This blog post will introduce you to six simple, fun, and enriching project-based learning ideas for your English Language Arts classroom.
Movement in the classroom is beneficial for many reasons. First and foremost, getting up to move in the classroom might help anxious students relieve stress.
During poetry stations, students move around the classroom doing various activities related to poetry. The station activity in this blog post has students read an engaging poem and respond to the poem in an unconventional way. If you’d like to replicate this activity in your classroom here are the s
This blog post will introduce you to six simple, fun, and enriching project-based learning ideas for your English Language Arts classroom.
Do you struggle with finding interesting ways to teach ESL listening skills? Maybe you have an activity or two already but you want to be able to mix it up and keep things interesting. By the end of…
This past school year was a great one. With every school year that passes, I like to take a moment and reflect on activities that were successful in the
Starting a new semester— whether at the beginning of the school year or calendar year— is a time of tough transition as we begin to restart our minds and work habits. Here are SEVEN engaging activities for the first week back to school in middle school and high school English Language Arts.
Help the learning process with these simple strategies for making studennt thinking visible. Perfect for middle and high school English classes.
Drama games & activities in your classroom or drama club as warm-ups, ice breakers, or as fun activities to start any class!
Looking for games to play with a classroom? This list of English games in the classroom is exactly what you need to engage students!
Beat the overwhelm of teaching an absolute beginner with this downloadable checklist
Start the school year off right!
Looking for games to play with a classroom? This list of English games in the classroom is exactly what you need to engage students!
I recently assigned a one pager final project to my sophomores for their culminating Night project. I wanted to combine as many rigorous ELA content ideas as possible, while also designing a fun project for students that provided them with a bit of choice. This Night one pager project was the perfect way to finish the memoir!
My favorite teaching units are my research and rhetorical analysis unit. I love teaching rhetorical analysis and assigning students a rhetorical analysis PAPA square. Read on to learn more about the rhetorical analysis PAPA square activity and to sign up to receive your own free copy! I love providing my students with the knowledge and resources they need to critically read and analyze text, know why it is powerful, and understand how the author crafted it. I feel that truly understanding the language and the text, primarily through rhetorical analysis, is something that makes all of my students critical thinkers.
If there are two things my students know, it is that I assign paragraphs often and that I grade them rather harshly -especially in the second semester. It’s
This blog post shares activities to teach creative writing, along with creative writing prompts and lesson plans your students will love!
Funny Shakespeare English Poster Set Bundle of 6, Funny English Classroom Decor, Shakespeare Funny Posters, High School Middle School Decor Welcome to Perfectartdesignsco. It doesn’t matter if you are teaching in a middle school or high school. As a teacher, you want your students to be inspired and engaged in the material you're presenting to them. One way to do this is by having interesting and unique middle school or high school English classroom decorations that will get them thinking about the topics you're discussing. Today, we have bought you a set of 6 - funny Shakespeare posters for your students so that they can get to know William Shakespeare in a fun-loving way. These easy-to-download educational poster prints are available in mere a few clicks and are one of the easiest ways to make your classroom more attractive than it ever was. * * * S P E C I A L * O F F E R S * * * BUY 3 PRINTS GET AND GET 70% OFF USING CODE - GET70OFF BUY 5 PRINTS GET AND GET 75% OFF USING CODE - GET75OFF Buy printable wall art from my shop using these codes and get the most of the benefit. * * * W H A T * Y O U * G O N N A * G E T * * * This William Shakespeare funny poster set includes both PNG and PDF instantly downloadable files, formatted to be printed at any preferred size. Your order will include the following: A 4x5 aspect ratio file for printing sizes of 4”x5”, 8”x10”, 12”x15”, 16”x20” or 10x12cm, 20x25cm, 30x38cm, 40x50cm. A 3x4 aspect ratio file for printing sizes of 6”x8”, 9”x12”, 12”x16”, 15”x20”, 18”x24” or 15x20cm, 22x30cm, 30x40cm, 38x50cm, 45x60cm. A 2x3 aspect ratio file for printing sizes of 4”x6”, 8”x12”, 12”x18”, 16”x24”, 20”x30”, 