While teaching the parts of speech is oftentimes a lesson that one would find in the elementary classroom, high school students also need to know their parts of speech. Learn about how to teach the parts of speech with these simple steps.
Flu season is upon us, so I wanted to compile some of my favorite free resources for last-minute sub plans. Everything I've chosen is 100% free and ready to print. These resources don't take a lot
Finding resources to support middle school special education students is difficult, here are the best reading resources that I have found.
Do you take time to focus on teaching speaking and listening skills? A lot of lessons and activities often focus on literature, reading, spelling, and writing. Sometimes the speaking and listening skills get lumped into lessons, or we realize we’ve really been lax on the speaking skills the first time we have students give a presentation. However, students need to have dedicated opportunities to practice speaking and listening. Read on for activities you can incorporate into your classroom.
Are your students disinterested and tired of the traditional ways of learning characterization? Have you been searching for a really fun, student-centered, interactive way to eliminate their boredom? Well, look no further! I present to you a wonderful student-collaboration activity that will get your students involved and excited for a character analysis for any novel, […]
Try this free, fun, and interactive middle school ELA games in your classroom to teach grammar and literacy ELA skills!
Use Mentor Sentences in your ELA middle school classroom to improve student writing! Find practical ideas to teach writing skills.
I use this form to keep track of students who are not turning in their work. I also love this form because it forces students to think about why they don't have an assignment rather than just not turning anything in.
Teaching English with songs is a great way to boost student engagement. Check out these 17 ideas for activities using music and songs!
Discover engaging ELA activities, teacher resources, and classroom ideas for middle school and upper elementary at Mrs. Beers Language Arts Classroom.
Hello Friends!! I'm here today to post my lesson plans from week two of summer school. Yes, we did just wrap up week three, but I've had a bunch of computer issues, along with a
Analyzing writing curriculums, planning writing workshop and teaching writing lessons can be overwhelming. You might think, how am I going to fit everything in and produce successful writers? Where do I start? What skills do they need? This post will share the 7 BASIC WRITING LESSONS that every teacher should teach! With this basic knowledge, students will be able to perform other writing assignments more effectively. The following skills are not only effective in upper elementary, they are often needed at the middle school level for review or the primary level for differentiation. So yes, every teacher should teach them! If you start with these 7 fundamental skills, it will set the expectations for your writing lessons and assignments throughout the year! Frequently Asked Questions What are the basic skills and what order should I teach them? Sentence Structure 1. Complete Sentences Lesson for complete sentences 2. Fragments Lesson for fragments 3. Run-ons Lesson for run-ons Paragraph Writing 4. Topic Sentences Lesson for topic sentences 5. Relevant Details Lesson for relevant details 6. Transition Words Lesson for transition words 7. Closing Sentences Lesson for closing sentences How much time should I dedicate to teaching these fundamental skills? I recommend one day for each skill. If you spend a whole writing block for each skill, students will benefit from the practice. How do I teach each skill? First: Start with an anchor chart explaining the skill. (See each lesson link above for effective anchor charts.) Second: Provide examples. Students can share examples too! Next: Students should take notes. I love using Interactive Writing Notebooks to take notes. Research supports the use of interactive notebooks through studies on multiple intelligences, the brain and note taking. Here are a few videos to Set Up Interactive Writing Notebooks. Click photo for the Upper Elementary Version. A Primary Version is also available. Then: Identify the skill. Provide practice sheets and task cards for students to practice identifying the skill in sentences and paragraphs. Last: Apply the skill. Students should have the opportunity to write their own sentence or paragraph to apply the particular skill. What if I can't fit the lesson in one writing block? If you can't extend the days to complete them, there are other ways to get the whole lesson in. You can put practice sheets or task cards in a center, or you can have students apply the skill for homework or morning work the next day. What if my students, some of my students, or absent students can't do interactive notebooks? Make a small anchor chart to put in their notebooks with the same information! If you don't have a printable poster, take a picture of the anchor chart you used in class and print them off! I hope you found this post helpful and your students become successful writers this year! Connect With Me! TPT Store Facebook Pinterest My Blog
