Image 1 of 3 from gallery of Atkins Reveals New Secondary School with Net Zero Operational Carbon Emissions in West Sussex, UK. Atkins West Sussex School . Image © DarcStudio
These January language arts tips will get you through the longest month of the school year. Refocus secondary students after winter break.
Every line of work has their own FAQs, and the longer you’re in the biz, the more answers you have; some you could answer in your sleep. Teaching is no exception.
These three digital skills lessons are necessary for middle and high school students. Read about how teachers can model them.
Back to school ideas and resources for your secondary or middle school english classroom.
Preparing students for life after high school with real-world writing assignments and mock interviews.
There are so many positive classroom ideas for high school that high school teachers should steal from the elementary world...
This is a ground-breaking account of one of the most complicated qualification systems in the world. The National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) is predominantly used in the senior secondary school in Aotearoa New Zealand. Its introduction between 2002 and 2004 signalled a seismic shift in assessment practice.
This past semester I had the honor of meeting Megan Ryan, who began her teaching journey in the school where I teach. My first year was a long time ago 😉 — another place and another time. So, when the year came to a close, I really wanted to pick her brain. Learning from each […]
A Socratic Seminar can be the best low prep, high impact ELA activity you will ever do. This will teach you how to have a successful one!
One of the best things about talking to other teachers is the reassurance you find in shared experiences. Like knowing you’re not the only one with a secret stash of wine in their desk––I mean candy. Did I say wine? Weird. I absolutely meant candy. I’m clearly overtired from too much marking, and feeling the effects of too much… candy. Recently I got an email from a fellow teacher and when I read it, I got that disorienting, time travel vibe. You know, like when you find an old journal in the attic. Instantly, I was transported back to my first year of teaching, but instead of it being a cringey, ohmygosh-I-can’t-believe-I wrote-those-words moment, it was strangely comforting. Because I recognized the words in the letter; I had pulled my hair out over the same exasperating problem. This was the email: I’m finding that my students’ writing is HORRENDOUS! I’ve talked with the other ELA teacher in Jr. High, and for some reason, this group is lacking the fundamental skills of writing. Any advice/suggestions, lesson plans, etc. that you would be willing to help me with, or direct me to, would be greatly appreciated. I’m pulling my hair out with this group. (Anyone else relate? I do have a few suggestions I think could be helpful, but I’d also love to hear about your own experiences and any tips and tricks you’ve discovered.) You see, I think this teacher put her finger on the deeply entrenched, knobbly root of the problem: students lacking the fundamental skills of writing. So I like to get back down to the very basics, before working up to the heady heights of full length essays and narrative discourse. That’s Genre, Audience, Purpose and Style to you and me: the very first stop on our path. Before anything else, students need to know what their goal is. Is it to inform? Entertain? Persuade? Once they know that, they need to identify who they’re writing for and what genre the piece falls under. All this will help them choose the most appropriate style of writing. Lesson Idea: Get your students to look at examples of formal and informal writing (perhaps articles from Time magazine compared with a Buzzed article) and discuss the differences between them—and the possible reasons for that. This is what I meant by ‘the basics'. Dial it all the way back and zoom right in for a closeup on the building blocks of writing: words. I usually spend a good few lessons on this, looking at the impact of well-chosen, precise, descriptive words. I encourage students to play around with verbs, adverbs and adjectives, before experimenting with tone and diction. Bonus Round: If you’re getting encouraging responses, I’d even dare you to push your students to think about the ways word choice helps to create distinctive narrative voices… FREE: Click here to get an exclusive freebie to help students think about creating tone through word choice. Once your students grasp the possibilities of word choice, it's time to journey down the path a little further and get them to look at how those words link together in sentences. A really fun way to get students thinking creatively about sentences is to introduce them to the concept of variety. Get them to mix it up! Challenge them to start every sentence a different way. Encourage them to play around with sentence length. Sneaky Suggestion: Use this opportunity to teach the sometimes tedious topic of grammar in a practical way. Improve fluency by looking at similar sentiments expressed in simple, compound and complex sentences. FREE: Click here to get an exclusive freebie to help students think about the impact of sentence length. The next stop on our path: looking at how sentences structure paragraphs. At this point, I introduce transition words and discuss how to structure thoughts and develop arguments. For analytical or literary writing, I include lessons on how to write thesis statements, embed quotations, make claims and back up those claims. Top Tip: Don’t be tempted to journey past this stop too quickly. Let your students focus purely on paragraph writing until they’re really comfortable—and you’re happy with their great paragraphs. Each lesson, or paragraph, get them to focus on just one aspect at a time. FREE: Click here to get a free graphic organizer to help structure analytical paragraphs. Your students are now perfectly primed to journey all the way down the path and start looking at the big picture: the essay as a whole. But don’t let them run wild just yet! They are far less likely to lose the thread of their argument if they’re following a well-constructed map, so this is when I get my students to really think about planning. (The same principles apply to narrative writing; just swap argument for plot.) Visionary Tools: mind mapping, paragraph planning, idea generation, theme identification, pinpointing focus… it all makes it so much easier and less daunting for them when they come to writing their essays. ______________________________________________________________________________________ Why the ‘The Pathway Method’ Works I’ve seen great results from this ‘pathway method’ and I think it’s because it has three significant benefits for nervous, confused or insecure students: 1. No more tangles: writing a whole essay or narrative can be intimidating in the extreme. A lot of students are paralyzed because they just don’t know where to start or what is expected from them—or, alternatively, they write themselves in knots. By deconstructing writing into its component parts like this, students can break down a daunting task into more manageable activities. 