Filler Activities for ELA (blog post) What can you do with five extra minutes in secondary ELA? Here are a few ideas to engage students until the bell.
☘ Full video previews are available for the first 24 hours after a resource kit is uploaded. Follow my store to know when a new resource is available! ✎ Give your students an educational, yet much needed brain break! They can color and doodle in the first doodle page, then fill in the blanks on the second page, and then color and doodle some more! If you like this doodle resource, please come back to the product page and give it an A ⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating and positive feedback. You can see the doodle pages before you download them in the preview! ❤️ Thank you :) Want to test your students' comprehension of the literary terms? Check out the Literary Terms Self Grading GOOGLE QUIZ! and the Literary Terms Digital Task Cards! Related Products ⭐ ELA Poetry "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" (Daffodils) Video & Activities ⭐ ELA Poetry "The Arrow and the Song" by Video & Activities ⭐ ELA: Poetry "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll Video & Activities ⭐ English ELA Writing I Bet You Can! Basic essay form/structure VIDEO KIT ⭐ English Language Arts ELL ESL Video & Activities Bundle ⭐ Poetry ELA Robert Frost BUNDLE The Road Not Taken & Stopping by Woods ⭐ Poetry Video & Activities BUNDLE - Jabberwocky, Daffodils, Road Not Taken +More ⭐ FULL YEAR VIDEO Writing Prompts Discussion Prompts + Worksheets Thanks to Illumismart for some of the clipart used in making this resource!
Looking for games to play with a classroom? This list of English games in the classroom is exactly what you need to engage students!
Whether your students are lethargic or super-charged, adding movement to your lesson plans will help to solve both issues. Not only is it healthy to move throughout the day, but it can also help students focus and become more engaged with the content they are trying to master. Due to the nature of English classes, ELA ... Read More about 10 Ways to Add Movement in the ELA Classroom
Pixar short films are a great way to target essential literary elements and techniques from characterization to theme to conflict to symbolism. These Pixar short films inspire class discussion and analysis, and students can then in turn write essays based upon these films. They are an excellent to
Hello darlings! Do you teach vocabulary to your students? I think this is one thing we are missing in the upper grades and we are doing a disservice to our students. As they move up levels in reading, the thing that I notice that holds my students back the most is the challenging vocabulary they ... Read More about Adding Vocabulary to your ELA Block
Looking for Wordle classroom ideas? Incorporate Wordle into your classroom with this activities, ideas, and templates.
Looking for games to play with a classroom? This list of English games in the classroom is exactly what you need to engage students!
Whenever I teach freshmen or sophomores, I always begin the school year with a short story unit. I use this unit to introduce literary elements to my
Fun and engaging grammar games for your secondary ELA classroom! These grammar games will get your students collaborating, moving, and discussing those critical sentence structure and grammar skills! Bring fun to grammar instruction!
Engaging grammar games for the middle or high school ELA classroom. Get students to review important concepts meaningfully.
“Everyone is telling me to teach grammar, but no one has told me HOW yet! There’s so much information and so many ideas, and I’m just overwhelmed!” If you’ve ever...
In today’s society, it is important that students can use their critical thinking skills in their everyday lives. The perfect place for students to learn how and to practice critical reading, writing, arguing, and even listening is the high school English classroom. Here are 10 critical high school English lessons and skills that teachers should be teaching their students!
We all have those times when we only have 5 minutes before going to lunch, specials, leaving for the day, etc. Here are some quick GRAMMAR activities you can use to fill that time and still be teaching!!
Hello? Hello? Is this mic on? Anyone out there? Friends, it has been a MINUTE!! The end of the school year was, as always, bonkers. The first two weeks of summer was double bonkers!! And
At the end of each novel I teach, I like to have my students participate in some sort of culminating literary analysis project that allows me to assess their
So many project options! I love giving students lots of choices to showcase their learning. Check out this graphic for lots of ideas on how to assess student understanding and comprehension of any novel. What would you add to this list? #bespokeela #2ndaryela #EdChat
Do you need parts of speech posters for your classroom? This post has several classroom décor resources to help teachers prepare an engaging learning environment.
