This blog post will introduce you to six simple, fun, and enriching project-based learning ideas for your English Language Arts classroom.

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.

There are so many excellent movies for kids that teachers can and should show in class. Here are 6 Reasons to Show Movies in Class (without feeling guilty)

This blog post will introduce you to six simple, fun, and enriching project-based learning ideas for your English Language Arts classroom.

With a new school year upon us, here is a look at 10 must-use secondary ELA teaching units, lessons, and activities for your classroom. These units are

Have you been wanting to try stations in your Secondary ELA classroom but aren't sure where to start? Read through this quick post where we share 8 station ideas and how to use them with your ELA students.

Are you looking for a stress-free first week of ELA activities for high school classroom? Look no further! Keep reading for ideas, tips, and lesson plans for the first week (and beyond)! #backtoschoolactivities #elateacher #highschoolela

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

Are you looking for a stress-free first week of ELA activities for high school classroom? Look no further! Keep reading for ideas, tips, and lesson plans for the first week (and beyond)! #backtoschoolactivities #elateacher #highschoolela

Great Ideas And Tips For Teaching Poetry. Poetry reveals many aspects of life that they may not get to experience or witness first hand. Poetry may speak some ‘truth’ about how others live and that helps build empathy with our students. Read on for 6 ways you can set your students interest ablaze for poetry! Grades 4-12 | Middle School ELA | High School English

Engaging grammar games for the middle or high school ELA classroom. Get students to review important concepts meaningfully.

This blog post will introduce you to six simple, fun, and enriching project-based learning ideas for your English Language Arts classroom.

Here are six essential back to school lessons I’ll be using in my classroom this back-to-school season.

Looking for unique post-reading activities to inspire students and provide a sample of their analytical skills? Find high-interest strategies for secondary.

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, […]

Are you looking for ways to make learning more meaningful in your Secondary ELA Classroom? Check out these twenty five creative project ideas that I have found to be meaningful and successful while also motivating for learners.

This blog post will introduce you to six simple, fun, and enriching project-based learning ideas for your English Language Arts classroom.

At the end of each novel I teach, I like to have my students participate in some sort of culminating literary analysis project that allows me to assess their

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.

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,

Looking for high school rewards or middle school rewards to motivate students? Tired of finding reward ideas that are more applicable to elementary kids than your 8th, 9th, or 10th graders? No need to look any further. As a language teacher, I'm always searching for high school incentives to get my trickier classes to speak

If your students are requesting some lighter literature, check out some of the funny short stories for high schoolers I've rounded up.

