Back to school activities for middle school students are important to implement the first few weeks of school.  These engaging classroom activities help establish a welcoming classroom environment. In addition, these activities set the tone and expectations of your classroom for the rest of the year.  Within the first two weeks, teachers want to emphasize classroom community and learning. Due to the pandemic, administrators encourage the teachers to incorporate social emotional learning activities into their lessons. Therefore, it is vital to include “Getting to Know You” activities, group activities, and just overall “fun” lessons into your first two weeks of school to establish community and learning expectations. Here are five activities to implement during your first two weeks of school.

Back to School Activities

First, you are definitely going to want to start with some “Getting to Know You” Activities.  Your students appreciate that you want to learn about them and their lives.

In this flip book activity, your students can either assemble or be given the flip book. You can also have them move through six stations-A Little About Me-Instagram Feed; Growth Quotations & Goals; Teacher Inquiry & Investigation; There’s a Rule for That!; The Power of One Word & Book Interests.  In these stations and in their flip books, your students will make inferences and draw conclusions, participate in group discussions, color, be creative, and they will use their imagination! You can check this resource out RIGHT HERE!

Would you like your students to get to know your classroom, your syllabus, and your expectations?

Engage your with this back to school or first day of school activity.  Are you looking for some fun icebreakers and collaborative activities? In this Digital Escape Ⓡ, there are nine different activities, and your students will complete activities, “Would You Rather…”, Syllabus/Requirements and Expectations Activity, Getting to Know Your Peers, and Class Goals. 

In this Digital Escape Ⓡ, Mr. Buttercakes, the principal, has lost his assembly notes that are taking place in 45 minutes. These notes are extremely important, and he has enlisted you and your group to help him backtrack to find his notes. GRAB THIS RIGHT HERE!

ICE BREAKER BINGO

Here is a quick back to school activity for you class. In this Ice Breaker Bingo activity, your students are asked to walk around the room and find peers who can match their answers. Their peers have to sign their sheet to validate the answer. This is an engaging activity will help break the awkwardness in the room. This is a perfect activity for upper elementary, middle school, and high school students.

Social Emotional Learning  Activities

Are you looking for a social emotional learning activity? Would you like to encompass more empathy and compassion into your classroom?

Walk a Day in My Shoes

Teaching empathy, compassion and kindness is an integral part of education, and it is also an integral part of a teenager’s life.  Teaching a student to “walk in another’s shoes” is an essential part of perspective and character. Your students will complete journal entries, watch a few short videos on empathy, compassion, and kindness, and complete a shoe activity.  This activity will change their mindset and how they look at others.  They will learn what it is like to “walk in someone else’s shoes”.

I hope these ideas are helpful! If you ever have any questions, just reach out to englishohmy@gmail.com.

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Have you incorporated an author study in your classroom? Are your students tired of the traditional ways of learning about an author? Teachers are always searching for more engaging, exciting ways to engage their students.  I have a wonderful author study activity that is digital and engaging. My Author Adventures are digital, foster reading skills, take your students on virtual field trips, and are fun!

Incorporating an author study into your English Language Arts classroom has many benefits. One way to learn about an author, his/her writing, and their life is including this activity into your English curriculum, whether it is through research or digitally.  Author studies are perfect for culminating projects and connecting students with books. In addition, they help create life-long readers.  When your students become excited about a genre of literature, introducing your students to an author adds to this enthusiasm. I wanted to share with you 5 reasons to do an author study in your classroom.

5 Reasons to Incorporate Author Studies into Your Classroom

An author study develops critical thinking skills. First, students make connections between an author’s life and his/her work.  You students can also relate their life to the author’s life. Most importantly, your students will critically analyze a variety of the author’s work.  Your students will make inferences and draw conclusions.  These skills help develop your students overall reading skills.

An author’s writing becomes mentor writing for your students after an author study. When your students read multiple pieces of a particular author, they will begin to notice the author’s word choice and writing style.  You can have your students attempt to mimic the author’s writing by using the author’s work as mentor texts.  Provide your students with a line from the author. Then, have your students try to write a sentence just like the one you provide. Your students can use this technique to improve their word choice and sentence structure.

Take your students on a virtual field trip with an author study. Many classrooms are digital or have devices within the classroom. This gives students the opportunity to travel all over the globe and visit different places.  You can have your students use Google Earth to see the author’s birth place. Secondly, you can have your students check out a 360 view of a particular place that relates to the author. This brings engagement and the technological aspect into your classroom.

