(Inside: Book recommendations for high schoolers. A list of compelling books that high schoolers will want to read. Help your teen find a book he/she will love. Improve your student's reading skills.) "I love that book!" one student declared to another as she passed me a slip of paper scribbled with her favorite book
Do your high school students struggle to find books they can’t put down? Here are 31 student-approved books to read for high school that won’t disappoint!
1. Attach an image (photo, magazine, etc.) to a notebook page and write about it. 2. What things will people in the future say about how we live now? (Examples: They ate that? They believed that?) 3. Pick one from each list to make a creature and animal combination. Now write a short story or scene in which this creature appears. List 1 List 2 Vampire porcupine Ninja armadillo Zombie pig Pirate goat Mummy lobster Clown possum Banshee shark Wraith moray eel 4. Imagine a future in which we each have a personalized robot servant. What would yours be like? What would it do? What features would it have? 5. What does your name mean? Free write about names: names you like, names you don’t, how a name can affect a person’s life, how you feel about your own name, why your parents chose your name, etc. 6. Create a brand new holiday with its own traditions, rituals, foods, and activities. 7. What road-trip would you take if you suddenly could? Write about it. 8. List six true sentences that begin with the words “I'll never forget…” 9. Imagine that we lost all electricity, water, and gas for a month without any time to prepare. Write about how your life would change and how you would survive. 10. Make your bucket list for the next 5 years, the next 10 years, and for life. 11. Tell this story: “Well, I thought it was going to be a regular summer doing all our regular things…” 12. List 10 places in the world that you would most like to visit, 10 places you’ve been, and 10 places you would never want to go. 13. Think about hospitality in your family. What’s it like to have guests in your house? Do you prefer to have friends to your house or to go to a friend’s house? 14. Pick a family member of two and write about his or her reputation in your family, or tell a family legend. 15. A guitar pick, a red balloon, and a wicker basket. Write a scene or a poem that includes these three objects. 16. What animal would judge us the most? Write a scene (based on truth or fiction) where two or more people are doing something silly, and they're being observed and criticized by animals. 17. Write about your own worst family vacation memory. 18. Write about your best family vacation memory. 19. Imagine that someone says to you, “Because that's how we've always done it!” Write this out as a scene. (Think: Who said it, what were the circumstances, how did you respond, etc.) 20. What do you think about when you can't sleep? Turn it into a piece of writing. 21. What traditions does your family have? List all of them or just pick one and write about it. 22. Think about your strongest emotion right now (irritation, boredom, happiness, contentment, etc.) and find five quotes about this emotion. 23. What do you struggle with the most? Write about it. 24. Write a self-portrait. 25. What can we learn from contrast? Write a description of something very dark (like a crow) in a very light place (like a field of snow). Make the dark thing seem innocent and the light thing seem ominous. 26. Write about someone who has no enemies. Is it even possible? 27. Think of a person from your past who really deserved a good scolding but never got one. Write a fictional piece where you tell that person off intelligently. 28. Can honesty honestly be bad? Write about someone, fact or fiction, who gets in trouble for being too truthful. 29. The word “fat” carries a negative connotation. Write a story or observation where something fat is celebrated. 30. What animal lives beneath your human skin? A mouse? A cougar? Or what? Explain with writing. 31. Write about the best piece of advice you ever received. 32. Remember a favorite book from your childhood. Write a scene that includes you and an old copy of that book you find somewhere. --> 33. “I was so mortified, I wanted to crawl in a hole!” Write a short narrative (fiction or nonfiction) where this is your first sentence. Illustrate it if you want. 34. Should books ever be banned? Discuss. If no, explain why. You might want to look at a least of commonly banned books. If yes, explain under what circumstances. 35. Ernest Hemingway said to “write hard and clear about what hurts.” Write about something that hurts, whether it’s an emotional, physical, or phantom pain. 36. What if everyone had to wear a shirt with his or her Myers-Briggs personality type on it? What would this change? How would this affect the way people interact with each other? Would you like this or hate it? (If you don’t know your “type,” try this site. 37. William Shakespeare wrote that: “Conversation should be pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation, free without indecency, learned without conceitedness, novel without falsehood.” Write your thoughts about conversation, or make up dialogue between two characters who are meeting each other for the first time in an unexpected place. 