For many high school students, the first day of school is - all too often - a monotonous time loop. They move from room to room, listen to numerous teacher introductions, collect a pile of course curricula, hear rules and expectations, and have to answer that predictable how-was-your-summer question (again, and again, and again). Not a great way to generate enthusiasm and excitement for the year. So here are five more engaging ways to start the year right in the high school ELA classroom; they work for all grades from 8-12. If you really have to hand out course descriptions or go over rules and expectations, why not leave it for a couple of days into the course? IDEA ONE: Guided Creative Writing One of my all-time favourite first-lessons: jump right in and get students writing, writing, writing! By the end of class, students will have a whole page of writing generated, which works to eliminate the pre-writing anxiety, provide you with a sample of their written proficiency, and set the tone for creativity and productivity in your room! Instructions: 1. Arrange the room so that students are sitting individually. As students enter, hand them each a blank piece of paper, and tell them that there should be nothing else on their desks except a pen or pencil. 2. Jump straight into the exercise without any introduction. Simply instruct students to divide the page into 6 squares. 3. Tell students to pick an object (any one!) and write it in the top left corner of the first square (write small). Allow about 20 seconds for this. 4. Now, work through the rest of the squares the same way, with the following guided prompts: in the second square, write an action (a verb); in the third, write an adjective; the fourth, an onomatopoeic word (sound); the fifth, an animal; the sixth, a number. 5. Next, instruct students to turn their attention to box one, and use that word in a sentence: write it small at the top of the box (allow about a minute for this). 6. Now instruct students to move on to box two, to use that word in a sentence; even if they were mid-sentence in box one, it doesn’t matter, they must move on. Again give them a minute for this. 7. Repeat with all six boxes. 8. Now, guide students through each box again, telling them to carry on where they left off, writing as much as they possibly can. This time, give about 3 minutes a box. Break here as students’ hands may be cramping! 9. Now, hand out lined paper and explain to students that they have to take those boxes and weave them all into one coherent story! *For differentiation, you may want to give the option of only picking 3 or 4 boxes. 10. Students may be shocked or exclaim that they can’t! Take the opportunity to emphasise a growth mindset, to encourage them that it doesn’t matter; it is not graded; it is just for fun, and that you expect their story to be completely bizarre! 11. In the last 10 minutes of class, allow time for editing, or for perhaps reading stories out loud! For more ways to get to know your English classes, check out this blog by Secondary Sara. IDEA TWO: Behaviors and Expectations for Learning Student buy-in is key at the high-school level. They should be developing their own voices, and we should be encouraging them to use them! Therefore, flip the script and have them make their own goals for learning, and define their own expectations for the learning environment. After all, it is their education; encourage students to take ownership of it. Download these free printable cards for students to write their own mission statements and goals for the year, or use the following lesson: Instructions: 1. Print out a set of these posters, and place them around the room: stuck on whiteboards or chart paper. 2. Instruct students to walk around and write examples around the posters, or on sticky-notes attached to the posters. 3. Then when they are done, put students into four focus groups: one per poster. 4. These groups have to read all the contributions and then come up with 2 or 3 of the most common points or ideas (or combine different ones into these points). 5. Then review and discuss. Take down the 2 or 3 main points from each group and write these up in a list of positive "Class Norms" on the wall. 6. Throughout the year, keep coming back to these to make sure all students are adhering to the expectations they agreed on. IDEA THREE: Literature Close Annotation As an English teacher, one of my key goals is to have students fall in love with words! I want them to engage with language around them in a meaningful way: whether that is the metaphors used in sports commentary, the subtle rhetorical techniques in political speeches, or the poetry increasingly popular on Instagram. Therefore, I often start the year (or course) by having students spend a whole lesson reading a range of extracts: annotating, finding connections, and making observations. Instructions: Before Class 1. Lay out the desks of the classroom in groups of 4 or 5. 2. Collect and print sets of random pieces of text: poems, speeches, fiction, etc. You could print this set, or curate your own (one set per group). 3. Place these sets in the center of each group, along with colored markers/pens. During Class 1. When students enter, assign them to a group, and tell them to keep their desks free from distraction: all they need is pens! 2. Now, instruct students to turn to the pile of extracts on their desk; they are to spend time passing them around, reading, and annotating. 3. Instruct students that they should annotate for content (questions they have, thoughts, links to other texts, etc.), for structure (line structure, punctuation, repetition, etc.), and language (figurative techniques, word choice, etc.) - You might want to write these prompts on the board. 4. Allow plenty of time for students to share the extracts around, each annotating multiple ones. 5. Now instruct students to discuss the extracts at their tables: Which did they like? Why? Can they make connections between any of them? Which were the most different? Which did they not like? Why not? Any notably interesting phrasing or word choice? 6. Project a few on the board, and annotate with the class: discuss and demonstrate things to look for; talk about why you like them; what’s beautiful about them; what’s clever or interesting. Get these LEARNING GOAL cards HERE I hope your school year gets off to a great start; definitely check out our best Teacher Hacks for Back-To-School, and if you are looking for more ideas, make sure you read our list of nine of the Best Resources for Back to School. If you are still hungry for inspiration, you may be interested in these resources: If your Summer Vacation Were a Movie by Stacey Lloyd Beginning of Year Growth Mindset Activities by The Daring English Teacher Class Rules Posters: Famous Quotes by Presto Plans Writing for the First Days and Year Round by The Classroom Sparrow Back to School Getting to Know You Activity by Room 213 Back to School FREEBIE by The SuperHERO Teacher Back to School Survey by Addie Williams Back to School Project: Peer Interview Speech by Nouvelle ELA Back to School Collage Mobile: Get to Know You Activity by Tracee Orman Back to School Paper Chain: 30-Day Bell-Ringer or Discussion Prompts by Secondary Sara