Every English language arts teacher needs a variety of successful, student led discussion strategies that will provide opportunities for student learning.
If you teach English-language learners, you know what a challenge it can be to keep vocabulary instruction fresh and engaging.
ESL speaking and writing activities for beginners and intermediate level students. The free worksheets include picture prompts, questions, sentence starters and a space to write. Sign up for my Free ESL Resource Library to get access to these worksheets and more!
Looking for free grammar games to make teaching fun? This list of games for teaching parts of speech, punctuation, and writing will provide fun all year!
Finding great resources online is the best! In this post (and podcast episode) I’m sharing my favorite sites for free creative lesson plans and teaching ideas online. Listen in below, or read on to learn about my favorite online resources.
A list of ESL websites that have plenty of activities, teaching strategies, worksheets, templates, lesson plans and articles which will help in your work.
Hello? Hello? Is this mic on? Anyone out there? Friends, it has been a MINUTE!! The end of the school year was, as always, bonkers. The first two weeks of summer was double bonkers!! And
Ten years ago, podcasts weren’t nearly as popular as they are today. Now, they’re a huge asset to our personal and professional lives—including in the classroom. That’s why today I’m walking you through how to use podcasts in Middle School ELA classrooms. If you’re not a big podcast listener, you might be wondering how on
Filler Activities for ELA (blog post) What can you do with five extra minutes in secondary ELA? Here are a few ideas to engage students until the bell.
Have you been wanting to try stations in your Secondary ELA classroom but aren't sure where to start? Read through this quick post where we share 8 station ideas and how to use them with your ELA students.
Ready to create learning stations? They require a purposeful and strategic design in order for the experience to be meaningful. Start here!
With a new school year upon us, it’s time to re-energize your teaching practices with some new routines and resources. Here are ten teaching resources and
Read about how to design an effective summer school curriculum for secondary ELA. Engage students in meaningful content that they missed during the school year.
I love literature circles. I love giving my students ownership of their learning and choice when picking their novles. I also know that humans are social in nature, and literature circles provide the perfect setting for what I call "dinner table talk" about books. The challenge this school year was bringing the literature circle experience to the hybrid classroom. How could my students read books in groups when half of my students were home and half were in the classroom? How could we meet if we
Teaching students how to annotate text can be an intimidating task. Likewise, for our students, annotating text can be equally as daunting, especially if they don’t have a process of their own that works or steps to follow. However, teaching text annotation can be a simple and straightforward task if you follow these five steps.
Looking for meaningful ways to make learning relevant? Connecting ELA to real life is fun! Here are 8 approaches both teachers and students will enjoy. #highschoolela #middleschoolela
So many project options! I love giving students lots of choices to showcase their learning. Check out this graphic for lots of ideas on how to assess student understanding and comprehension of any novel. What would you add to this list? #bespokeela #2ndaryela #EdChat
Do you need parts of speech posters for your classroom? This post has several classroom décor resources to help teachers prepare an engaging learning environment.
Every English language arts teacher needs a variety of successful, student led discussion strategies that will provide opportunities for student learning.
