6-12th- ADD ARTICLES HERE — TeachWriting.org

6 Creative Lessons to Inspire Secondary Writers

A roundup of creative and engaging activities for middle school and high school ELA

FREEBIES, Writing Assignments, Writing Mini-lessons, Writing WorkshopMelissa KruseOctober 29, 2019creative writing, engaging writers, writing workshop, writing activitiesComment

Purpose Not Apathy: Arts Literacy in ELA

Eileen Landay and Kurt Wooton founded The ArtsLiteracy Project to bring arts integration into classrooms around the world, and their book, A Reason to Read, shows how it works and why it’s so powerful.

Editing & Revision, Best Practices, Modes of Writing, The Writing Process, Writing AssignmentsGuest UserOctober 17, 2019makerspace, management, classroom management, apathy, arts literacy, literacyComment

10 Tips for Scaffolding Literary Analysis

Read about 10 literary analysis teaching ideas for middle and high school ELA, including engagement and scaffolding strategies.

Best Practices, Writing Assignments, Writing Mini-lessonsMelissa KruseSeptember 30, 2019literary analysis, literary analysis writing, scaffolding writing, Middle School English, High School ELAComment

Tone and Mood Writing - Writing Games and Unique Assessments to Teach Tone and Mood

Getting students to fully grasp the concept of tone and mood can be a truly difficult and daunting task. Students can have a very difficult time separating the mood they feel while reading from the author’s tone while writing. It can be even more challenging for students to think about the mood they wish a reader to feel while they are writing, which can require them to disregard their own tone.

Assessing Writing, Mentor Texts, Writing Assignments, Writing Mini-lessonsGuest UserSeptember 17, 2019Writing Assessment, Writing with Tone and Mood, Tone and Mood Assessment, Teaching Tone and Mood, Assessing Tone and Mood, Creating Tone in Writing, Creating Mood in WritingComment

Back to School Writing Workshop Ideas for Secondary ELA

It’s that time of year once again. School is back in session, and it’s time to take a new group of students through writing workshop to produce pieces of writing that target essential skills. Check out these ideas to get your students started with writing workshop this year!

Best Practices, Writing Workshop, Writing AssignmentsMeredith DobbsAugust 20, 2019back to school, writing workshop, secondary, writing lessonsComment

Meaningful Writing Lessons to Start the School Year

How will you start the school year with writing lessons? An experienced teacher discusses structure and fun for the first quarter.

Writing AssignmentsGuest UserJuly 27, 2019back to school, writing assignments, Writing lessonsComment

5 Ways to Incorporate Vocabulary in Writing

Looking 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

FREEBIES, Writing Assignments, Writing WorkshopMelissa KruseJuly 15, 2019vocabulary, writing activities, writing workshopComment

Fun Acronyms to Teach Writing

I am always looking for ways to make writing instruction more engaging for my students. I love using fun and interesting acronyms to help students as they draft their work. I want these acronyms to be memorable so that students can use these to draft their writing long after my graphic organizers are there to support them.

Best Practices, Modes of Writing, The Writing Process, Writing AssignmentsGuest UserMarch 4, 2019Acronyms to Teach Writing, Writing lessons, Teaching writing, argumentative essay, argumentative paragraph, Literary analysis paragraph, Literary analysisComment

5 Creative Response to Reading Activities

Your 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.

FREEBIES, Writing AssignmentsMelissa KruseFebruary 19, 2019reading response, creative writingComment

Fun Holiday Writing Activities for Secondary

Read about a handful of fun and engaging yet meaningful holiday writing assignments for middle school and high school ELA. #holidaywritingassignments #middleschoolela #highschoolela

Holiday, Writing AssignmentsMelissa KruseOctober 9, 2018Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, writing assignments, holiday lessons, holiday, holiday writing assignmentsComment

Argumentative Writing: 5 Important Teaching Points

In this post, guest blogger Jamie from Write on! with Jamie details five critical teaching points to consider with argumentative writing.

Modes of Writing, Philosophies on Writing, Writing AssignmentsMeredith DobbsSeptember 27, 2018Argument Writing, argument lesson, argumentative writing, high school, lesson planComment

Four Back-to-School Diagnostic Assignments for Secondary ELA

Assessing individual student skills at the beginning of the school year is important for teachers to establish a baseline from which to monitor student growth. This is especially important at the secondary level where we have an influx of students from diverse educational backgrounds all converging into one larger secondary school.

Assessing Writing, Writing AssignmentsMeredith DobbsJuly 22, 2018diagnostic essay, diagnosticComment

Literary Analysis Writing

Within a literary analysis, students are required to think deeply about a given text, then make inferences and provide evidence to support that inference. Not only does the skill of drafting a quality literary analysis response support students in high school English classes, but will essentially define much of their English coursework in college.

Best Practices, Differentiating Writing, Modes of Writing, The Writing Process, Writing Assignments, Assessing WritingGuest UserJune 12, 2018literary analysis, literary analysis writing, literary analysis lessons, teaching literary analysis, english lessons, ELA lessons, #iteachenglish, #iteachhighschool, Literary writingComment

9 Ways to Get Secondary Students to Enjoy Writing

How 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.

One-Pagers as a Response to Literature

Need an engaging post-reading activity? One-pagers make for a strong assessment on their own, but they are also a great prewriting tool.

Creative Writing, Best Practices, Writing AssignmentsGuest UserMay 22, 2018one pager, one-pager, one pagers, one-pagers, creative writing, literary analysisComment

Prompt Sticks Reflection Game: An Interactive Way to Reflect Back on the School Year

There 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.

Writing Thank You Emails to Spread Kindness

Engage 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.

FREEBIES, Modes of Writing, Writing AssignmentsMelissa KruseApril 3, 2018thank you, letter, real-world writing, business writing, end of year writing activities, kindnessComment

Poetry Writing That Supports Reading Standards - Found Poetry and Blackout Poetry

Learn more about using Found Poetry and Blackout Poetry as a creative assessment for those reading standards!

Assessing Writing, Best Practices, Differentiating Writing, Poetry, Writing AssignmentsGuest UserMarch 29, 2018Poetry to assess reading, Reading Strategies, Poetry Lessons, Poetry, Teaching Poetry, Found Poetry, Blackout PoetryComment

Tone Tunes: Using Music to Teach Tone in Poetry

Being 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.

7 Poetry Activities Students Love

Getting 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.

Differentiating Writing, FREEBIES, Writing AssignmentsMelissa KruseMarch 8, 2018poetry, writing poetry, poetry activities, writing activities, picture prompts, types of poetry Comment