With distance learning in full swing, here’s a closer look at ten resources that English teachers can digitally assign their students. All of my SMARTePlans

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

In the first month of school, teachers are usually focused on classroom setup, establishing procedures, launching routines, and digging into the first unit. Although we DO want students to be organized and to feel safe as individuals, we also need them to open up and collaborate as part of a bigger classroom community. Read on for 9 ideas about how to create bonding, shared experiences, and interactions that foster community-building. (By the way, you can check out a similar blog post of ours about community-building here.) The SuperHERO Teacher Teaching kindness and collaboration amongst students is such an important part of a positive classroom community! I love using interactive bulletin boards to encourage students to motivate each other. Recently, I created this nature-themed bulletin board using Polaroid frames with inspiring quotes, twine, and clothes pins. Basically, if students need a bit of motivation, they can take a quote from the board, but they must replace it with a new quote! At the end of the year, students will be exchanging quotes from each other-- making a strong classroom relationship! Here's the link. Addie Williams I work hard to create a collaborative and welcoming classroom community and one way I do this is through writing about kindness. I share a kindness quote with my students as a writing prompt and have them work on it individually before sharing their ideas with a partner and then with a larger group. I ask them to look for similarities in their responses. Demonstrating to my students that I value kindness and community early on in the year will hopefully create a sense of caring throughout the year. Use these free Kindness Quotes to get started! Secondary Sara One of the hurdles to community-building is when students aren't willing to be vulnerable, they try to be perfect, or they compete instead of connect. As much as strengths and growth mindset are important, we teachers also need to help students identify and tackle their weaknesses in an honest way. I like doing this in a humorous way by "curing" student diseases. I joke about students who have "Procrastinitis", and when students own that problem, it becomes a springboard for other areas of concern as well (like upset binders, high test pressure, and silence infections). Get the poster set AND activities to accompany them here. Danielle Hall One of the ways students build our classroom community is by working together to solve problems or puzzles. I use team trivia to start out our class at the beginning of the year, getting students used to collaborating and thinking critically. They develop a healthy sense of teamwork and competition. Here's a free week to get you started. The Classroom Sparrow A simple way to create a positive classroom community is to display work from students around a classroom. It doesn't necessarily have to be an assignment, even a collaborative discussion full of insight from everyone in a class adds positivity and shows that everyone's opinion/view is valued! If you're lacking in work to display, simply begin a class with a simple prompt, motivational quote, or question! Here is a collaborative poem I had students create to begin a poetry unit. Everyone took 10-15 mins to cut out 30-40 words, then I paired students and peers to create a beautiful and colourful example of poetry, which remained on my bulletin boards for the length of the unit! The Daring English Teacher I teach at a very diverse school, and there are 23 different home languages represented in our student body. Bringing together such a diverse group can sometimes be challenging, so I created Classroom Community Bell Ringers to help us all find a common ground. These bell ringers include quotes about love, acceptance, diversity, and tolerance and a brief writing prompt. My students take the first five minutes in class to read the quote and quickly respond to the prompt. Then we share our responses aloud. This exercise has helped forge new connections amongst students who once thought there was no common ground. Stacey Lloyd At the beginning of the year we always spend time thinking about positive and negative behaviors in the classroom: social, emotional and academic. Students come up with their suggestions by walking around the room and anonymously adding their thoughts to various prompts. I then compile these into a list and have students all sign their names on the document - which stays on the wall all year. Any time I find a student acting out or being unkind or unhelpful, I point to their signature and hold them to account. Room 213 We spend a great deal of time during the first few weeks building our classroom climate. I want kids to feel free to discuss their views and to know that it's okay to disagree with someone, as long as they do so respectfully. We develop a class code of conduct, and I put up posters to remind them to be empathetic, kind and understanding of differences. They are a good visual reminder of the things we discussed and the exercises we do during the first few days of school. You can grab them for free here. Presto Plans Building a positive classroom community is an intentional process. One way to do this is by having students complete short challenges that encourage kindness, collaboration, teamwork, expression, and the sharing of ideas and opinions. Start your year or semester by presenting short classroom challenges that can be used as bell-ringers, a class close-up activity, or a fun way to start or end the week. I suggest you set up a bulletin board that allows you to build suspense and reveal one challenge at a time. Make the challenges fun, collaborative, and stress-free. For example, you might consider getting students to write a thank-you card for someone, write a funny top 10 list, play a game of 20 questions, or interview a classmate. We hope you enjoy these ideas! Tell us what you think, or tell us more ideas in the comments!