Much like students who spend more hours on the hook of an essay than they do the bulk of an essay, I often found myself with a case of English teacher writing block when it came to planning my first day of school activities. Though I have ten years (x two semesters each) of ... Read More about First Day of School Activities for High School and Middle School English
I have so much to share with you about writing interventions, but first things first: WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE NEW BLOG DESIGN?!?!? Please share your thoughts! Every year, I meet lots of middle schoolers who struggle with writing. And every year, I play around with lots of different interventions to meet their needs. Last year, I made establishing sound writing interventions one of my big goals. I spent lots of time (and money!!) on resources that I could use, and by about March, I had something that I thought I was pretty happy with. This year, I'm starting off with those interventions that worked so well last year and I couldn't be happier with the results! In fact, I'm so pleased with how they are working, I feel confident enough to share my practice with my blog readers. I can say that these are definitely KID TESTED, TEACHER APPROVED!! Creating a Time and Space for Intervention within your Classroom I teach by myself. There are no aides, special ed teachers, BSI teachers... just little, ol' me! So, when I want to create and manage small groups, I'm on my own. This is hard. It would be so much easier if there was another adult in the room to help, but there is not, so I just have to deal! It's work, but it absolutely can be done! A few weeks ago, I wrote about the Power of Bell-Ringers. Establishing a quiet and smooth transition into writing class is a great way to get started, but it also provides me with a window of time where I can pull a small group! By mid-October, my bell-ringer time gets extended to 15 minutes. The kids get started immediately and are clear on the expectations during this time. Now the environment for working with small groups is set: the room is quiet and engaged, allowing me to focus my time on the handful of kids in my group. I pull my kids to a table that I have set up in front of our classroom library. I have a "teacher station" at one end where I do my instruction. I usually stream some jazz or piano music during this time so my group doesn't distract the rest of the class. Establishing Interventions In my district, by middle school, there are no longer district-mandated interventions in place. There are no clear resources for teachers to use or personnel to help. So, when we have a struggling reader or writer in 7th or 8th grade, it's the job of the classroom teacher to meet their needs. In my tenure of working with middle schoolers, I've found that there are two types of students who need more support than my writing curriculum provides (and please remember... I am not a researcher/specialist/writer of books/etc. I'm just a teacher, like you, who loves my job, tries to do the best by my kids, and is compulsively reflective about what I see happening... to me, teachers are the best EXPERTS, but I know that we are hesitant these days to trust a "lowly" teacher and rather find ourselves relying on big publishers and educational researchers to show us best practices... I don't have lots of "data" to support what I'm sharing with you... just my actual observations I've made while working with real, live kids in an average classroom setting!!). Type One: Students Who Struggle with Structure The first type of students who need intervention are those who struggle with structure. These are the kids that can't organize their thoughts in a way a reader could follow. They simply write whatever their brain thinks at the time. They can generally stick with a broad topic, but because they are just writing whatever pops into their head at the time, there are lots of places where their writing veers off track and becomes confusing. Here is an example written by a former student struggling with structure: My dog Henry is my most special treasure. He is always there for me whenever I need him in sad times and happy. In many ways, he's my best friend. He has brown fur and a white chest. He is such a good dog to have around when you are sad because he always knows just how to cheer you up. His eyes are brown, like a Hersey bar. His favorite toy is a yellow tennis ball. Once he almost got hit by a car chasing the ball down the street. I have loved him ever since he was a puppy and we first got him. I was only 4-years old when that little ball of fluff was brought home by my parents to be best friends. His soft fur is always so smooth and warm when you pet him while watching TV on a cold night. He is my best friend and that is why he is my special treasure [sic]. This student is clear about his topic - his dog, Henry - but he cannot organize his thoughts. He is thinking about his dog and writes down everything he knows about his buddy exactly as it comes to his mind. Clearly, he has mechanical and conventional skills, and you can see evidence of where he is practicing what