Browsing Tag
As teachers we all know that giving students the opportunity to write regularly is key to improving their writing ability and stamina. With shorter class periods and so many standards to cover, how can it be done without creating more grading on your part and still be effective? I knew it wasn’t enough for students …
I love using picture books. Anytime I can, I do. I find that they engage and excite my students instantly. As teachers, we have the students who love writing and the ones who would rather be doing anything else. This year, my class is filled with students who despise writing. I am constantly trying to …
Are you looking for some fun Halloween writing activities to add to your unit this October? Maybe you’re in the middle of a narrative unit that could use a few skill-building tasks that incorporates the spooky season or maybe you run a creative writing elective (lucky!) that could use some fun this season. No matter …
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!
Writing as a response to reading benefits students in several ways. It allows them to reflect on the ideas presented in text, become familiar with patterns in language, and share opinions about what they’ve read. When I first introduced reading response journals, it was out of a need to replace the traditional reading log and …
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 …
Summaries are something every teacher does year after year to introduce and then to reinforce the skill. After all, it is a backbone writing skill that applies to all subjects, not just ELA. But summary writing is difficult for students… and teachers too! My way around these difficulties is to use a mixture of activities …
Do your students dread having to write? Do you struggle to get your students to write complete responses? I have a solution for you that has changed the way my students respond to text dependent questions: RACES. What is RACES? RACES is an acronym that gives students a step by step formula on how …
“That was so much fun; I didn’t even realize we were learning!” When I hear a student say this, it makes my teacher heart so happy. Reading and writing instruction is a critical part of education. We want our students to be engaged and invested. When they are excited about a topic or lesson, …
When I started teaching, I knew I had to include vocabulary into my curriculum. Overwhelmed with all of the typical new teacher stress, I adopted the ancient practice of: vocabulary lesson on Monday, Kahoot! Review on Thursday, and vocabulary quiz on Friday. I even created a summative vocabulary test for students to take at the …