Caught the flu from a family member? Don't sweat it (pun intended) - you've got more options for prepping your substitute teacher than you think. Although I'm not a substitute teacher myself, I teach in a building that has a REALLY hard time getting enough substitute teachers, so I've *somewhat* been in that role by filling in for other teachers, both planned in advance or at the last minute. If you're in a middle or high school setting, you've probably noticed that the primary world seems to have cutesy solutions all over Pinterest for substitute teachers, and our sphere is more silent on this topic. News Flash: You don't need a cute "sub tub", or even a perfect printed pile of lessons on your desk when the other teacher walks in the door. But there are a few things that ARE essential before you're gone for any length of time. So here's a starter list of ideas to get you started! Do this first (before you get sick)... 1. Make your sub binder or folder. Pick a bright binder or folder and keep it in an obvious place - on top of, or near your desk - so that a sub could find it easily, even if it's not laid out front and center for him or her. Make sure your sub folder includes: A detailed, annotated version of your daily schedule - including any notes about where to go or what to expect! Copies of all your class lists/rosters, and/or any attendance forms you want to be used. Don't be afraid to annotate this list with any special notes about students, including allergies or behavioral FYI's. (Note: if your attendance is electronic, include directions for how to deal with that!) Copies of seating charts, if you use them. Emergency paperwork, such as directions of what to do if there's a fire drill or other alarm. Don't assume your sub is familiar with classroom or building norms! Technology instructions, whether that's how-to details about how to use your projector or rules about the technology that STUDENTS are allowed to use. 2. Appoint one student helper per class period. Pick a responsible student in every class period who you can trust to follow your rules, and ask him or her to be the sub's appointed helper. This student could be trusted to pass out or collect papers, be a "runner" to the office, or perhaps verify if a classroom rule is true or not. Once you have that set up, be sure to write the names of your student helpers in the sub binder somewhere (perhaps with each class period list/roster). 3. Post your classroom rules (either in general, or for Sub Days) Laminate and post a paper on the wall/board that has student rules or reminders on it. Doing so can give the sub something to fall back on, and cue the students to be on decent behavior... Are there rules that you want to make sure are followed? Will students be rewarded upon your return if you get a good report? Will today's activity be worth double the points? Options for Sub Lessons This is the more controversial part of my post because teachers have very strong and varied opinions about the "best" way to spend such a day of lessons. But here's my no-judgment list of ideas anyway. 1. Have a preprinted, stand-alone lesson in your binder. A popular option among many teachers is providing a single, easy-to-teach and easy-to-complete lesson or activity that is mutually beneficial for the sub and students. Here are a few of my own sub-friendly lessons that would NOT require technology: Theme mini-lesson: apply to any novel or short story! Greek & Latin Roots Activities, to inject a little vocab into the day Poetry Mad Libs, to read and imitate classic American or British lit poems! Here are a few that would require some tech, such as a projector: Public Speaking, according to TED: play videos and complete guided notes! Word Crimes: Activities to go with the music video ...Enter the Controversy... The suggestion I gave above is fine. It's what a lot of people do... BUT, you don't HAVE to leave behind a printed lesson, and you don't have to stay up late writing a quiz for the sub to pass out. (Gasp.) There are easier options, if you're willing (and allowed) to use them! 2. Give students a reading day. If you have an independent reading program already in place, OR if you are in the middle of a literature unit, why not just give students a reading day? They'd probably appreciate the "bonus" time to get caught up (or ahead) in their current books! 3. Give students a work day/ study hall. If they already have a project or assignment in motion, why not just give them a writing day and/or study hall? Most secondary students have enough homework on their plates that they'd use a study hall fairly efficiently (not to mention that they'd appreciate the "break"!) 4. Give a writing prompt and/or timed writing. In your sub binder, leave a writing prompt that the sub can write on the board, along with any directions you wish to give students. It can be a timed, in-class activity that they must finish and turn in within the class period, OR one that they start in class and finish (or proofread) for homework. Gone for more than one day? When I'm going to be gone for a longer period of time, I'm thinking a lot about what I can comfortably ask another teacher to do... that is still good use of student time... that won't make me feel guilty for what I'm asking of the teacher. Here are just a few multi-day or multi-week lessons that are self-explanatory enough in someone else's hands! Choice Writing Menus: Seasonal prompts that let students write in multiple genres on relevant topics... very self-explanatory and conducive to in-class writing time Five Paragraph Essay Unit: Easy-to-follow single lessons that could culminate in an essay Short Story Unit that puts some of the teacher role on students, instead of the sub! Two Truths and a Lie: Creative writing with a twist 15 Minutes of Fame, my best-selling public speaking project for a reason! Just read the teacher/buyer comments to see why it might work well in your absence. Why Grammar? Unit, if you want to weave in some nonfiction reading and writing Have other ideas for substitute teachers? I'd love to hear them in the comments!