we learned in our mini-lessons and from studying our mentor pieces. But, because there is no organization, it is too difficult to follow and all of the skills he has are lost to the untrained, teacher-eye. Kids who write like this need an intervention that focuses on structure and organization. Typically, I LOATHE teaching step-by-step process writing, but in cases like this, I'm left with little choice. The lessons that I put together for kids in need of this intervention consist of learning how to write a well-organized paragraph. Together, we will work on writing topic sentences, creating strong and clear supporting sentences, and finish up with writing a closing that sticks with our reader. My favorite plans for this type of writing come from Michael Friermood. His Fact-Based Opinion Writing products are geared toward teaching elementary students (grades 3-5) how to write a good opinion paragraph, and they are PERFECT for my struggling 7th graders. They also lack a lot of the "cutesy" images that you find with products for this age group, so my big kids don't feel like I'm making them do "baby stuff." (I do not use the stationary he provides for the final writing piece... it's adorable, but it would be pushing in with my kids! So, we just do our paragraph writing in our intervention notebooks!) My plan is to pull the intervention group for one week (at 15 minutes a pop, this comes to 1 1/4 hours of learning). Long before I ever pull a group, I work hard to make sure that my lesson is broken down into five succinct 15-minute increments. Since time is so precious, you need to make sure not one minute is wasted! I can say that it takes me much longer to plan for a small-group lesson than a 50-minute whole-class lesson because efficiency is so crucial. The first few times you plan a small-group lesson, don't be surprised if your timing is mess. It definitely takes practice to be an effective small-group instructor! After their week is up, then I send them back to completing the bell-ringer at the start of class. I will watch them closely and conference with them lots to make sure that I am seeing a transfer of skills. If I don't, then it is likely that I will put them back in an intervention group in a few weeks to practice again. This intervention model will continue all year. Right now, I have 8 intervention students in one writing class, and 6 in another. By the end of the year, those number should reduce to 3-4 and 2-3. Never in all my years of working with small groups, have I had 100% of my intervention students "graduate" from small group. Don't be frustrated if this is the case! If you can improve 50-60% of those kids, then consider that a huge success!! Type Two: Students Who Struggle with Motivation The next group of kids that I work with are those who struggle with motivation. These are the students who complain a lot about not having anything to write about, spend more time doodling or coloring in their notebook than writing, and who will write the absolute bare minimum for any writing assignment. Many times, these kids produce too little for me to gauge whether or not they also need help with structure. But typically, once I can get them writing, they will likely find themselves in a small group for structure work :) Come October, after we've spent lots of lots of time list writing, the kids who are still struggling to get their pencils moving find themselves using a very special Interactive Writer's Notebook called "Musings from a Middle Schooler." This product contains loads of interactive writing pages that will motivate even the most reluctant writers. The pages can be printed out and glued into a marble notebook. (Most often, I'll have the kids create their own... I don't always have them use all the pages, rather I let them pick and choose the ones they like!). Cover Table of Contents page Table of Contents cont. and an "All About Me" page "My Life Story in Two Pages" My Favorite Thing Comics I created this project just last school year and it's been an absolute smash! The kids (especially my boys!) LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it! In absolutely no time, they are writing like crazy. And once I can get their pencils moving it doesn't take me long to get them producing some actual pieces. I don't necessarily pull these kids and work with them in a small group. The first few days, we will assemble our books all together at the back table, but then they go right back to the big group. Rather than do the bell-ringer with the rest of the class at the start of the period, they will work in their "Musings" notebooks. Fifteen minutes of that is usually enough to get them into writing mode for the rest of class. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * So, that's how I make writing intervention work in my classroom. Phew!! That was long, folks!! I apologize for my wordiness and I am grateful if you stuck it out until the end! Also, I'm sure that I've left out some crucial details of my practice, so please do not hesitate to ask me any questions you still have! Do you have any good intervention tips or strategies that work for you? I'd love to hear about them. Drop me a comment and share! Happy Teaching!!
