Your students just finished collectively reading a book. Whether that book was read during an interactive read aloud, whole class novel, literature circle, guided reading, or a book club, you want students to experience some kind of closure with the book before just moving on. Giving students a chance to talk about the book in a small group setting invites appreciation for the book, and it also allows students to sort out any confusion or unresolved frustration about the book’s ending. In this blog post, I am going to share a small group discussion activity that can be used after students coll ..read more

My students recently finished up a literary analysis writing unit. If I’m being honest, I wasn’t looking forward to the unit because I didn’t think a literary analysis writing unit would go over too well in the weeks leading up to Spring Break. Throughout the unit, I felt like a broken record saying to my 8th grade ELA teaching team, “Students are doing SO well in this unit. I’m so surprised!” Looking back and reflecting on the writing unit, I don’t think this is coincidental. This is our third writing unit of the school year, and all of the writing units are structured in a similar way, even ..read more

It’s officially state testing season across the United States, so how do you react to this as a teacher? I generally see teachers fall into one of two extremes when it comes to state test preparation. Extreme One: This teacher pretends that state testing isn’t happening. They refuse to acknowledge its existence and don’t mention it to their students. This teacher rests knowing that the curriculum they shared with students across the school year is preparation enough for state testing. Extreme Two: A month before state testing begins, this teacher kicks off a state test preparation marathon and ..read more

I’m going to start this blog post off with what could very well be an unpopular opinion. I hate seasonal lessons and activities. I hate “special” one-day lessons that interrupt the flow of the day-to-day classroom structure. I think one of the worst things we can do from a classroom management perspective is put in too many days that go against our daily class structure. Students thrive on routine and consistency, and therefore, they shine in classrooms that have a daily instructional framework that is predictable. If a teacher thinks lesson planning means selecting a different daily activity ..read more

Most teachers, including myself, have a default mode when it comes to how we ask students questions across a class period. 95% of the time, that default mode is whole class question and answer. This is when we throw out a question to the whole class and then call on students one-by-one to respond. So what’s wrong with doing that? Relentless whole class question and answer can lead to students feeling bored, like they can’t think fast enough, or like someone else has the answers for them. It also can flare up classroom management issues and be a huge time sucker. So what other ways can you ask ..read more

You have gone over your class syllabus, given the classroom tour, and developed common classroom expectations with your students. Now what? Maybe you’re not ready to dive right into the curriculum on the first or second day of school, and that’s totally understandable. The first few days are often filled with inconsistencies and interruptions. If you’re looking for some free, low-prep activities to have on hand and use when needed, I’ve got you covered. All of the activities pictured and described below are free downloads from my TPT store. Idea One: Getting to Know You Student Survey This stu ..read more

Across a school year, we teach and have students write in multiple genres: informative/explanatory, persuasive, narrative, and research. When teaching narrative writing, teachers often default to having students write a fiction story or a personal narrative/memoir. Both of these types of writing align well with the narrative writing standards. The purpose of this blog post, however, is to show you four spins on narrative writing that you may not have considered before. All four writing unit ideas were created with middle school students in mind. Idea One: Memoir Vignettes About this Genre: In ..read more

We all know that when students get to partner up and work with each other in a productive way, student engagement goes up. However, in middle school ELA it can be a little tricky to figure out places in our daily structure to incorporate partner and small group work. Here is the daily structure I use during reading units. This structure varies slightly during writing units. I love having a daily structure that I put the reading lesson content into versus having to figure out a new activity to do with students each day. The daily structure also helps with classroom management because students ..read more

I have a mind that races through the tasks I need to get done. Continuously. In the past, this has hindered how I feel throughout the summer because I’m already stressed about what I need to get done before the following school year. Two summers ago, I started doing an activity at the end of the school year that has alleviated so much stress for me throughout the summer. I map out my curriculum units and prepare my syllabus for the following school year before summer even begins. I want to share this simple, yet effective, process with you today so that you can experience the same peace of min ..read more

Raise your hand if you’ve ever felt confused as a middle school teacher when tasked with providing a reading intervention to middle school students. Whether it’s called WIN time, small group reading instruction, reading intervention, or whatever other acronym your school made up, it’s that 30 minutes of time every day or a couple times a week when you have a small group of students who are labeled as “struggling readers” or “below grade level readers” that you are supposed to magically bring up to grade level. This is no small task. Often times, these same students have flagged on your school ..read more