Channel students' energy by incorporating opportunities for movement into your lessons. In this #2ndaryELA Twitter chat, middle and high school English Language Arts teachers discussed active learning, including movement in the classroom and layouts that accommodate it, games, hands-on activities, and technology that helps to engage students. Read through the chat for ideas to implement in your own classroom.

I read once that Albert Einstein remarked it is a miracle curiosity survives formal education. This observation has stuck with me: a pesky stone in my shoe. Somehow, amongst all the curricular demands, standardised testing, graduation requirements, examination preparation, and everything else which pulls at me, I desperately want to instill a sense of wonder, curiosity, and excitement in my students. I desire for them to love learning, to ask questions, to be curious about what they see, read, and hear. And one of the best – and simplest – ways I have found to do this, is the use of lesson openers which excite and engage. Inspired by the concept of provocations in the Reggio Emilia Approach1, I open learning experiences in an open-ended way which provokes student exploration, discussion, creativity, and ideas. This way, when we move into the content of the lesson, students are already engaged; their curiosity is hopefully piqued, and they’re more receptive to learning. Below are five simple ways I open classes in order to provoke engagement, discussion, and curiosity. Click here to get a downloadable version to stick in your daily planner, or on your desk as a reminder when lesson planning! INSTRUCTIONS: Place an object (which links to the lesson content) in the center of the room. For added intrigue and curiosity, place it under a cloth to ‘reveal’ when students are settled. Then use the exploration of this object to springboard into the lesson of the day: through a discussion, writing exercise, word association game, etc. For example: for a writing class about using varied sentence types, the object could be a bowl of sweets, and students write about the experience of eating one for the very first time. Or, it’s an informational text lesson, using a newspaper article on how social media impacts beauty standards, the object might be a pile of make-up, and students discuss their personal associations with these products. [Nouvelle ELA has a similar lesson for analyzing symbols: get it here] IDEAS FOR GOING FURTHER: Wait a while before you explain the presence of the mystery object: perhaps even have students spend time thinking about it and making predictions for why it is there (you may want to give them one or two clues). Equally, if appropriate, have the desks arranged in groups and place different objects on different desks. For example: in an introductory lesson for a unit on ‘Identity’ place different pieces of fruit around the room, and have students move to the one that most represents them, and then encourage them to explain their choice. WHY IT IS EFFECTIVE: Any time you add a little mystery or present something unexpected in the classroom, it will pique students’ curiosity. When they are intrigued and curious, they’re primed to engage and learn. Indeed, the emotion of curiosity has long been recognized as a vital motivating factor driving learning2. INSTRUCTIONS: Write a provocative statement on the board which links to the lesson content. (e.g. If you’re studying Romeo and Juliet: It is possible to fall in love the first time you meet someone. Or reading Maya Angelou’s ‘Still I Rise’? What about: Your dignity is always within your own control.) Then place tape, or indicate an imaginary line, across the room, with one end as “Completely Agree” and the other as “Completely Disagree.” Give students a minute to consider the statement and then have them stand on the line to indicate their opinions. [You might also want to check out the Daring English Teacher's blog post on Introducing Complex Ideas to Students] IDEAS FOR GOING FURTHER: Once students have taken their places, ask a couple of students on opposite ends to speak to each other: to debate and defend their positions. Or, have students turn to the person next to them and discuss, seeing if they really are in the right places, or if they should switch (if they feel stronger than their neighbor on the line). Finally, at the end of the lesson, why not do the activity again and see if any of them have changed their positions? WHY IT IS EFFECTIVE: This not only gets students thinking critically about key themes and issues, but it is also an effective way to make their thinking visible, and to push them to take a stand. Moreover, requiring students to give reasons for why they picked where they did, helps them back up their opinions with evidence and reason. INSTRUCTIONS: Think about the content of the lesson, and then try to mimic something of the mood/setting/theme in the classroom environment. While pinterest-worthy classroom transformations are wonderful, that’s not what I am talking about here. You can set the mood in quick and easy ways, which will engage students’ senses when they walk in the door. For example: when studying Lord of the Flies, visually project a jungle