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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...
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.
This graphic organizer provides students with two things: the artistic visual of the character dependent on the descriptions in the text, and then analysis-level questions looking at the relationships, motivations, and reasoning behind the character’s actions.
This four-side graphic organizer strategy has great benefits for students because it doesn’t leave a tone of white space to be filled, but also allows them to analyze four separate questions, which gives the teacher lots of data to see where the students’ strengths are with topics and which they need to model or teach more in-depth.
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What if we taught composition like Bob Ross teaches painting?
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...
Middle School ELA: Words of Doom
"The “Words of Doom” were an addition to our spelling instruction in middle school ELA. They could easily be adjusted or modified for upper...
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...
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...
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...
Does Gatsby Really Matter? Combating Apathy in the ELA Classroom
Given that lately I am as burnt out as they come, I found myself wanting to do something unusual.
Why Middle and High School Teachers Care about the Science of Reading and Transitional Literacy
While most early literacy development occurs in elementary school, teachers in middle and high schools continue shaping students' reading abilities,...
Halloweenie Books
October is spooky month so what better way to embrace the season than books with mutant teenagers, witches, vampires, and more! Michael Guevara...
Tips for Student-Lead Classes
We’ve heard of Project-Based Learning (PBLs), which allows students to mostly have independent leadership through a task or project and creative...
Secondary ELA Grading Hacks
As secondary English teachers, we know how important it is for our students to learn to write well. We also know that oftentimes means we have over a...