2. A confidence boost: by allowing students to journey to the higher tiers of writing only once they’ve mastered the ones below, we can help build their confidence. Which means this is a double benefit! After all, we all know that confident students make eager, enthusiastic, more creative students. 3. An unshakable core: when students start from a solid skills base, every aspect of their writing is made stronger as a result. An original, imaginative story will lack impact without carefully chosen words or a distinctive voice. A brilliant argument will crumble without a well-supported structure. But writing built on these fundamental skills will stand strong and proud. ______________________________________________________________________________________ In short, no more horrendous writing! No more teachers pulling out their hair. And—most importantly—less reason to delve into that secret stash of candy. Looking for more resources for teaching writing? Check these out: Writing a Research Paper PORTFOLIO by The Superhero Teacher Peer Editing Stations and Rotations by The Daring English Teacher Essay Planning Learning Stations by Room 213
This set of topics for journal writing is designed to serve everyone - suitable for use in your classroom or simply for your own personal use!
A Socratic Seminar can be the best low prep, high impact ELA activity you will ever do. This will teach you how to have a successful one!
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
Those books were not going to work for my students, so I had to figure out how to implement a new novel into my high school English classroom.
This first quarter ELA curriculum guide is intended to help English teachers of grades 7-12 develop, tweak, or add to a first nine weeks curriculum. Suggestions are included that can be used across grade levels to introduce, review, or master key concepts and hit important learning objectives.
Classroom routines and procedures are for ALL students. They can be especially effective at the middle school and high school level to help with classroom culture and management. If students know what to expect and they come to anticipate your high-interest lesson, your management issues will definitely decrease. Here are 5 classroom routines and procedures
Tell me if this sounds familiar: sometimes it's tough to get middle and high school students to go outside their comfort zones for reading nonfiction. They assume the book is too long, too difficult, or too boring, and many students stick to super-short biographies or animal books. As a result, I'm always on the lookout for nonfiction that will be nonthreatening, "worth it", or super engaging for my classroom library. When I asked several of my English teacher colleagues on Instagram what they would recommend, they answered the call with some GREAT suggestions. These titles range in length, difficulty, content, and maturity. We hope you enjoy this list! To see the FULL book talk for each title, click on the hyperlink of the teacher's username who recommended it. Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. 1. Hope Nation: YA Authors Share Personal Moments of Inspiration Recommended by @secondarysara. Link to Amazon. 2.The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough Recommended by @doccopteaching. Link to Amazon. 3. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot Recommended by @elaclassroom Link to Amazon. 4. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah Recommended by @addiewilliams_tpt Link to Amazon 5. The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch Recommended by @prestoplans Link to Amazon 6. The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben Recommended by @buildingbooklove Link to Amazon 7. We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Recommended by @nouvelle_ela Link to Amazon 8. I Will Always Write Back by Caitlin Alifirenka & Martin Ganda Recommended by @theclassroomsparrow Link to Amazon 9. The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater Recommended by @hansonhallway Link to Amazon 10. World War II Heroes: Ten True Tales by Allan Zullo Recommended by @2peasandadog Link to Amazon 11. Bomb: The Race to Build (and Steal) The World's Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin Recommended by @theliterarymaven Link to Amazon 12. In the Shadow of Liberty by Kenneth C. Davis Recommended by @readitwriteitlearnit Link to Amazon 13. I am Malala by Malala Yousafzai Recommended by @mrsorman Link to Amazon 14. For Everyone by Jason Reynolds Recommended by @mrsspanglerinthemiddle Link to Amazon 15. Quiet Power: The Secret Strengths of Introverted Kids by Susan Cain Recommended by @toocoolformiddleschool Link to Amazon 16. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer Recommended by @thedaringenglishteacher Link to Amazon 17. Chasing Lincoln's Killer by James L. Swanson Recommended by @helloteacherlady Link to Amazon 18. Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell Recommended by @room213tpt Link to Amazon 19. Marley Dias Gets It Done by Marley Dias Recommended by @literarysherri Link to Amazon 20. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer Recommended by @writeonwithmissg Link to Amazon 21. Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World by Rachel Ignotofsky Recommended by @thesuperheroteacher Link to Amazon What other nonfiction books would you recommend? Tell us in the comments!
