ELA Class Structure: A How-to Guide
Structuring an ELA curriculum is similar to wardrobe shopping. We all have our personal preferences, our go-to pieces, and our timeless shirts, skirts, or pants. Yet, shopping with friends is…
Engaging Post-Reading Activities
Whether your students are engaged in whole-class texts, literature circles, book clubs, or independent reading, you’ll need to gauge their analytical thinking. There are traditional assessment tools, like summary writing,…
Reader’s Notebooks in Secondary ELA
Considering diving into reader’s notebooks with middle and high school students? You’ll have some decisions to make! Reader’s notebooks are not a new concept, but recently, I’ve had several discussions…
Writing Aloud: A Powerful Way to Model Writing
Wondering how to help students improve their writing skills and confidence? Model writing by writing aloud! To be honest, when I began teaching, I had very little idea how to…
Reading Instruction: Deciding What to Teach
This post is part of a series about reading instruction. To start from the beginning, read about getting to know your readers. When teachers plan reading curriculum in secondary, the…
How to Teach Reading: Step One – Getting to Know Your Readers
Searching for ways to teach reading meaningfully in secondary? Welcome! This post – Getting to Know Your Readers – is the first in a series about how to teach reading…
End of the Year Activities for Secondary ELA
Nearing the end of the school year? Keep students engaged. Try these end of the year activities for secondary ELA. Sometimes teachers feel guilty about incorporating fun lessons at the…
Grammar Games for the Classroom
Engaging grammar games for review in the middle or high school ELA classroom Like many other skills, grammar concepts need to be reviewed. It’s okay to move on from a…
Fun Book Cover Lessons
Book cover lessons? If they aren’t a thing, they should be. If books were ever cool, the time is now. Classroom libraries are taking the world by storm, teachers are…
11 Ideas for Teaching Figurative Language Meaningfully
Figurative language is easy to make one of the most engaging aspects of an ELA class. By nature, it is playful. Because it can be paired with pretty much any…
9 Fun Poetry Lessons to Add to Your Next Unit
Did you land on this post while searching for ways to make poetry less painful…more exciting…more interactive…more creative? Maybe you’re starting your first poetry unit, or maybe you need a…
How to Teach Grammar
Wondering how to teach grammar? People have strong opinions about whether or not it should be taught. Grammar has even been referred to by Grammar Alive as the “skunk at the…
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