38. Tell this story: “There it was, finally. Our island. Our very own island. It looked beautiful above the waves of fog, but there was still one question to be answered: why had they sold it to us for only five dollars?” 39. Maya Angelou said “I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way s/he handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.” Tell a story in which a character has to deal with one, two, or all three of these scenarios. How does your character respond? 40. You have a chance to go back and completely re-do an event in your life. What is it, and how to you change it? What is the outcome? This can be a real or fictional event. 41. Pick two characters from different books you’ve read this year and have them get in an argument about something (e.g., who has suffered more, who has had a happier life, etc.). 42. The one shoe in the road: why is it there? Write a story about the circumstances that led to one shoe in the middle of the road. 43. You get to guest star on a TV show. What show is it? What happens in this particular episode? 44. What would you pack in your suitcase if you could not go home again? 45. You can only use 20 words for the rest of your life. You can repeat them as often as you wish, but you can only use these words. What are they? 46. What current fashion in clothing do you particularly like or dislike? Why? 47. Choose five symbols or objects that represent you. Why did you choose these things? 48. "When I stepped outside, the whole world smelled like…" Write a scene that starts with that line. 49. Write a poem entitled "Hitchhiking on a Saturday Afternoon." 50. Use these two lines of dialogue in a story: "What's in your hand?" "It's mine. I found it." 51. Write a scene that happens in a parking lot between a teenager and a man in a convertible. 52. If you only had one window to look out of for the next six months, what would you want to see on the other side? Describe the view. How would it change? 53. Write a story for children. Start with “Once upon a time” or “Long ago in a land far away.” Include a dragon, a deadly flower, and a mask. 54. "Did she actually just say that?" Write a scene that includes this line. 55. “Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.” — Jane Howard. Write what comes to mind when you read this quote. 56. List five things you want in a relationship. 57. List ten favorite lines from movies. 58. Write about the biggest mistake you made this week. Now write about the best thing you did this week. 59. What is the very first memory that you have? Write about it. 60. What if your pet could only talk to you at midnight for an hour? 61. Write an acrostic poem using your full name and three words that describe you—good and bad— for each letter. For example, S: sensitive, stubborn, smiling. A: artistic, argumentative, agoraphobic M: melodramatic, moody, magical 62. What if you could create your own TV show with all your friends and loved ones as the cast? What kind of show would it be and who would play which parts? 63. Take a photo or draw a picture of every place you go in a day. Put the pictures or drawings in your journal. 64. A to Z: Make an alphabetical list of advice for someone who is about to become a teenager. For example: A: ask forgiveness, not permission. B.: bake cookies. C.: cook something delicious once a month. D: don't compare yourself to others. 65. Find 10 quotes about happiness. 66. Write about 5 things you'd rather be doing right now. 67. Write out the lyrics to your favorite song. Find some pictures to illustrate the song. 68. Who do you spend the most time talking to? Siblings, parents, friends? Make a list of who you actually talk to during the day and estimate the amount of time invested in each individual. Does the list reveal your priorities? Is it proportional to what is important to you? Make notes of what you talk about in your daily conversations. 69. Find a quote for each month of the year. 70. Animals can sometimes seem remarkably human. Describe an experience with an animal that acted in a very human way. 71. Imagine you opted to have yourself frozen for 50 years. Describe your first days unfrozen, 50 years in the future. 72. Imagine that you are an astronaut who has been doing research on the moon for three years. You are do to go back to earth in a week when nuclear war breaks out on earth. You watch the earth explode. Then what? 73. Create a menu from a fictitious restaurant. Make sure the restaurant has a theme, such as Classic Books, and the food should all be given appropriate names (e.g., “Mockingbird Pie”). 74. Preconceived notions are often false. Describe a time when you discovered that a preconceived notion of yours (about a person, place, or thing) turned out to be wrong. 