- Home
- Education
- Teaching Methods & Materials
- Upstanders (How to Engage Middle School Hearts and Minds with Inquiry)
Upstanders (How to Engage Middle School Hearts and Minds with Inquiry)
- Availability: Confirm prior to ordering
- Branding: minimum 50 pieces (add’l costs below)
- Check Freight Rates (branded products only)
Branding Options (v), Availability & Lead Times
- 1-Color Imprint: $2.00 ea.
- Promo-Page Insert: $2.50 ea. (full-color printed, single-sided page)
- Belly-Band Wrap: $2.50 ea. (full-color printed)
- Set-Up Charge: $45 per decoration
- Availability: Product availability changes daily, so please confirm your quantity is available prior to placing an order.
- Branded Products: allow 10 business days from proof approval for production. Branding options may be limited or unavailable based on product design or cover artwork.
- Unbranded Products: allow 3-5 business days for shipping. All Unbranded items receive FREE ground shipping in the US. Inquire for international shipping.
- RETURNS/CANCELLATIONS: All orders, branded or unbranded, are NON-CANCELLABLE and NON-RETURNABLE once a purchase order has been received.
Product Details
Overview
“Upstanders is about helping young people question the world, build knowledge, become skilled researchers, and communicate thoughtfully—in the service of humanity, not just themselves.” Harvey “Smokey” Daniels and Sara Ahmed
How can we meet today’s elevated academic goals and engage middle school kids—but not simply replicate our competitive, winner-take-all society? How can our students achieve an even higher standard—demonstrating the capacity and the commitment to bend the world toward justice?
In a word, inquiry.
Welcome to the classroom of Sara Ahmed. With Smokey Daniels as your guide you’ll see exactly how Sara uses inquiry to turn required curricular topics into questions so fascinating that young adolescents can’t resist investigating them. Units so engaging that they provide all the complexity the standards could ever expect, while helping students grow from bystanders to Upstanders.
Smokey and Sara describe precisely how to create, manage, and sustain a classroom built around choice, small-group collaboration, and critical thinking. You’ll be inspired by what Sara’s students accomplish, but you’ll also come away from Upstanders with a can-do plan for teaching your own classes thanks to:
- a developmental look at what makes middle school kids special, challenging, and fun
- specific lessons that develop collaboration, self-awareness, and compassion
- a toolbox filled with teaching strategies, structures, tools, and handouts
- “Point-Outs” from Smokey that highlight key teaching moves
- “Game-Time Decisions” from Sara that reveal in-the-moment instructional choices
- narratives that document the incredible work that inquiry allows kids to do
- ambitious, engaging, and important units on commonly taught middle school themes.
What kind of classroom do we want for our middle schoolers? How about one that develops the skills the standards demand and prepares kids to take action in the world right now? We can do it—if we help kids become Upstanders.
