Best Practices & Interventions

“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music” (Aldous Huxley). Think about the last time you felt truly inspired. Was music a part of the experience?…

It’s hard to find a student that doesn’t like some form of art. Incorporating art in ELA classes is beneficial for several reasons. For one, it gives students who like…

If you’ve arrived in search of ELA blog posts, welcome! You’ll find a helpful roundup here. Education is a funny thing. As teachers, we are immersed in what we are…

Do you ever feel like there is something missing from your vocabulary instruction? Traditionally, students are given a list of words, and they memorize the definitions. Lists of words are…

For the longest time, I thought anchor charts were for elementary classrooms. I’d see photos floating around on social media, but I never gave them a second thought in terms…

Looking for ways to help students with elaboration in writing? It’s a complex skill that requires mature thinking. In this post, you’ll find concrete ways to make elaboration in writing…

An important element of effective lesson design is content chunking. Often, it gets side-stepped due to time constraints or a push to get through the material faster. When teachers prioritize…

And today, class, we will be talking about William Shakespeare and the Globe Theater. Please get out your notebooks and pens while I pull up the slide show. Are you…

Creating an environment that encourages students to love reading and to want to grow in their comprehension and analysis skills is an undertaking. To get a pulse on your classroom’s…

Deer in the headlights. That’s kind of what it feels like to look out at a sea of freshmen who are just transitioning to high school. One of the first…