Common Core

Student Writing Competitions for 2024 in Grades 6-12

Student Writing Competitions for 2024 in Grades 6-12

Calling all budding authors, poets, and storytellers in your classes. Writing competitions are a great way to motivate students to write. They give students a real world context for writing and also give students the chance to earn prizes.

Heroes and the Hero’s Journey: Lessons and Activities for Your Next Heroism Unit

Heroes and the Hero’s Journey:  Lessons and Activities for Your Next Heroism Unit

What is the definition of a hero?

This is the quintessential question that arises when teaching any unit that involves heroism— whether it’s a unit on epic heroes or a unit on everyday heroes.

The Power of Teaching Star-Crossed Love Stories

The Power of Teaching Star-Crossed Love Stories

Star-crossed love stories are a popular trope in literature and film. They often feature two people who are deeply in love, but their love is doomed by fate or circumstance. This can be due to their social status, their families, or even the stars themselves.

Close Reading Strategies for Success

Close Reading Strategies for Success

Close reading is a key component of any successful literacy program. It’s the practice of breaking down texts and analyzing them in order to better understand the author’s meaning and purpose.

5 Must-Read Gothic Short Stories for High School Students

5 Must-Read Gothic Short Stories for High School Students

As students read each Gothic text, they can begin to build a list of identifying traits and then create their own definitions of the Gothic genre. I like to have students create a definition essay as a culminating assignment for the unit; alternatively, students can construct a presentation and/or write their own original short stories using the traits they’ve observed from texts in the unit.

Here are five must-read Gothic short stories for high school students.

PowerPoint Party: A Fun Persuasion Game

PowerPoint Party:  A Fun Persuasion Game

In their pure sense, PowerPoint Parties started becoming popular due to COVID, and friends/ family members would get together (albeit virtually) to present a PowerPoint on a topic of interest. This eventually morphed into a fun game for high school and college-age students (is it ok for me to add “drinking game” in here?). Currently, PowerPoint Parties have become popular on TikTok, which provided the inspiration for this post. Head over to TikTok and search for “PowerPoint Parties” to find ideas… be forewarned that some of these ideas will not be “school appropriate” but still humorous.

The "Leads to" Thematic Claim Concept

The "Leads to" Thematic Claim Concept

The thesis statement is undoubtedly the MOST important sentence of the entire essay! It serves as the blueprint, or road map, for the essay, so it is crucial that the thesis statement is clear and logical before beginning the body of the essay. The caveat here, of course, is that a thesis statement can and often does change throughout the writing process, but in general, it is always helpful to begin with a solid argument.

Three Necessary Lessons for the Beginning of the Year in ELA

Three Necessary Lessons for the Beginning of the Year in ELA

The beginning of the school year is a time to reintroduce students to routine, classroom procedures, and the habits of homework and studying…. but I don’t need to tell you that! For us as English teachers, the beginning of the school year means reviewing and reteaching skills that our students will SWEAR they were NOT taught “last year.” We know the joke; we know that isn’t true!

Using an Exit Ticket Journal to Check Understanding

Using an Exit Ticket Journal to Check Understanding

Exit tickets are not a new concept, but making them work for you can be time consuming and feel like a chore. Instead of a helpful tool to wrap up a class, they can be a hindrance of extra grading time. So, how can we make exit tickets work in an effective way that won’t take up more of our time than needed but will also give us valuable feedback to guide instruction?

Texts to Diversify Your Secondary Curriculum

Texts to Diversify Your Secondary Curriculum

Now, more than ever, it is crucial that we as secondary English teachers work consciously to diversify the cannon. “Imagine a world in which all children can see themselves in the pages of a book.” This is the mission of the organization We Need Diverse Books. We Need Diverse Books has been working towards this goal for a long time, and they provide amazing resources to help teachers do just that.

The Junk Journal Novel Project for Secondary ELA

The Junk Journal Novel Project for Secondary ELA

While junk journals can vary from person to person, they generally share one primary characteristic: the journal is made with mostly a mix of found and recycled materials.

5 Ways to Use Jamboard in Secondary ELA

5 Ways to Use Jamboard in Secondary ELA

Jamboard through Google has become a cornerstone tool in my virtual ELA classes because one of my go-to strategies when we had students in class was to use sticky notes on the board. You can read more about the Board but NOT BORING: My Go-to Collaborative Activity for Secondary ELA strategy here.

3 Thanksgiving Activities to Recognize Native Americans

3 Thanksgiving Activities to Recognize Native Americans

Thanksgiving season provides ELA teachers with the perfect opportunity to engage students in meaningful reading, writing, and speaking activities that can target creative writing, analysis, as well as multiculturalism. It’s an important time of the year not only to give thanks but also to acknowledge both voices in the foundation of the United States: the colonists and the Native Americans.

Literary Analysis Essay Boot Camp

Literary Analysis Essay Boot Camp

This year, I have decided to start all of my high school ELA classes with a Literary Analysis Essay Boot Camp. I have discovered over the years that all students in grades 9-12 at all levels need repetitive practice of the same essential writing skills, no matter the grade or level.


5 Things You can do with Google Slides in Secondary ELA

5 Things You can do with Google Slides in Secondary ELA

Google Slides has become my go-to platform for any type of distance learning or even for class activities. It’s a user-friendly platform that can be used for so many different purposes and lesson plans— from assessment to writing workshop!

Ideas for Pairing Classic Lit with Modern Lit

Ideas for Pairing Classic Lit with Modern Lit

Connecting classic pieces of literature with high-interest modern texts is a great strategy to engage students in the classics while maintaining their interest. Not only that, but intertextuality (making connections between texts) allows students to extend their analysis into a compare/ contrast format that enables them to analyze literary elements and techniques on a deeper level.

How to Sequence a Literary Analysis Essay Unit

How to Sequence a Literary Analysis Essay Unit

Teaching literary analysis is key to teaching secondary ELA. Students need to be able to construct thematic arguments and prove them using textual evidence. But this process can be daunting for both students and teachers.

Board but NOT BORING: My Go-to Collaborative Activity for Secondary ELA

Board but NOT BORING:  My Go-to Collaborative Activity for Secondary ELA

Because this collaborative activity is so simple, it has become my go-to strategy throughout the school year to reinforce various skills and units. It’s an excellent tool to use for test-prep (see this post) and to scaffold reading, writing, and speaking skills.

High-interest Halloween Activities & Lessons for Secondary ELA

High-interest Halloween Activities & Lessons for Secondary ELA

It’s that time of year when we get to tap into the high-interest season of Halloween and use it to our advantage as writing teachers! Halloween means Edgar Allan Poe, Gothic stories, mysteries, and all things secondary students LOVE!