By The Daring English Teacher When starting a new school year, one of the most important and beneficial things a teacher can do in the classroom side from building classroom community is to take some time at the start of the new school year for review. Review is not only crucial because students might have forgotten some of the content the learned before summer break, but it is also critical to determine precisely where students are. Plus, when teachers review essential content and ideas at the start of the new school year, students have a more uniform understanding of the ELA content. And that is all during a normal school year. Again, like last year, this current school year is nothing like a normal school year, and that is why it is so important to go back to the basics, teach the essentials, and really make sure that our students have a good foundation before we move forward. Essential ELA ReviewOne of the easiest ways to review quite a bit of essential ELA content at the beginning of the year is to stick with a review unit in your classroom. Recently, I created my Essential ELA Review Units to specifically address review in the secondary ELA classroom. My Essential ELA Review units include five weeks of daily ELA review in a bell-ringer format, and all of the units include a wide variety of essential ELA standards. From argument, informational and narrative writing to language skills to reading analysis and inference, these ELA Review units hit on all of the major ELA standards. With the Essential ELA Review Unit, students review content on the instructional slide and complete just a few exercises every single day for five weeks. I am currently using this program in my classroom with my sophomores, and it is helping me guide my instruction for the year. Currently, I have Essential ELA Review units available for grade 8 (which reviews the grade 7 standards), grades 9-10 (which reviews the grade 8 standards), and grades 11-12 (which reviews 9-10 standards). Grades 9-10 ELA Review ELA Review StationsAnother way to review important ELA content in the classroom is to set up review stations, and what’s so great about this activity is that you can tailor it to your class’ specific needs. One of the easiest ways to set up review stations is to use a combination of a computer-based program and task cards. For example, for one station, I might have students complete a grammar or punctuation review activity on their Chromebooks, and for the other stations, I might break up a set of task cards for students to work on. For a digital review station, my Digital Grammar Review Activities are a perfect fit for a digital review station. This teaching resource includes four mini-lessons: parallel structure, semicolons, hyphens, and colons. My Parts of Speech Task Cards and the Grammar Task Card Bundle are the perfect task cards for a review-stations activity!In an hour-long class period, I’ve found that review stations work best as either a one-day, three-station, or two-day five-station activity. Usually, I like to give each group of students about 15 minutes at each station. When planning for a station-type activity, I also plan to review the procedures at the beginning of the class. Then, at the end of the class, we review the content in a whole-group setting. Escape Room ReviewAnother fun way to review essential content in your classroom and also build classroom community is the same time is to group students into teams and have them compete in an escape room challenge. While I typically use escape rooms in the classroom as an end-of-the-unit review, escape rooms can also be beneficial as a stand-alone review activity to help your students remember information they’ve learned in previous years. In an escape room review activity, student groups will work together to solve a series of related tasks. While every student in the group might not have the answers or know the content, each group member will work together and pool their knowledge to solve the challenge. My favorite ELA escape room activities for review are my Elements of Fiction Escape Room and my Parts of Speech Escape Room. Parts of Speech Escape Room Gamifying Review ActivitiesIn addition to the review activities mentioned above, there are lots of fun, digital ways to gamify classroom review. If you are pressed for time or need to grab a review activity quickly, you can choose from one of the premade activities. From Kahoot! To Quizlet Live, the options are really endless, and it adds a sense of fun and excitement to the classroom. And, there is already user-generated content to choose from. If you are looking for more review activities, you’ll want to check out the short story collaborative review activity I have my students complete at the end of our short story unit. You’ll also want to check out this strategy to make any review activity an engaging experience. More Review Activities and Ideas: ELA Vocabulary Bundle
With so much content to cover in the middle school ELA and high school classroom, it can sometimes feel a bit overwhelming. Here is a look at my favorite ELA
If you teach English-language learners, you know what a challenge it can be to keep vocabulary instruction fresh and engaging.
ESL speaking and writing activities for beginners and intermediate level students. The free worksheets include picture prompts, questions, sentence starters and a space to write. Sign up for my Free ESL Resource Library to get access to these worksheets and more!
Looking for free grammar games to make teaching fun? This list of games for teaching parts of speech, punctuation, and writing will provide fun all year!
Find ideas for teaching middle school with these full year lesson plans for middle school ELA.
Finding great resources online is the best! In this post (and podcast episode) I’m sharing my favorite sites for free creative lesson plans and teaching ideas online. Listen in below, or read on to learn about my favorite online resources.
Looking for Wordle classroom ideas? Incorporate Wordle into your classroom with this activities, ideas, and templates.
Engaging grammar games for the middle or high school ELA classroom. Get students to review important concepts meaningfully.