Make your students global readers. Broaden their genres. When kids find a book they love, they often will stick to the same genre.  Because an author may write through different genres, this will expose your students to other genres- fiction, non-fiction, biographies, etc. This will have your students branch out, and try new books.

An author study may forge a love of books.  Students tend to fall in love in with an author’s characters and the plot.  When a student finds their favorite book, they will usually tell you it is because it is action packed, highly engaging, and/or they just love the characters.  Introducing students to an author will expose them to more than one novel or short story. Students may be more likely to pick up another book by an author they are interested in reading.

Resources for Author Studies

The Author Studies Toolkit

Author Studies Resources

Great Activities for Author Studies

I have some great digital activities for a variety of authors.  These are perfect if you are doing an authors study in your classroom. With these activities, your students will go on an author adventure, reading about the author’s life and the author’s writing. Also, your students will spend time analyzing lines from their writing. They will also take a trip with Google Maps, and learn about the author’s birthplace.

EDGAR ALLAN POE AUTHOR ADVENTURES

RAY BRADBURY AUTHOR ADVENTURES

ROALD DAHL AUTHOR ADVENTURES

Your students will love these! Happy reading!

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Classroom digital tools are a hot topic of conversation among teachers these days. Many districts are debating whether their schools will go back full time or if there will be a hybrid schedule.  Nonetheless, teachers want to prepare for the “just in case” scenarios. Teachers want reliable, engaging digital tools.  Specifically, English Language Arts teachers are searching for digital websites and resources that help their students with annotating, reading and writing skills, grammar practice, among other English skills and techniques.

I wanted to share with you a few digital platforms and resources for the English Language Arts classroom.  I used and found these tools extremely helpful during distance learning.  Regardless of what your school district is doing in the fall, it is important to have a list of go-to digital tools in your back pocket. Distance learning is now a part of teachers’ vocabulary.  They have to be ready for the distance learning scenario at a moment’s notice.

Digital Resources for the Classroom

Here are three of my favorite digital tools for the English Language Arts Classroom-

Kami– Have you used Kami? It is an amazing digital tool for the English classroom. Kami is a Google Extension™ one can easily download to a Chromebook or Chrome extension bar.  What is so incredible about Kami, is the teacher uploads a PDF assignment, and it allows the students to highlight the text on the PDF. It also allows the students to listen to the text, annotate, write, and make notes on the document. Teachers can assign work through Kami, and the students can turn it in Google Classroom™.

Google Meets Grid View– During distance learning, many teachers were using Zoom; however, many districts were finding issues with the platform, as it was not safe.  Districts were and are using Google Meet because they are GSuite subscribers, and the students are 1:1 with Chromebooks. One of the nice features about Zoom is it provides a grid view of the students who enter a meeting.  For a while, Google Meets™ did not have the grid view features…but now they do.  You can now download this Google extension, and you get the same features of the grid view Zoom is offering. I love seeing all of my students’ faces in the meetings and creates the personal connection.

Quill– Quill is one of my favorite digital websites I used during distance learning.  I worried my students would digress in some of their grammar, punctuation, and mechanic skills, and this website came to the rescue. Quill provides free writing and grammar activities for elementary, middle, and high school students. What is incredible about Quill is the teacher can build an assignment for their students or s/he can assign a diagnostic test to see where the students are lacking in skills. Quill makes it so easy because if the teacher is using Google Classroom™, s/he can just connect his/her classes right to Quill. You will love it!

The ELA Success Summit

Are you looking for MORE engaging, exciting digital tools, resources, and insights for the English Language Arts Classroom?

My dear friend, Kristy, from 2Peasandadog and I, put our creative minds together and created the ELA Success Summit. Together, we had discussions about what we thought English teachers will need for the upcoming school year. Since online learning may continue, we put together an online conference focusing on digital tools, resources, websites, and insights to help teachers in the classroom.

In this online summit, registrants will receive 20+ videos ranging from creating in Google Slides™, writing and reading in the digital classroom, using Google Forms™ for assessment purposes, classroom discourse, and so much more! Registrants will also receive the replay of the videos for two months, and s/he can watch them at his/her leisure.

This summit will give you a tremendous amount of information, incredible planning ideas for the new school year, as well as relieve some of your stress and apprehension you may have with remote learning.

If you are interested in learning more about the ELA Success Summit, you can check it out HERE!

