Women’s History Month is a particularly exciting month to celebrate: there are so many brilliant, talented, and inspirational women to honor and that’s what this blog post is all about. The women here are women whose stories always push my students to write creatively, critically, and think about the world in a whole new way.
Read MoreHalloween is a fun time of year to lean into the high energy, sugar driven madness of our students. Here is a free download Write the Room activity that can be used in at least two different ways any time of the spooky season!
Read MoreCheck out these games to get your students arguing as a means of targeting persuasive skills such as rhetorical analysis and persuasive writing/ speaking. — by Bespoke ELA
Read MoreThe beginning of the school year is such a crucial time to hook students into writing. It is also a crucial time to get them “warmed up” after the summer break. Writing not only facilitates the process of establishing effective writing habits in the classroom, but it also begins the process of developing a writing community that will become a valuable tool during writing workshop throughout the school year.
Read MoreGet students writing at home with these easy to implement and screen-free tips!
Read MoreRead about 16 high-interest writing assignments that middle school and high school students actually enjoy! #WritingActivities #MiddleSchoolELA #HighSchoolELA
Read MoreCheck out these FIVE alternatives to the traditional essay to challenge your students in new ways while also assessing the same important skills.
Read MoreHow do we take the “encyclopedia voice” (Mariconda) many students come into the classroom having been taught, and turn it into Walt Whitman’s much-lauded “barbaric yawp”?
Read MoreA roundup of creative and engaging activities for middle school and high school ELA
Read MoreLooking for meaningful ways to have students practice using new vocabulary words in writing? Check out these 5 unique approaches to engage middle and high school learners. #VocabularyActivities #MiddleSchoolELA
Read MoreYour students are reading. Hooray! Writing about reading has research-proven benefits, and it’s important that we ask students to respond to reading on a regular bases. Those responses don’t always have to be formal, though. Let’s take a look at some ways we can engage students in creative written responses to reading.
Read MoreHow can teachers help older students enjoy writing? Negativity and reluctance is a mindset that is established early on. However, in middle and high school, certain teaching approaches and strategies can help to change the way students view themselves as writers. Create a positive writing culture and maintain it through the year. These nine approaches can help.
Read MoreThere are lots of creative ways to facilitate reflection at the end of the school year. Integrating novelty into any lesson makes it more interesting, and the same concept applies to reflection questions. So I set out to create an interactive "Prompt Sticks" Reflection Question game to get students more interested in assessing their learning at the end of the school year.
Read MoreEngage secondary students in a meaningful real-world writing activity at the end of the school year - or any time! Writing thank you letters is an important life skill, but it's becoming overshadowed by emails and text messages. Teach middle and high school students about how to spread love and kindness by encouraging others through writing.
Read MoreBeing able to decipher the tone of a piece of writing is crucial to being able to decipher the thematic message of a text. This is absolutely true for analyzing poetry.
Read MoreGetting older students to read and write poetry can be hard. Engaging poetry activities are critical for obtaining student buy-in. In this post from Reading and Writing Haven, read about five poetry activities older students will enjoy.
Read MoreValentine's Day provides an opportunity during the month of February to focus on one of the most powerful topics in literature and art: LOVE. Love is as polarizing as the Valentine's Day holiday itself: some love it, and some hate it. Nonetheless...
Read MoreTeaching high school students to avoid plagiarism is no easy task. Try these strategies from Reading and Writing Haven to scaffold students' understanding and lead them to success.
Read MoreAs educators, we know how critical reflection is to the learning process. Getting students to reflect- deeply and meaningfully- is often one of the most challenging lessons we teach. I have found that both my middle school and high school students will often scoff at these reflection activities, providing the least amount of effort possible to complete the task they see as meaningless. I have been searching for and creating lessons and activities that will bring interest and engagement to this task. The following
Read MoreIt's the "most wonderful time of the year" once again! Every year, the holiday season inspires new movie ideas, and some of these movies go on to become some of the most beloved films of all time with some of the most well-known movie speeches in film history.
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