I don’t know about you, but I think teachers deserve a whole lot of praise for all they do in a day! One of my favorite ways to end the school year is to bring some laughter to the final staff meeting by sharing some hilarious and incredibly accurate teacher and staff awards. Teacher awards […]

It’s been my experience that students start to check out far before the final bell rings. I remember having a student ask me one year, “I thought we were just going to be watching movies this week.” as I started a regular lesson on the Monday of the last week of school. With the end […]

Have you tried using literature circles in your ELA classroom? In literature circles, small groups of students gather together to discuss a piece of literature in depth. These are an excellent way to guide students to a deeper engagement with what they are reading through assignments and structured discussion. If you’ve tried literature circles (or […]

April is poetry month, and before what T.S. Eliot calls “the cruelest month” is over, I want to share an alternative way to getting your students excited about poetry. In my experience, students can tend to put their walls up when we reach the poetry unit. I think a lot of this reluctance comes from […]

Formula poems (such as haikus, acrostics, limericks, antonym diamantes, etc.) adhere to a set of formal guidelines. Although these types of poems can seem restrictive to creativity, their limitations can actually tend to have the opposite effect! This is especially true for students who are just starting out with poetry and might be overwhelmed with […]

Have you ever found it difficult to get all of your students to buy into your poetry unit? I know I’ve felt that way before. I think some of this reluctance comes from the perception of poetry being an outdated form of creative expression. This is not true, of course. Poetry is written, read, and […]

St. Patrick’s Day is just around the corner, and there are more ways to celebrate than by just wearing green and shamrocks! For English Language Arts teachers, St Patrick’s Day presents the perfect opportunity for building classroom community while developing students’ ELA skills at the same time. Here are 4 holiday activities you can use […]