I don't know about you, but the new school year is in full swing, and things are crazy around here (stacks of papers to grade, keeping my son on track with
After teaching for ten years and then switching schools, I was very quickly reminded of how much work goes into writing curriculum from scratch. For a long time, I was in a happy place of continual revision of curriculum that I liked, but was tweaking here and there for relevance, rigor, and for fun
Today was the day I had to got to introduce my classes to my classroom guidelines. This year was even a little different because last Friday I chose to show them this little discussion piece from young adult author John Green, which was a great intro to our talk today. Here goes my talk to […]
Teaching literary criticism can be challenging, but these text selections will help teachers pair critical lenses with suitable texts.
Make sure your units are preparing students for the real world with skill-based learning! Check out this post for tips on looking at your units through a new lens.
Teaching literary criticism can be challenging, but these text selections will help teachers pair critical lenses with suitable texts.
They are coming. You are about to put into practice what you learned about instructional strategies, Bloom's taxonomy, and wait time for q...
Too often, we're expecting students to learn material without asking them to do much of anything with it. Why is this a problem? Where did it come from? And how can we fix it?
We all remember sitting in class, reading textbooks, and answering a ton of questions. This was no fun for any of us, but it was our assignment, so we did it.
#Bookface images are so much fun for students to create and they make for amazing P.R. in your ELA reading program. Get the free guide here.
That first month of teaching at the secondary level can be hard and overwhelming! As a veteran teacher, I put together a survival guide for you!
This cooperative learning strategy takes the idea of "working in pairs" up a notch.
Wondering how to teach vocabulary effectively and meaningfully in secondary classrooms? Try these activities, strategies, and approaches if you're interested in upping your vocabulary game. #vocabularyactivities #highschoolela
In this blog article, we will explore some great educational school trips to consider, regardless of the subject that you teach.
If schools identify Compassion Fatigue early, they can quickly respond in a resourceful way.. but many are not responding…
As many UK primary and secondary schools are as of yet unprepared for the changes to the national curriculum to be implemented in September 2014 and the following year, it’s imperative that science…
A Socratic Seminar can be the best low prep, high impact ELA activity you will ever do. This will teach you how to have a successful one!
AIM. The GOAL. The “here’s what we are about to do today folks, so get ready!” moment. When I first started teaching the recommendation from the “higher ups” was “ELICIT THE AIM”. Elicit the AIM? Spend 5 minutes and WASTE my class time having my students GUESS what we are going to be talking about.… Continue reading →
I share these stories because I suspect you have also had moments you’re not proud of, stories you’ve never told anyone; I want you to know you’re not alone.
Looking for first day ELA ideas? Try these fun get to know you activities in your middle school or high school English class!
You might be wondering how to facilitate virtual learning circles. In this blog post, I'll share apps that work best for online book clubs.
Literary criticism is challenging for students. But using familiar lyrics from Taylor Swift can help demystify complex literary lenses!
Work smarter, not harder: A collection of ideas you can mix and match to get control of the paper load.
This guest blog post was written by my friend Becca over at Science Rocks! She is a terrific teacher with a lot of experience working with ELL students in her science classroom and I collaborated with her in writing this post. I think her ideas are full of fantastic tips for teachers who teach English Language […]
Teaching literary criticism can be challenging, but these text selections will help teachers pair critical lenses with suitable texts.
If you’ve ever found yourself searching the internet for “contemporary short stories” or “modern short stories” because you’re tired of teaching the same classic stories over and over again, I have THE HACK to change everything for you!
Are you looking for ways to encourage the love of reading in your secondary ELA classroom? Consider trying literature circles for big kids. Click through to get my blueprint for how to use literature circles in middle and high school ELA classes.
A new way of teaching means having to develop a new grading system. Don't worry! If you're not sure where to start, you can borrow mine.
Looking for a new late work policy for your secondary classes? Here are four different options, weighing pros and cons, to consider.
