Middle School ELA: Words of Doom

"The “Words of Doom” were an addition to our spelling instruction in middle school ELA. They could easily be adjusted or modified for upper elementary classrooms.

Practical Tips and Strategies for Welcoming English Language Learners into Your Middle School Classroom

It’s that time! The school year is beginning and you’re ready to welcome up to 180 new learners into your classroom. Whether you’re in your first year of teaching or your thirty-fifth, the first day of school can bring both excitement and trepidation.

ELA Activity: Practice Annotating Texts

Annotation is a life skill, especially for our college-bound students. Reading something with a purpose, a strategy to comprehend at a higher level, and interact with a text are all things every person needs to function in our society. It is our job as educators to help nurture that skill as we...

Interview with a Character (ELA Activity)

There are so many more interesting methods to writing a character analysis than writing an analysis paragraph. Oftentimes, English or language arts teachers forget that there is creativity in language and we should embrace it while also staying on track to grade based on our standards or curriculum...

Developing Stamina in our Readers and Writers

How do I get my kids in reading and writing shape, so they can move forward? Here are 6 questions I am asking myself as I attempt to help students build their stamina.

ELA Activity: 10-Song Playlist

As a high school language arts teacher, I’m always trying to provide my students with alternate but equal assessments that aren’t always an essay. It’s true—you can totally assess a set of skills using claim, textual evidence, and reasoning in creative ways. This 10-song playlist project is one...

Word Clouds for Understanding Word Choice

Student writers—especially reluctant ones—often struggle with choosing the most fitting words to create an appropriate tone or mood in their writing. As a result, their essays end up with a lot of words like “nice” or “things” or “people.” These words are fine (another less-than-stellar word), but...

10 YA Reads for Summer

I just finished my tenth year teaching high school English and let me tell you, teens like to read… well, most of them. Some of you might be doubting me, but hang on! 

Middle School ELA: Capitals Club

Although our middle school ELA students should have been capitalizing words like "I" since they were in early elementary school, many either just don't do it or don't take the time to proofread their work to make sure they did. 

Action! Practice with Summary, Paraphrase, and Direct Quotes

For some reason, students always struggle when teachers ask them to incorporate sources. It is a process that takes practice to do seamlessly, but when done well, it can boost your credibility in any argument. The thing that is so puzzling about our struggle to incorporate summaries, paraphrases...