screensaver on the board, with ambient sounds. This doesn’t have to be just for literature lessons: if you’re spending the lesson writing, have students enter with ambient coffee shop sounds, or stormy weather (great for writing horror stories!). Check out the website A Soft Murmur for this: go play around with their sound settings. IDEAS FOR GOING FURTHER: If possible, engage more senses: play with lighting, images, smells, touch, etc. Or – to really engage students’ imaginations – before playing the ambient noises, have them settle down, and close their eyes. Then give them a scenario to imagine as you slowly turn up the volume on the ambient sounds. For example: in a lesson on Emily Dickenson’s “The Railway Train,” start by playing the sound of a train and ask students to imagine this sound as an animal: what would it be and why? WHY IT IS EFFECTIVE: Engaging the senses is a powerful learning tool: when we create a multisensory experience in the classroom, not only does it pique students’ curiosity, but it can also make the learning more memorable. Indeed, when engaging multiple senses, we optimise the learning mechanisms in the brain, and tap into the many different ways different students learn best3. INSTRUCTIONS: It is as simple as this: play a current song or music video, show an extract from a current TV series, use a trailer for a recent movie: anything which links the content of the day’s lesson with students’ interests and lives outside of class. For example: before we studied The Great Gatsby (click for resources), I played Lorde’s Royals and asked students what the song meant to them. Before telling students anything about Lord of the Flies, we watched the trailer for The 100 and discussed what such a situation would be like. IDEAS FOR GOING FURTHER: Have students suggest the media you present: at the end of a previous class, explain the broad content of the next class (themes, main topic, etc.) and ask students to suggest appropriate songs, video clips, games, etc., which would make for engaging lesson openers. This way, they too are making connections to their learning, and you are making sure the references are highly relevant! WHY IT IS EFFECTIVE: When we incorporate students’ personal interests and entertainments in the classroom environment, their learning becomes more relevant, engaging, and multi-dimensional. The key here though is making sure it is really something which students’ are currently interested in: not just what we might assume they will be interested in! And the best way to ensure this, is to really spend time building relationships with students, finding out their interests, and knowing what’s currently popular. INSTRUCTIONS: Before class, think about the key theme, topic, or skill which you aim to explore or develop. Then, think of 3-5 key words related to this; write these on the board, or around the room. When students enter, draw their attention to these words, and instruct them to work in pairs to construct a question using the words. For example, before a lesson on Fahrenheit 451 (click for resources), you might use “knowledge” “future” “technology” and “books.” A possible question students might generate: In the future, will books become useless, as we use technology to access knowledge? And this doesn’t have to be limited to lessons on literature: in a lesson about essay writing, words such as “style” “structure” “opinion” and “voice” might generate some engaging questions. IDEAS FOR GOING FURTHER: Once students have formed a question, provide the means for discussing or answering the question: this might be through small-group discussions, through accessing online sources, or through analysis of a text. The key here is you need to be flexible and open to going where students’ questions take the lesson. Why not even ask them how the class should proceed in terms of answering their questions? WHY IT IS EFFECTIVE: Too often, by the time they reach middle/high school, curious questioning has been replaced by incessant answering: students become adept at answering questions, but often lack opportunities to inquire and question. Developing this ability to ask questions will help with developing critical thinking skills, and engaging discussion proficiency. Moreover, students will be hooked from the start of class, and invested in finding out the answers to their questions. So that's it: if you have ANY questions, please feel free to reach out: come find me on Instagram, or email me at [email protected]. Looking for other high-interest, provoking lessons to excite and engage? Check these out: Active Learning Exercises for Reading & Writing by Room 213 READING Escape Room (Activities, Trivia & Puzzle Games for High School ELA) by The Classroom Sparrow MAKER CHALLENGE - Team Building Activity by Presto Plans RESOURCES: 1Strong-Wilson, T., & Ellis, J. (2007). Children and place: Reggio Emilia's environment as third teacher. Theory into practice, 46(1), 40-47. 2Markey, A., & Loewenstein, G. (2014). Curiosity. In International handbook of emotions in education (pp. 238-255). Routledge. 3Shams, L., & Seitz, A. (2008). Benefits of multisensory learning. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12(11), 411–417.