Item description Would you like to have a collection of reading activities novel study for any novel? Is one of your goals to improve the reading skills of your students with novel studies activities? Would you be interested in exploring new and exciting perspectives of the novels while offering the flexibility of a novel study choice board? If you found something that gave you all these benefits, would you want to get started with it right away? Think about what a difference it will make when you start using this engaging novel studies choice board with novel reading tasks in your class! They include: Instructions for using the novel study choice boards for middle school Black and white novel study choice board with 50 tasks Rainbow novel study choice board – 10 color strips with 5 activities each Thematic coloring novel study choice board – 6 novel studies themes: all about the novel activities character activities speaking and listening activities vocabulary activities artistic activities extensions Choice Board rubric and assessment – with 4 levels of mastery and Teacher’s comments Sample Assignments: speaking activities like: oral report, dramatization vocabulary and riddles diaries and chronologies main character related activities Because the novel study tasks come with clear instructions, you can encourage independent work in class which means that your students will be more confident in analyzing novels. The three version of the novel study choice board are excellent for focusing on a variety of novel studies activities and approaches while you get to save a lot of time during preparation and class work. The novel study activities are varied and thorough, so you can assign them as a great final project for any novel which means your students will be able to select what will go in their solid portfolio at the end of each novel. Just imagine how you will feel when you start to get the benefits and results from this resource right in your class! Are you afraid that this novel study choice board for middle school will not match the needs of your students? I understand exactly what you feel. Don’t worry! Just try it and if you find this resource not suitable for your class, just email me at [email protected] and I’ll get you a full refund. Suzanne F. has tried the novel study activities in her class and said, “Thank you! I needed new ideas, I have had these kiddos for 2 years. This was just what I needed to give them something a little different from my menu.” Why don’t you give it a try? Click on the “Add to cart” red button and you can use it right away!
This mini-lesson gives your students an opportunity to see the teacher model skill or term, and then the students practice this on their own.
Find ideas for teaching middle school with these full year lesson plans for middle school ELA.
One of the most challenging things for a (new) teacher is planning and pacing the curriculum. After all, there are so many different standards to teach,
Teaching blackout poetry is an engaging way to help spruce up your poetry unit. Show a few examples, and your students will be eager to create a blackout masterpiece of their own. Keep reading to learn what blackout poetry is and just what you need to do to teach it. So, you’re thinking about teaching… Read More »A Beginner’s Guide To Teaching Blackout Poetry
The burning question that most new, and even experienced, teachers have is what types of writing to teach and how to structure it all within a school year. Most of us are beholden to meet state standards and this can leave us feeling like we are teaching to the test rather than helping students produce […]
Book reports and summaries are a thing of the past. Engage your middle and high school students with five book report alternatives that will leave them asking for more and, most importantly, building vital reading and analysis skills along the way. 1. Assign one pagers at the end of a novel. One pagers are engaging, allow for creativity, and lead to higher level thinking and analysis. Assigning a one pager is easy and works for any novel. Follow these simple guidelines: • Make it standards base
Movement in the classroom is beneficial for many reasons. First and foremost, getting up to move in the classroom might help anxious students relieve stress.
Get an outline for teaching all the reading and writing standards in your Middle School ELA class.
This Annotatin Text-Teach Model will encourage your students to learn how to annotate properly and efficiently.
Filler Activities for ELA (blog post) What can you do with five extra minutes in secondary ELA? Here are a few ideas to engage students until the bell.
Get an outline for teaching all the reading and writing standards in your Middle School ELA class.
Hey there, fellow English teacher! I want to share what my secondary English curriculum for the first six weeks of school looks like.
With the beginning of the school year right the corner, it is time to start thinking about which lessons will be most valuable for our students. Starting the
When it comes to teaching close reading and annotation, is there anything worse than seeing your students mindlessly highlighting for pages and pages with no real understanding of what they're highlighting or why they're highlighting it? The frustrating part is that highlighting indicates that they're trying, but it often shows that they don't understand why.