75. Create a story using words of one-syllable only, beginning with a phrase such as: “The last time I saw her, she...” “From the back of the truck...” “On the night of the full moon...” “The one thing I know for sure…” 76. Describe a significant person (teacher, neighbor, mentor, coach, parent, sibling, sweetheart) with as many physical details as possible and as many similes as possible. (E.g., “Her hair was as golden as straw.”) 77. Write about your first name—why you were given it, what associations or stories are attached to it, what you think or know it means. Do the same for your last name. What name would you give yourself other than the one you actually have? 78. Parents are our first and most important teachers. Describe a valuable lesson you learned from one of your parents. 79. Imagine a moral dilemma (for example, you see someone shoplift or a friend tells a blatant lie to her parents about where she was last night) and explain what you would do and why you would do it. 80. Review an obituary, birth, or a section from the police record or classified ads section of a local newspaper. Choose one and tell the story behind it. 81. List the most attractive things about your current hometown. Now list the most unattractive things. 82. Come up with a list of nouns and a second list of verbs, all of one syllable each. Describe a scene or situation, using a minimum of ten words from each list. 83. Where is your happy place? Write about it and include a picture or drawing. 84. Create a how-to manual for something you can do well (make a craft, bake cookies, restring a guitar, apply make up, etc.). Describe the process so that someone else could complete the task based on your directions. Use present tense verbs. 85. Free write on this quote by Samuel Johnson: “Ignorance, when voluntary, is criminal.” 86. Find a favorite quote and work it into an illustration. (Inspiration here.) 87. Make a soundtrack for your life so far. List songs that describe you or different times of your life. (Make the actual soundtrack on Spotify, etc. too!) 88. Sometimes we find ourselves in situations that force us to face our deepest fears. Tell about a time when you had to face one of your greatest fears—or make up the story. 89. You’re a talk show host. Pick two guests. Why did you choose them? Are they people who get along, or people with vastly different viewpoints? Write about the episode. 90. What three books do you think should be required reading for everyone? Why? 91. “What you don’t know what hurt you.” Write a story that begins with this statement. 92. Free write on this quote by Woodrow Wilson: “Friendship is the only cement that will hold the world together.” 93. According to a Czechoslovakian proverb, “Better a lie that soothes than a truth that hurts.” Agree or disagree? Explain. 94. Rewrite “The Tale of the Three Little Pigs” by using people that you know as the pigs and the wolf. 95. There is a saying that you should be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it. Describe a time when you wished for something and got it—and then wished you hadn’t—or make up a story in which this happens to the character. 96. As the saying goes, “rules are meant to be broken.” Tell about a time when you broke the rules and what happened as a result. 97. "That's not what I meant!" Write a story that has this line in it somewhere. 98. A blue trash can, a red picture frame, a teddy bear with the stuffing falling out, and a padlock. Put these four items somewhere in a story, scene, or poem. 99. Write your name in outline letters on a whole sheet of paper. Now fill in each letter with words you like that begin with that letter. For example: 100. Make a word collage of who YOU are. Use pictures too, if desired. **HURRAH! You can now purchase this as a digital PDF ($2) at Teachers Pay Teachers. For more creative writing ideas, check out my free WordSmithery creative writing lessons and my popular Ultimate Guide to Creative Writing Resources! Check out 100 other 100 Things posts from the bloggers at iHomeschool Network! Do you have it yet? The Big Book of Homeschooling Ideas—a collaboration of over 50 authors with 103 chapters— is now available! Don't miss this amazing resource!
Light-Hearted Classic Books for Teens. Give homeschool high schoolers a break from all the serious stuff with these classics.
5 more engaging vocabuary activities that help older students retain word meanings...and have fun doing it! Ideas that work in middle and high school.
High school is a great time to read many classic books. Read about classic literature for high schoolers, good book to read, and why its important!
Let me show you the research-based Reading Interventions Program and offer you a FREE SAMPLE in EVERY LEVEL RANGE!!! Out of this World Literacy
Some days you just need a break from the monotony! Preparing for exams, transitioning to a new unit, days when half your students are gone for a basketball tour
Here is a list of 50 books for high schoolers that our high school students use each year of high school. They choose 4 books from this list.
