Browsing Tag
Icebreakers and community building activities can be fun… so fun, in fact, that it can be easy to get carried away. If you’re like me, there’s been more than a few years you’ve made it to week 3 only to realize your way behind on your pacing guide. One of my favorite ways to build …
I think we can all agree that poetry can be intimidating for students AND teachers! But I think that might be because we keep it hidden away. Students don’t see or read or study poetry often so it just isn’t familiar and therefore can’t be comfortable. So the question is how do we add poetry into …
Back to school season is upon us. With that comes juggling new routines, figuring out where everyone is and most importantly getting to know the students in front of us. To me, getting to know my students is the most important part of going back to school. I prioritize it over everything else. I strongly …
Vocabulary is one of the biggest struggles my students face in my room. They often just skip over unknown or difficult words because it is easier than trying to figure out the meaning. I strongly believe that using context clues is one of the biggest and most important lessons we teach our students. We need …
Summer reading is required for many high school students and your school may ask that you recommend novels for your students to read this year. Samantha from Samantha in Secondary is bringing you a list that will help you update your arsenal. Instead of recommending novels that have been done time and time again, refresh …
This week Samantha K is sharing how she tackles vocabulary in the upper-grade levels. It’s nothing fancy, but it is an idea to add to your toolbox. She works to balance the fun element of learning with the long-term skill focus with older students. When it comes to vocabulary, Samantha looks at the goals for …
This year for Teacher Appreciation week, we here at ELA Matters want to THANK YOU for your commitment to your students. We are gifting to you several ideas and freebies throughout this post to help you finish the year strong!
Test Prep can be dry – why not make it a game with board game creation?
We’ve all had this experience: You hand your students a copy of the text and invite them to “annotate the text.” You’re expecting to see margins filled with student writing – making their thinking visible to both you and them. Instead, you see clean crisp margins. Not a written comment in sight. If you’re lucky, …
Happy March ELA Matters! March 1st means that March Madness is around the corner on the court as well as in my classroom. Our current focus on ELA Matters is to share ideas around writing skills. So this week, I am sharing how I engage students in reading poetry and practicing their analysis and writing …
