As a new teacher, I had no idea how to engage students in learning. That’s not to say my class was a bore, but there were definitely days I knew…

What if you could blend differentiation, brain-based learning, collaboration,  and student engagement all into one power-packed lesson? It’s possible! In this post, you’ll find ideas for how to create learning…

“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…

Looking for high-interest young adult novels to add to your classroom library? You’ll find some of my favorites here. Closing in on the end of 2019, I was scrolling through…

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…

Knowing how to help a reluctant student create a habit of reading is a game changer. Cultivating a reading lifeone of the most important lessons we can share the next…

With the rise of independent reading and workshop approaches, many secondary ELA teachers are looking for mentor text recommendations. How can we encourage students to connect whole-class lessons to independent…

When I think about student writing, one of the most difficult concepts to teach is sentence fluency. Much of excelling at fluent writing revolves around students’ background with literacy. Certainly,…

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…

I’ve written a lot about how teaching vocabulary can be engaging as well as how to help students retain new word meanings. In this new post, I’m writing about specific…

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…

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,…

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…

Preparing to go back to school? Whether you’re a veteran, a new teacher, or somewhere in between, heading back to the classroom can be overwhelming. In this post, you’ll find…

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…