Next Step Blog - Resources for Educators

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

ELA (2)

Group of teens of various ethnic, gender and sexual identities looking into camera and holding pride flags.

Exploring Identity Through Narrative Writing

Jennifer Epping

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 Pride Writing

shelf shaped like a head with stacks of books inside it

8 Books to Promote Social Emotional Learning in Your Classroom

Jennifer Epping

The wonderful thing about Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is it isn’t content-specific; it can span all curriculum and grade levels. Knowing the five...

ELA SEL

Arab American Heritage Month - Download Lesson

6 Books For Arab American And Middle Eastern Heritage Month

Jennifer Epping

The best part of being an ELA teacher is getting to expose students to a diverse set of stories. To appreciate the new cultures and heritages more...

ELA

High school ELA students laugh while looking at social media posts.

ELA: Tweets to Check Reading Comprehension

Jennifer Nash

I don’t know about you, but I hate grading reading comprehension questions. First of all, the answers usually could be “borrowed” from websites like...

ELA

Exploring Dynamic Female Characters in Young Adult Literature

Jennifer Epping

Dynamic and flat characterization has been in language arts and English curricula forever, it seems. How do we up the rigor as students advance in...

ELA Women's History Month

ELA Activity: Character Analysis Diagram

Jennifer Epping

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...

ELA Writing

overlapping pieces of multicolored paper to look like a venn diagram

Creative Ways to Teach Vocabulary

Jennifer Nash

Teaching vocabulary—integrated into a text or isolation can be tricky when it comes to thinking of engaging ways to create meaning. We fall back on...

ELA Vocabulary

Award-Winning Books That Will Inspire Students to Start Again

Jennifer Epping

Many young adult books embrace the idea of a fresh start and characters who also have to rise up, advocate, reassess, and sometimes just get over it....

ELA

6 YA Books to Put You in the Holiday Spirit

Perfection Learning

Light the menora, hang the mistletoe, and slip on your fuzzy socks—here are 6 YA books that will help get you in the holiday spirit!

ELA

ELA Activity: Eavesdropping Poetry

Jennifer Nash

In this creative writing activity, secondary ELA students will use what they overhear in the hallways to write poems! Download the lesson template...

ELA Writing Poetry

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Exploring Identity Through Narrative Writing

Jennifer Epping

During Pride Month, everyone expects coming out stories or rainbow flags to take over their social media profile pics–and honestly, I love those parts of June. But as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, we love to hear stories of identity, whether or not it connects to sexuality or gender. Being...

8 Books to Promote Social Emotional Learning in Your Classroom

Jennifer Epping

The wonderful thing about Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is it isn’t content-specific; it can span all curriculum and grade levels. Knowing the five areas of CASEL’s Classroom SEL Framework helps decide where your strengths and weaknesses are as a teacher. Additionally, you can share these...

6 Books For Arab American And Middle Eastern Heritage Month

Jennifer Epping

The best part of being an ELA teacher is getting to expose students to a diverse set of stories. To appreciate the new cultures and heritages more sincerely in a book, students have to start the book feeling like they understand or can relate to something with the characters with whom they spend...

ELA: Tweets to Check Reading Comprehension

Jennifer Nash

I don’t know about you, but I hate grading reading comprehension questions. First of all, the answers usually could be “borrowed” from websites like LitCharts or Spark Notes so they don’t actually tell you if the students read or not. Secondly, just because a student can tell you what happened in a...

Exploring Dynamic Female Characters in Young Adult Literature

Jennifer Epping

Dynamic and flat characterization has been in language arts and English curricula forever, it seems. How do we up the rigor as students advance in secondary classrooms? I find a helpful graphic organizer gives students a perspective on which character is dynamic and which just isn’t. During Women’s...

ELA Activity: Character Analysis Diagram

Jennifer Epping

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.

Creative Ways to Teach Vocabulary

Jennifer Nash

Teaching vocabulary—integrated into a text or isolation can be tricky when it comes to thinking of engaging ways to create meaning. We fall back on the old “write a sentence that shows the meaning of the word” assignment. But we all know that when students are developing an understanding of a word,...

Award-Winning Books That Will Inspire Students to Start Again

Jennifer Epping

Many young adult books embrace the idea of a fresh start and characters who also have to rise up, advocate, reassess, and sometimes just get over it. Those journeys are valuable to our students and to put the right book in their hands is important as they start a new year with the best intentions.

6 YA Books to Put You in the Holiday Spirit

Perfection Learning

Light the menora, hang the mistletoe, and slip on your fuzzy socks—here are 6 YA books that will help get you in the holiday spirit!

ELA Activity: Eavesdropping Poetry

Jennifer Nash

In this creative writing activity, secondary ELA students will use what they overhear in the hallways to write poems! Download the lesson template and hear from ELA teacher Jennifer Nash how she implemented this activity in her classroom!

ELA (2)

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

ELA (2)

Exploring Identity Through Narrative Writing

8 Books to Promote Social Emotional Learning in Your Classroom

6 Books For Arab American And Middle Eastern Heritage Month

ELA: Tweets to Check Reading Comprehension

Exploring Dynamic Female Characters in Young Adult Literature

ELA Activity: Character Analysis Diagram

Creative Ways to Teach Vocabulary

Award-Winning Books That Will Inspire Students to Start Again

6 YA Books to Put You in the Holiday Spirit

ELA Activity: Eavesdropping Poetry

Exploring Identity Through Narrative Writing

8 Books to Promote Social Emotional Learning in Your Classroom

6 Books For Arab American And Middle Eastern Heritage Month

ELA: Tweets to Check Reading Comprehension

Exploring Dynamic Female Characters in Young Adult Literature

ELA Activity: Character Analysis Diagram

Creative Ways to Teach Vocabulary

Award-Winning Books That Will Inspire Students to Start Again

6 YA Books to Put You in the Holiday Spirit

ELA Activity: Eavesdropping Poetry

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