Relationship Building Activities that Still Teach ELA

It's the first week of school; you don’t know the students, and they don’t know you. You want to start off building relationships but know you need to peek into their reading and writing abilities to get a baseline for where the class is.

This isn’t hard to imagine because this is our life as ELA teachers. Every single year! And if you’ve been in the classroom for a while, it’s exhausting trying to figure out how to hook the kids in and build trust in a new way that still connects to our ELA targets.

Look no further!

Try these things to get a writing sample, get kids talking to each other, and a few eyes on some text before the second week of school.

Baseline data? Check!

Here’s the catch: you have to participate too! Students need to build relationships, but more importantly, you need to. Relationships are the foundation to a steady and productive year.

Writing Activities

• • Provide each student with a lined piece of paper and pencil.
  • Have students each choose a book and turn to page 13 (or choose any page number).
  • Then have students find the first full paragraph on that page and copy down the first two sentences of that paragraph onto your lined paper.
  • When finished, students will crumple it up into a snowball.
  • Students should wait for the teacher’s go.
  • When ready, throw the snowball across the room.
  • Pick up the nearest snowball, open it, and continue the story that’s written there.
  • Repeat until you feel the story is complete.
  • The students choose which story is the best or craziest and then are read out loud. Not all will be read out loud. Just a fun finale of the activity!

• • Students will write a one-page hand-written or a 1/2 page typed personal essay about a core belief that they have. This is inspired by the NPR radio series called “This I Believe” from the early 2000s.
  • Things to include in the essay:
    • What your belief is.
    • Why you have that belief.
    • What experience or person helped you start believing this.
    • How do you use this belief in your life.

Reading Activities

1. Blackout Poetry
1. Give each student a torn-out page of a book & a black marker.
2. Have students skim the page and underline words that create new lines they connect to or create a new poem representing them.
3. Using the marker, blackout the other words, leaving the underlined words visible.
4. Now have students share theirs or post them around the room for a gallery walk.

1. I Spy A Literary Device Game
1. Choose a short story that has a lot of description, dialogue, and other literary devices ahead of time.
2. Have students choose a partner.
3. Provide each pair with the short story, white board, eraser and marker.
4. Have students partner-read the short story together.
5. Now it’s competition time! Call out “I Spy…” and then a literary device. Student pairs should then search the short story and write down an example from the text on their white board that shows it.
1. Example: “I spy dialogue!” “I spy a description that shows the sense of hearing!” “I spy a metaphor!”
6. You can either: have them reveal their boards after an amount of time and the teacher checks and reads out loud, or have students find a group nearby and share their examples, evaluating if that is, indeed, an example of that literary device.

Speaking & Listening Activities

1. Speed Interviews

PC: Jennifer Epping/Canva

1. Arrange your classroom desks and chairs in a line (or two depending on space) with desks facing another.
2. Have students find a partner and sit across from them in that line of desks.
3. Provide a pencil and paper for each student.
4. Ask students to write down three open-ended questions they want to ask their classmates.
1. Examples: Where is your dream vacation? Who would you most like to meet? What do you want to do after high school? If you were an animal, which would you be and why? What is one thing in your life you’re most proud of?
5. During four-minute timed sessions where students are asking and answering questions, have students write down responses as best they can. This helps them actively listen.
6. Then after the time is up, have one side of the line of students move to the next desk. The other students on the opposite side stay put to interview the person moving over.
7. The process starts all over again with their same questions.

1. Canva Intro Poster Gallery Walk & Talk
1. This is more like the elementary “All About Me” poster except it allows students to create using Canva and not just color and list.
2. Students need to be a part of your Canva classroom (free for all teachers) or create a free account on their website. (It’s super quick and easy!)
3. Once logged on to Canva, have students create a poster (8.5” x 11”) that includes their name and visuals that help others learn about them.
1. Categories to cover can be open-ended or the teacher can choose what to include. Options could include: hobbies, favorites, what they’re involved in at school, community ties, family details, etc.
4. After the posters are created, students can go on a Gallery Walk and check out each other’s. Have half of the class be presenters at their poster/computer explaining or introducing themselves to the viewers. The viewers can ask questions of the presenter to learn more about them. Then switch groups and repeat.
5. For more inclusive fun, print them off and display them in a binder or around the room.

These should give you a baseline for any of the main topics of ELA, but in a more fun way than asking students what they did during the summer. Because honestly, many students didn’t have a good summer and others had the times of their lives. These activities will allow light into various places of students’ lives that are worth knowing, which will build relationships stronger, which is the point of the first week of school.

Jennifer Epping is an ELA and journalism teacher of 14 years who lives in Des Moines, Iowa. She has bachelor’s degrees in journalism and mass communication and English Education from Iowa State University, and a professional certificate in book and magazine publishing from New York University. She spent some time in book publishing in New York and found her passion in the classroom helping students find their voices. She loves spending time with her wife, Amanda, and their one-year-old son, Elliott, while also diving into as many books as possible.