, hike, read, and travel. She has been on many adventures with her husband and two children.