24”x36” or 10x15cm, 20x30cm, 30x45cm, 40x60cm, 50x76cm, 60x90cm. A 5x7 aspect ratio file for printing international paper sizes of 5”x7”, A5, A4, A3, A2, A1, 50x70cm. A file for printing size of 11”x14” or 28x36cm. If you are looking for a custom file size for this particular funny Shakespeare middle school decor then don’t hesitate to message me, I will be more than happy to send you a new file size. * * * I N S T A N T * * *D O W N L O A D*** This Shakespeare funny set print (English class decor) is a digital printable wall art items with instant download and no physical item will be shipped to you. * * * D O W N L O A D * I N S T R U C T I O N S * * * The print files for this high school classroom decor will be sent directly to your computer over the internet. An email will be sent to the address associated with your Etsy account and you will see it at yours soon after you place and clear the payment of your order. * * * P R I N T I N G * I N S T R U C T I O N S * * * Perfectartdesignsco create high-quality digital wall arts, affordable prints that can be easily downloaded from the Internet and printed out on your printer, or take them to a local professional printing service for larger size prints * * * N O T E * * * Colors in this English classroom decor may vary in shades slightly due to the separate colors of monitors/printers. Digital and Printable download purchases from my shop may only be used for personal use. Any commercial usage of these digital downloads, including but not limited to resale and/or redistribution, is strictly against law. * * * R E T U R N * P O L I C Y * * * Digital downloads from my shop are non-refundable. Please contact me with any questions you have before purchasing any printable item from Perfectartdesignsco. If you have any issues downloading your printable files after purchase, please don’t hesitate to message me. I will be more than happy to help you. Thanks! Happy Printing!! Funny Shakespeare, Poster Download, Funny Shakespeare, Funny Classroom Decor, William Shakespeare, Funny English Poster, Shakespeare Meme, ELA Classroom Decor, English Meme Art, High School Decor, Middle School Decor, English Class Decor, English Classroom
10 inexpensive rewards to use in your middle school class.
Want to learn how discussion can enrich learning? Get an easy-to-follow breakdown of the Socratic seminar definition and components here...
Begin each of your classes with bell ringers or warm up activities that your middle or high school English students will love!
Are you looking for ways to make learning more meaningful in your Secondary ELA Classroom? Check out these twenty five creative project ideas that I have found to be meaningful and successful while also motivating for learners.
Spice up your instruction with hexagonal thinking, a hands on learning activity that is versatile enough to work with any grade and any subject...
This past school year was a great one. With every school year that passes, I like to take a moment and reflect on activities that were successful in the
Looking for a way to get students to have fun learning new words AND remember them longer? Try these brain-based vocabulary activities.
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 high school rewards or middle school rewards to motivate students? Tired of finding reward ideas that are more applicable to elementary kids than your 8th, 9th, or 10th graders? No need to look any further. As a language teacher, I'm always searching for high school incentives to get my trickier classes to speak
Download FREE English resources for teaching middle/high school English Language and Literature.
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
Now that the 2017-2018 school year has come to a close, I am spending some time reflecting on my practice as an educator. While there were some lows of the
Teaching blackout poetry is an engaging way to help spruce up your poetry unit. Show a few examples, and your students will be eager to create a blackout masterpiece of their own. Keep reading to learn what blackout poetry is and just what you need to do to teach it. So, you’re thinking about teaching… Read More »A Beginner’s Guide To Teaching Blackout Poetry
These simple four ways to increase classroom student engagement and motivation are the key to running an effective classroom.
Engage students in meaningful poetry reading and writing activities. Here are SEVEN assignments both secondary teachers and students will enjoy.
Some days you just need a break from the monotony! Preparing for exams, transitioning to a new unit, days when half your students are gone for a basketball tour
Public Speaking Games: 7 outrageously good fun-filled speech activities to build confidence and skills. Good for middle school upwards.
Jumpstart your literary analysis instruction with these engaging and effective activities and mini lessons for middle and high school ELA!
