Just Teach Me, Mrs. K.: Talking, Reading, and Writing with Resistant Adolescent Learners

By Mary Mercer Krogness

An alarming number of students today has emotional burdens and learning deficits so significant that success in a traditional classroom is nearly impossible. What kinds of strategies can teachers use to manage classrooms full of resistant teenagers? How can teachers motivate apathetic, disenfranchised adolescents who have never viewed themselves as learners? Just Teach Me, Mrs. K. describes one teacher's journey with resistant, often over-age, under-achieving seventh and eighth graders. Mary Krogness, a public school classroom teacher for nearly thirty years, with broad teaching experience in grades K-8, presents compelling classroom stories about young people from a wide range of cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds, from both urban and suburban environments. All of them, though, share the risk of being lost to learning forever. Full of practical suggestions and inventive approaches to language learning, Just Teach Me, Mrs. K. shows how to design language-rich experiences based on students' interests, inclinations, and stages of development; how to raise questions that trigger thinking and discussion; how to create an atmosphere that is inviting and exciting without being chaotic; how to rechannel adolescents' considerable energy and seek help from their families in the process; and how to develop students' potential and create respectful classroom relationships. Just Teach Me, Mrs. K. tells the story of a teacher who empowered her students to take control of their learning and their lives. The book is not a panacea or paradigm for teaching nonmainstream adolescents. It is a theoretically sound guide designed to inspire beginning and experienced classroom teachers whose goal is to engage students actively, to help them become generators of ideas, to build spirit and self-esteem among one another, and to explore, appreciate, and celebrate language.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0435088157
• ISBN13: 9780435088156
• Release Date: October 1994
• Publisher: Heinemann Educational Books
• Length: 312 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 7.0" x 10.0"
• Grade Range: Grades 6 to 12

Customer Reviews

Teach us teachers, Mrs. K!

This book was very helpful to me as I developed a Writing Lab curriculum for 7th and 8th graders. The author gives a lot of insight about how to motivate and create rapport with reluctant writers. She serves as an example on how to make this type of student feel successful in an environment where he often faces nothing but failure. The advice on how to guide students to take ownership of their work and develop writing pieces of their own design was also helpful. Perhaps what I liked best was the honesty with which the book was written. The author never claims to "know it all", and shares many stories of her disappointments and failures.

A motivational fresh perspective . . .

Picking this book up while on maternity leave from teaching 7th grade English was a mentally refreshing and exciting experience. Through writing about her classroom approach, Mary Krogness revitalized my passion for teaching and gave me a new perspective on motivating all of my students -- especially the reluctant ones.I highly recommend this book for any middle level English/communication teacher.