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A community-driven blog providing resources for educators, by educators.

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    You: The Story—A Journey into Narrative Writing with Ruta Sepetys

    New York Times bestselling author Ruta Sepetys chats with Stephanie Nugent about how to use her new book Unveiling You: The Story to help your students develop their narrative writing skills.

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    Unlocking Bi-Literacy: Strategies for Diverse Middle School Learners

    Congratulations! You’re well into the first semester now. You’re developing new and solid relationships with your learners and creating a classroom...

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    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...

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    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...

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    AP Literature: Character Layers Analysis Activity

    We are all constantly practicing the skill of character analysis. I remind my often-insecure students of this fact before we dive into a difficult...

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    Welcoming English Language Learners into Your Middle School Classroom

    It’s that time! The school year is beginning and you’re ready to welcome up to 180 new learners into your classroom. Whether you’re in your first...

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    AP Euro: Catherine The Great–Englightened Or Not?

    One of the greatest rewards of teaching history is when students are able to show that they can think in a complex manner and recognize that history...

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    Hispanic Heritage Month: 6 Books to Add to Your Classroom Library

    Back in college, an older Latino gentleman asked me, “When you have kids one day, are you going to raise them as Mexican or white?” The question...

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    Analytical Writing Templates and Starters

    Join Dr. Brandon Abdon and Timm Freitas from The Garden of English to discuss templated essay writing strategies.

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    ELA Activity: Practice Annotating Texts

    Annotation is a life skill, especially for our college-bound students. Reading something with a purpose, a strategy to comprehend at a higher level,...

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