By Presto Plans I first realized the power of bell ringers years ago, thanks to a particularly unruly class that would bounce off my walls after lunch. After consistently wasting the first ten minutes of class getting students seated, settled, and ready to learn, I decided to give bell-ringers a try. They were immediately a classroom game-changer. Bell-ringers—sometimes referred to as “warm ups” or “do nows”— are questions, tasks, or other warm up activities that students complete at the beginning of class (or when the bell rings, as the name suggests.) They jump start student learning, calm classroom chaos, reduce uncertainty, and make transitions smoother, all the while allowing the teacher to maximize their time and maintain their sanity. I’m here to share the benefits of using a bell-ringer routine in your classroom, tips and strategies to implement them effectively, and answers to your most commonly asked questions. I'm also sharing free bell-ringers that will last you a couple months! 1) Extra time at the beginning of class Bell-ringers give teachers the gift of time. In those 5-10 minutes, you can take attendance, get papers ready and/or passed out, prepare tech, catch up with students who have been absent, or even prepare for your next period. 2) Improved classroom routine and classroom management As students transition from class to class, they tend to get amped up from hallway antics. Bell-ringers improve the transition back into the academic setting and establish a consistent routine and minimize classroom management issues. There is a lot of uncertainty in a teenager’s world, and though they may not admit it, students crave predictability and routine. After the routine is established, you’ll even find that students will get started on the bell-ringer BEFORE the bell even rings, as they know exactly what is expected of them. 3) A chance to practice ELA skills and assess and review standards By using bell-ringers at the start of class, you are taking advantage of an extra opportunity to practice the ELA skills and meet standards you have been diligently working on throughout the year. Bell-ringers are perfect for putting what you’ve taught to the test in a creative, fun, low-pressure way. Given that they aren’t heavily graded on the bell-ringers (or not at all), the pressure often associated with other tasks is alleviated. 1. Mix up your bell-ringer each day If you are using the same bell-ringers every single day, students will likely grow tired of them. I like to have themed days for each of the bell-ringers that will address a specific skill. Below are some of the types of bell-ringers you might consider using: Improve word choice Locate figurative language Have a short discussion with a partner Watch a short video clip and write a personal response to a prompt Infer the meaning of new words in context Correct grammar errors Have a mini-debate with a partner Use a picture to spark narrative writing I liked to use each of my year-long volumes of bell-ringers to have different activities for each day. You can try four free weeks by clicking on the image below to see if they might work for you. 2. Give students a fun challenge Another way to mix up your bell-ringers is to set a challenge at the start of the week and have students progressively work towards a solution on Friday. My favorite way to do this is with escape room bell-ringer challenges. When you use an escape room bell-ringer, students are given a back story on Monday where they find themselves in a situation (dungeon, alien planet, military bunker, scientist study etc.). They work with their group for the first 5-10 minutes of class to progressively move through different floors, rooms, chambers, and cells each day to solve ELA related puzzles. Their goal? To successfully escape by the end of the week. Want to try a bell-ringer challenge with your students? Grab a free figurative language bell-ringer activity below as a fun way to start one of your classes. 2. Model a Good Response Spend the first days explaining the daily bell-ringer activity for that day and even show them what a strong response looks like for each different bell-ringer activity you do. Taking this time at the beginning will get you better responses from the students as the year goes on. 3. Set specific expectations and procedures From day 1, you’ll want to demonstrate exactly how things are going to play out. Start by literally walking them through the process of entering the classroom and retrieving their bell-ringer booklets or binder. Once they are completed their work, you might think of getting them to hold onto their booklets and putting them back at the end. I would recommend not doing this as typically someone will accidentally take it home or the booklets will get destroyed since they all are eager to leave and are throwing the booklets on the shelf (real life teaching, right?) That’s why I would suggest you establish a system for collecting the bell-ringer booklets after they are done, and go through it with them a few times to practice. You wouldn’t think something as simple as collecting the booklets would be an issue, but having a plan makes things run so much more smoothly. If you use a