Whether you homeschool or send your children to a traditional school, summer is a great time to encourage kids to read. Libraries have reading programs for all ages- I’ve even won a drawing in ours! And reading great books is far preferable to sitting in front of an electronic device all day.If you’re looking to
Explore practical strategies for crafting effective lesson plans that cater to both seasoned educators and beginners alike.
(Inside: Book recommendations for high schoolers. A list of compelling books that high schoolers will want to read. Help your teen find a book he/she will love. Improve your student's reading skills.) "I love that book!" one student declared to another as she passed me a slip of paper scribbled with her favorite book
Let me show you the research-based Reading Interventions Program and offer you a FREE SAMPLE in EVERY LEVEL RANGE!!! Out of this World Literacy
These Halloween inspired coding games combines STEAM storytime (one of our favorite ways to integrate read-aloud books) with a fun coding STEAM challenge.
High school and middle school students love to play games even though they may not show it, and they need guidance regarding career exploration and exploring career paths. You can incorporate fun a…
Looking for unique post-reading activities to inspire students and provide a sample of their analytical skills? Find high-interest strategies for secondary.
Italian Reading Comprehension + Writing Activity Worksheets on Guglielmo Marconi This Italian Language Teaching Resource on "Guglielmo Marconi" (Famous inventor from Italy known for the telegrapher) is a Reading Comprehension + Writing Activity Worksheet. This PDF printable resource (3 slides) can be ideal for Italian Language and Culture Learners Abroad, be it High Schoolers, Cultural Institutes/Centers' Students, Higher Education learners or any Italian Language student. This Italian Teaching Resource (Reading + Writing) can be great for intermediate-advanced learners This Italian Teaching Resource on "Guglielmo Marconi" (Famous inventor from Italy known for the telegrapher) includes: 1 Text on "Guglielmo Marconi" (Famous inventor from Italy known for the telegrapher) 1 Reading Comprehension Activity (12 questions) 1 Writing Activity with 1 Prompt (Writing about another inventor/scientist who has changed the world and comparing him/her to Guglielmo Marconi) L'Italiano è Bello: make the Italiano con Alan movement grow and reach new Italian Language Students and Teachers If you liked this resource, make sure to follow me and review this product! For Further Italian Resources, check my Store Italiano con Alan! You like this Resource but you teach English to Foreigners? Try ESL with Alan! Some Similar Resources You might also like: Måneskin Italian lesson plan with song activity + essay/conversation practice! Brand New Italian Grammar Snake and Ladders printable game with Flash cards! Italian Grammar Activity - Spot the mistake on the grafitis THE MOST BASIC ITALIAN Language Greetings/Questions Flash Cards With QR CODES! Italian Restaurant Dramatic play + True Realness with Menu and Italian Food! Easy Italian Grammar Lesson on Subjunctive + Song Activity Italian Fashion Lesson Plan! Vocabulary, Listening Comprehension + Project
Over the years, I’ve come to realize just how much I love wonder tales. And, apparently, I’m not alone. Game of Thrones, Outlander, and Bridgerton are just a few of the many famous book series turned television series that are/were wildly popular. So, when it came time to teach a unit on Beowulf to my
Interviews often require students to think on their feet. They must listen carefully and react and reply appropriately to the questions they are asked. They put their metacognitive skill to work by planning how to crack the interview. Mock interviews and recruitment training can prove to be essential tools
Great 10th grade summer reading list for high school students aged 15-16 (aka: sophomore age). Huge range of books for a high school reading list for tenth grade from social issues book list, contemporary books for high schoolers, and classic books for high school students. Free summer reading log printable to go along with the books recommended for 10th graders!
What classics are available to your middle schoolers? Here are five classic novels that will interest middle schoolers! Tips for getting started.
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!!
Strugglig to engage your reluctant readers? Check out these contemporary short stories for high school ELA.
