Teaching vocabulary—integrated in a text or in isolation—can be tricky when it comes to thinking of engaging ways to create meaning. We fall back on the old “write a sentence that shows the meaning of the word” assignment. But we all know that when students are developing an understanding of a...
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!
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...
"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.
Given that lately I am as burnt out as they come, I found myself wanting to do something unusual.
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.
Back in my hometown, it was a rite of passage at the age of twelve to get a paper route. There was no status associated with it, nor did it come with a certain badge of honor – you see, back in the day kids got newspaper gigs to have deep pockets so that they could buy candy and Nintendo games and...