standard classroom set up (desks in a row or pairs): Have each row turn around to collect the booklets from the row behind them and move them all forward until they are in the front row. Select one student to collect them all from the front row and put them back in the proper spot. If your desks are set up in groups: Have one member from each group be responsible for collecting the booklets, and have all groups pass them over to the group closest to where to store them. Have one person put them all back. On the first day, I practice this 2-3 times and set a timer to see how fast they can do it (I tell them they are in competition with the other classes). This makes it fun, but it also establishes a routine, and set a precedent to strive for throughout the year and it makes collecting the booklets quick and efficient. 1. Should I grade bell-ringers? Won't that make more work for me? Listen, the LAST thing I want to do is add more paper to an English teachers' pile! Bell-ringers are a type of formative assessment that do not need to be graded. They are a quick way for students to practice and develop ELA skills. I did add a quick check rubric on the bottom of some of my student handouts because I personally used this to keep students accountable and motivated to complete the work to the best of their ability. I would tell them that one week out of the month would be graded, but they wouldn't know which week (insert evil laughter 😉). This lessened my grading, but I also liked peeking at them monthly to see who was completing the work well and where I needed to focus my instruction. 2. How long should you spend on bell-ringers? For me, bell-ringers would typically take an about 5-10 minutes to complete. The time will vary depending on what type of bell-ringer you are completing. Some people like a quick 5 minute bell-ringer, others like to dive in a little deeper and spend more time as it pertains to their lesson. If students are improving the word choice in a passage or practicing labelling figurative language, it may only take a quick 5 minutes. However, if they are discussing an ethical prompt or watching a video clip and writing a response, it may take closer to 10. It's important to remember though that sometimes your students will be totally engaged in a bell-ringer, and you may end up spending more time than you thought on it. This is not wasted time! The content still relates to your curriculum and helps students hone their writing, reading, speaking, and listening skills. Sometimes an unplanned part of a lesson is where the best learning happens. 3. How do you manage all the paper? Here is my fool-proof system. A word of caution: don't let them take their bell-ringer binder home! It's an absolute nightmare waiting to happen 😂. Have each student purchase a small 1 inch binder to hold all of the bell-ringer response sheets (or use a three-clasp folder). Have students write their name in big bold letters on the spine (or the front if it is a folder). Having a variety of colors of binders/folders is better so they can find theirs more easily. Put a bookcase somewhere near the door of your room. Assign each class an area of the bookcase. Tell students they will grab the binder when they enter, and it will go back on that shelf when the bell-ringer is done.! This makes it easy to find their binder the next day. 4. Will using bell-ringers help my classroom management? Yes, routines are your friend! I learned fairly quickly in my teaching career that expected procedures are necessary for survival when it comes to classroom management. Bell-ringers set the tone in the first few minutes of class and help students transition back into work mode after a break period. I was literally wasting the first 5-10 minutes of class quieting my students down and preparing to get started. After starting a bell-ringer routine, they immediately started working when they entered! 5. Should I do bell-ringers every day or just on some days? Personally, I think it is better to bell-ringers every day and stick to the routine. When you are always skipping the bell-ringer or only doing them here and there, students lose that consistency, and you won't see the classroom management benefits. You can certainly make it work if you don't want to do it every day, but if you do this, I might suggest writing on the board or projecting a slide to say if there is a bell-ringer that day. This way you don't have to constantly answer the question, "Is there a bell-ringer today?" Still have questions about using bell-ringers successfully in the classroom? Don't hesitate to reach out! I'd love to hear from you. Need more bell-ringer ideas? The bloggers of the coffee shop have you covered! Growth Mindset Bell Ringers from The Daring English Teacher Daily Career Writing Prompts from The Classroom Sparrow Independent Reading Prompts from Room 213 Bell-Ringer Journal Prompts from Tracee Orman Collaborative Bell-Ringers from Nouvelle ELA
Here are 15 engaging and creative TV episodes to use in ELA to teach genre, narrative techniques, characterization, and more. (Blog post)
Making grammar fun is within your reach. You can connect language to students' lives. Try these fun grammar activities.
