ABSTRACT
The authors of this chapter offer a blended perspective of theory and practice in middle grades literacy instruction, providing practical strategies for creating dialogic classroom spaces. Dialogic instruction has powerful implications for student outcomes, including student engagement with text, comprehension of texts, and narrowing of achievement differences across race, ethnicity, SE, and school track. The chapter presents an overview of dialogic pedagogy, daily dialogic routines, and guiding texts that middle grades teachers can leverage in their classrooms. Grounded in social constructivist theory, and the transactional theory of reading, the chapter provides readers with dialogic structures and strategies, including cooperative learning debates, two-voice poetry workshops, and writers’ carousels.