This get to know you icebreaker activity is perfect for students of any grade or adults! It is easily customizable to fit your needs and gets people moving around the room. Personally I have used this ice breaker while facilitating PD and with middle schoolers and high schoolers. It would work well for elementary students able to read as well. The end product can be displayed to show how everyone in your group is connected. Included: directions customizable slideshow with examples (can be edited by making a copy to change the categories) printable hexagon shape to be used during the activity
Over the years, I’ve come to realize just how much I love wonder tales. And, apparently, I’m not alone. Game of Thrones, Outlander, and Bridgerton are just a few of the many famous book series turned television series that are/were wildly popular. So, when it came time to teach a unit on Beowulf to my
This research-based reading intervention program is AMAZING. Over 10,000 teachers are using The Reading Intervention Program and seeing incredible results.
If you're working on Characterization with your middle school children, this worksheet may be a big help! This graphic organizer helps students to glean information about characters and then can be used to answer questions later.
If your students are requesting some lighter literature, check out some of the funny short stories for high schoolers I've rounded up.
Teaching struggling readers at the high school level? Scaffold their comprehension by focusing on these four important reading strategies.
Working on balancing reading and writing in your ELA classroom? Here are some specific approaches that will help you tie them together.
This helpful review of Notgrass Exploring World History tells you everything you need to know about the social studies curriculum for high school.
This literature circle activity is fantastic to use with high schoolers and advanced middle school students. I was looking for a way to organize literature circles that would be both challenging and engaging, and developed this adaptation of traditional literature circles to serve as a more rigorou...
Halloween can be a major distraction for high school students and even more frustrating for teachers. For a while, I tried (unsuccessfully) to carry on with business as usual, despite the costume contests, treats, and even some tricks. It usually wasn't very successful though. Then, I realized maybe I could channel that Halloween excitement for
May may 17-21We also made a tin can big wind chime! it’s still needs to be assembled. may 3-14April 12-16!we are having a busy month of art! More final projects to come.Earth day is this Thursday the 22nd so I had my husband cut this wood for my k-2nd graders. We will be making Nature Wands!My student said this and her belief in me was so sweet I had to share. best students ever! See the video below :Happy birthday! 3-5th graders in art class made a mixed media portrait of their home teacher. Lo
Truth be told...Summer is probably my least favorite season. Mostly because I grew up in Oklahoma where the sun seemed to beat down on us and sweat immediately filled your brow when you walked outside.
FREE rewards that teachers can give their students that will not cost any money, while at the same time, promoting a fun and interactive classroom atmosphere.
Here is my-tried-and-true, comprehensive poetry unit for high schoolers. I have used this unit successfully many times with students grades 9-12. Students will: - Learn key poets, poems, genres, and poetic devices - Learn how to effectively annotate, read, and analyze all kinds of poetry - Discuss a wide variety of poetry from across the ages and around the world - Have a high degree of choice, creativity, and engagement; this is NOT a boring poetry unit! - Look at popular music and analyze it as a form of poetry - Memorize and perform a poem of 14 lines or longer - Write their own original poem and rationale, using all they have learned from the unit. - Make a "One-Pager" for their original poem that allows for creative, artistic expression This unit has EVERYTHING you need -- ALL RESOURCES, POEMS, AUTHOR BIOS, LINKS, ASSESSMENTS, RUBRICS, and STUDENT SAMPLES. You don't have to do a thing -- this baby is ready to go as is. All lesson plans are written out and broken down for you, including homework assignments. Everything is in Google Doc format so you can copy and adapt as you would like. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Can be done quickly in 2-3 weeks or stretched out over 4-5 weeks for more depth. This unit is great for advanced 8th/9th-graders, high school students, AP and IB students alike, and fulfills CCSS and other states' standards for literature study. The goal with this unit is "joyful rigor" -- deep learning, critical thinking, and creative fun. Many students say they hate poetry because the way it is taught is boring and disconnected from their lives; this unit gets students comfortable with all kinds of poetry and makes them see that it is an integral part of our history and daily lives.
Have you ever done a Google search for "poetry ideas" to teach in your high school English classroom? Let me spoil those search results for you - THEY'RE LAME! Poetry, especially at the high school level, it too important to be treated as a coloring activity, or worse,
Tired of constantly monitoring your child’s screen time? These tips help you teach your kids to self-regulate their own screen time.
