Chapter 5: The State of Curriculum in The Middle Grades

The initial charge for the authors of this chapter was to review the topic of curriculum, instruction, and assessment in the middle grades. However, after an initial examination of middle grades literature, both middle grades journals and handbooks (e.g., Middle School Journal, Research in Middle Level Education, Middle Grades Research Journal, Voices from the Middle, and The Handbooks of Research in Middle Level Education) and in other prominent educational journals, we realized that since 2000, three themes of middle level pedagogy had gained greatest significance. These themes were curriculum integration, literacy integration, and personalized learning, which included project-based learning. While we acknowledge that these topics are not exhaustive, we feel that providing a review of research in these three areas best captures the future of middle grades research and practice in curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Thus, we divided the review into three sections:content integration and assessment, (b) literacy as a tool for integrating curriculum in the middle grades, and (c) the emergence of personalized learning in middle grades curriculum. The research questions focusing on the state of curriculum in the middle grades can be found in Chapter 10.