This is a middle school IEP objective bank for reading and writing skills aligned with common core standards for grades 6, 7, and 8. It has several objectives for every reading and writing standard. It could be used for higher grades as well. I have also included a printable list of the common core reading and writing standards for each grade. While it is designed specifically for students with IEPs receiving special education services, the objectives could also be applied for students receiving intervention support. There are over 170 different objectives in all. This could be used to: - Write IEPs for students with reading or writing disabilities - Write intervention plans for students struggling with reading or writing - Write objectives for your reading and writing lesson plans - A guide for special education teachers or intervention teachers Editable Version An editable version for Microsoft Word is also included. This makes it easy for you to tailor the objectives to your classroom and copy/paste as you need. IEP Goals/Objectives for Math — Middle School IEP Objective Bank for Mathematics Buy the Bundle and SAVE! — { Middle School IEP Goal/Objective Bank BUNDLE for Math & ELA } — { Middle School Special Education BUNDLE! } ***************************************************************************** Tips for Customers! Click here to follow my store! If you have questions or problems please contact me through Product Q & A and I'll get back to you as soon as I can! Disclaimer: These resources and materials are for supplementary support/education purposes and not intended as a replacement for counseling, education, or other necessary supports. Educators, parents, counselors, and others who utilize these materials are encouraged to seek out additional support, as needed. *****************************************************************************
Freaking out over how in the world can you actually use centers and stations in your classroom without being completely overwhelmed? Concerned that you don’t have enough time, don’t know how to enforce student accountability, don’t know what the stations should look like, or panicking that you simply can’t keep up? These are absolutely valid
Middle school novel study favorites - top novel study picks for grade 5-9 to engage and encourage young readers.
Public Speaking Games: 7 outrageously good fun-filled speech activities to build confidence and skills. Good for middle school upwards.
Learn how to implement Investigation Lab PBL in your Middle School ELA class in just 4 easy steps!
I use this weekly grade reflection as a bellringer for my AVID elective and academic intervention classes. Each section is labeled with the day of the week that to be completed. It has helped students remain accountable for knowing their academic standing as well as talking to their teachers about...
It's time to go back to school! With the back-to-school season upon us, it is time to start planning back-to-school activities for the first week of school.
A middle school teacher's blog: English, History, PBL, GBL, mindfulness, and student engagement.
Description: Do you need a syllabus or expectation letter for the start of a new school year? These templates are perfect for the first week of school and will help you lay out all your expectations, routines, and class information. These templates were designed for middle school classrooms but could work in any grade level. The templates come in six different versions and are 100% editable. The fonts, lines, headings, etc. can all be moved and adjusted. *MUST HAVE POWERPOINT TO USE THIS RESOURCE! What's Included: A PowerPoint file with 6 different versions of the Syllabus/Expectation Letter Template (100% editable) Two examples of the Syllabus/Expectation Letter filled out Digital Family Survey (Google Form) that is editable Headings on the Syllabus/Expectation Letter include: COURSE DESCRIPTION, COURSE OUTLINE, GRADING, SUPPLIES NEEDED, ITEMS NOT ALLOWED, CLASS RULES, REWARDS, CONSEQUENCES, HOMEWORK, LATE WORK, LEAVING THE CLASSROOM, TARDIES, How I Like to Use this Product: This is a resource that I use in my classroom every year at the beginning of the school year. I will pass this handout out to students during the first week of school and we go over the information together. I also insert a link or QR code to the Family Survey on the handout and ask parents to fill it out so I can get to know their child better. Thank you for visiting my store! I am SO honored you are here! Being able to share ideas with other teachers brings me great joy! If you like this product, please leave a review or share a picture on Instagram of this product in your classroom! Don’t forget to tag @mrsnelsonsmiddles!
Kick off your school year with map and globe skills ! What middle school social studies classroom doesn’t cover map skills? Since map skills are a basic concept covered in middle school social studies, you'd think it would be easy to find resources for it. However, most of the resources out there a
Finding engaging TED Talks for middle school students is important task in inspiring and motivating your students. Find them right here!
Maybe you’ve been asked to lead a grade level team. Maybe you’re on a grade level team that has no appointed leadership and you’re ready to take the reins. No matter how you arrived at this moment and this blog post, you’re probably wondering where to start and what exactly your role should be. As y