Hey there, fellow English teacher! I want to share what my secondary English curriculum for the first six weeks of school looks like.

Looking for a way to get students to have fun learning new words AND remember them longer? Try these brain-based vocabulary activities.

Use Mentor Sentences in your ELA middle school classroom to improve student writing! Find practical ideas to teach writing skills.

Don't let your literature anthology dictate the short stories you read with your middle school and high school students. There are so many wonderful short stories out there, many of which can be used to teach a variety of literary elements and paired with other texts. Read on for 13 of my favorites, which literary terms and skills they lend themselves to teaching, plus suggested text pairings and activities.

Looking for high school rewards or middle school rewards to motivate students? Tired of finding reward ideas that are more applicable to elementary kids than your 8th, 9th, or 10th graders? No need to look any further. As a language teacher, I'm always searching for high school incentives to get my trickier classes to speak

This blog post will introduce you to six simple, fun, and enriching project-based learning ideas for your English Language Arts classroom.

As students head back to school, ELA teachers everywhere are considering how they are going to begin the school year, so I wanted to walk you through one of my favorite lesson plans entitled, “Why do we read?” As an educator, there are few things as exciting and rewarding as introducing a young person to […]

Using learning stations is a fantastic way to increase engagement in the English Language Arts classroom. Learn more in this blog post.

This post explains how teachers can use an academic version of the highly engaging Spoons game to review concepts. Free games included!

Are you noticing some gaps in your curriculum? Are you looking for some new, creative ideas for how to fill these holes in your ELA curriculum? This post gives you 10 creative ideas for how to fill holes in your secondary ELA curriculum.

Looking for high school rewards or middle school rewards to motivate students? Tired of finding reward ideas that are more applicable to elementary kids than your 8th, 9th, or 10th graders? No need to look any further. As a language teacher, I'm always searching for high school incentives to get my trickier classes to speak

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.