One of the most effective ways a teacher can help students build a stronger vocabulary for their writing is through regular vocabulary-building exercises and activities. These can include assigning weekly vocabulary lists for students to learn and use in their writing assignments, as well as encouraging them to read widely to encounter new words in …
This semester I decided to change my approach to teaching poetry from covering a stand-alone poetry unit, to sprinkling poetic activities throughout the course. For example, creating a blackout poem using pages from a short story or novel study, or pairing a text with a poem of similar theme or devices. Another way I included …
Incorporating a warm-up or “bellringer” activity into your class time can have many benefits. This is an opportunity to hit on skills that might otherwise not make it into your regular lessons, or skills that are important to your “unwritten curriculum” like lessons on life skills and social emotional learning. Another benefit to bellringers is …
Why Include Social Emotional Learning in ELA? Creating a classroom community is essential at the beginning of a new school year as it fosters a positive learning environment where students feel comfortable and safe to express themselves and learn from each other, which can positively impact students’ social and emotional well-being. Social emotional learning (SEL) …
Poetry can often be a polarizing topic to teach with half your students grinning from ear to ear, ready to show off their lyrical prowess, and the other half staring down in dread. I recently finished up poetry units with my tenth and twelfth graders and there were a few warm-up activities I tried that …
Before you begin any new kind of writing, what do you do? Most likely, you head straight to Google and search for other examples of this writing style to help you along. So when it comes to our students learning new writing styles, it makes sense that they would need plenty of opportunities to study …
Over the years, my students have had some of the most imaginative and original creative writing ideas, but they often have difficulty finding the right words to express these ideas in a way that allows the reader to fully immerse themselves in their literary worlds. Incorporating activities for students to practice infusing imagery into their …
What are digital portfolios? Student writing portfolios are not new in the world of education, but digital options have made portfolios increasingly more engaging and dynamic in the last decade or so. Portfolios are essentially a collection of student work in various forms to demonstrate learning over time and to allow students to reflect on …
Have you incorporated growth mindset activities in your classroom? Research has shown that teaching students to have a growth mindset contributes to their beliefs about intelligence and correlates to higher academic performance. What is Growth Mindset? In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are fixed traits. They believe …
Teaching vocabulary is an important part in helping our students understand and appreciate the literature they are reading, but the methods of incorporating vocab study into our lessons haven’t always been the most engaging. When I realized I could ditch the paper and pencil worksheets in favor of a more energized approach, my vocabulary lessons …
