Writing

Group of teens of various ethnic, gender and sexual identities looking into camera and holding pride flags.

Exploring Identity Through Narrative Writing

During Pride Month, everyone expects coming out stories or rainbow flags to take over their social media profile pics–and honestly, I love those parts of June. But as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, we love to hear stories of identity, whether or not it connects to sexuality or gender. Being...

ELA Activity: Character Analysis Diagram

Analyzing complex characters in a novel or a short story requires students to look at many things such as how they’re described physically, but also their motivations for their actions and events that happen, their reaction to external factors, and the relationships they have. 

ELA Activity: Eavesdropping Poetry

In this creative writing activity, secondary ELA students will use what they overhear in the hallways to write poems! Download the lesson template and hear from ELA teacher Jennifer Nash how she implemented this activity in her classroom!

ELA: Instagram Activity for Learning Vocabulary

For this activity, students are tasked with creating an Instagram post imagining that their assigned vocabulary word was a person posting on social media. All aspects of the post should relate to the meaning of the vocabulary word. It is more than okay if more than one student is assigned the same...

Text: Download Tips; Image: Man grading paper

My Red Pen Is Dusty, and I’m Glad

Over the course of my career as a middle school ELA teacher, I’ve graded more writing pieces than I can count. I’ve graded late into the night, on plane trips and car rides, while watching volleyball practices, and on my lunch breaks. If you’re a teacher, you’ve been there. You relate.