If you ever have any questions or want to reach out, please feel free to email me at englishohmy@gmail.com!

Talk soon,

Kim

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First, finding an effective writing strategy is like hitting the jackpot! Let’s be honest. Writing is HARD. This is what a middle school student will tell you. Finding effective elaboration writing strategies and activities is vital to improve student writing.

Where do my students struggle in their writing? Elaborating and extending their thought process. On a normal day, when I ask my students to elaborate, they will write one sentence. Literally one sentence of elaboration to explain an entire thought or passage. Guh.

Middle school students, in particular, struggle tapping into the critical analysis section of their brain. This is the inference, drawing conclusions, thinking-outside-the-box section. I have tried a variety of methods to teach my students how to elaborate. I FINALLY found one elaboration writing technique that truly, whole-heartily works. It is called the DIALECTICAL JOURNAL. I have easily taken my students’ writing from writing a very general one or two sentences of elaboration to a minimum of three sentences with depth, critical thoughts and ideas, inferences and predictions using this format.

An Effective Writing Strategy-What is the Dialectical Journal?

The dialectical journal writing strategy has been a writing game-changer in my classroom. There are a variety of ways to write a dialectical journal. I modified the format to fit what works best for my middle school students and yields the best results.

In a nutshell, a dialectical journal asks your students to find a passage from their reading selection that is important, meaningful, surprising, emotional, or interesting. It can also be a passage that moves the plot or reveals something about a character; all in all, the students find text from a chapter, short story or text that moves him/her. Your students then respond to the passage with a three-step process-EXPLANATION, IMPORTANCE & INFERENCE/PREDICTION/CONCLUSION.

The Format of a Dialectical Journal

First, your students need to find a passage/quotation/dialogue in their reading. Once they locate the text, they need to cite the text in MLA format. I attached a link for quick MLA format reference, and you can check out the example below (Do your students need more MLA format review? Check out my MLA Citations Escape Room!).

Next, you will instruct your students how to elaborate using three key aspects-an explanation, explaining the importance of the passage and then make a prediction/inference:

The Format of the Journal

EXPLANATION: Your students are going to tell the reader what is happening in the passage. I always tell my students to make believe someone who they are unfamiliar with is reading their writing, and there is a good chance the reader has never read the text before. They need to give as much information as they can to the reader-who is in the passage, and what is happening.

IMPORTANCE: Once they give a sufficient and detailed explanation of the passage, the student then needs to discuss the importance of the passage or quotation. Your students can ask themselves, “Why is this passage significant to the novel/short story/text?” or, “What importance does the passage have on the characters or plot?“.

PREDICTION/REACTION/INFERENCE-In the last part of the journal, your students are to discuss either a prediction/an inference/or draw a conclusion about the passage. Your students can ask themselves, “What does the passage show the reader?”, “Is there any new information or insights the reader learns from this passage?”, “What prediction can be made from the selected passage?”, “What may the reader feel from reading this passage?” or “Make an inference from what is happening in the passage?”. In my dialectical journal worksheet, I included some sentence starters for my struggling students who have difficulty getting their words down on paper; you do not have to include them if you would like to challenge your students more, and think on their own.

Example Dialectical Journal Entries

Here is a model dialectical journal I created for my 7th grade students for The Outsiders:

Here is a dialectical journal one of my 8th graders completed for To Kill a Mockingbird. You will notice my student chose to do a text-to-self connection. You can add text connections (text to text and self) to the options for elaboration:

Incorporating Dialectical Writing into Everyday Writing

Once your students have the experience with the dialectical journals, here is how you can incorporate this format into your students everyday paragraph and essay writing-

When my students write a paragraph, they are expected to write a RACER paragraph- Restate the question, Answer the question, Cite text evidence, Elaborate, Restate topic sentence.

If you look closely, in the dialectical journal they have to CITE text evidence and ELABORATE, both the C and the E in a RACER paragraph. Why can’t their elaboration be a three-part process?–Explanation–>Importance–>Inference/Prediction/Reaction. BAM! Isn’t this fantastic?!?!?

Would you like to try the dialectical journal writing in your own classroom? Click on the link below, make a copy, and edit my version to fit your classroom! Enjoy this wonderful gem.

The Dialectical Journal Format

I guarantee you, you will say at some point, Where has this been all of my life?!?!? Let me know how it works in your classroom! I would love to hear your success stories.

Are you looking for more ELABORATION products? Here are some other products that are in my Teachers Pay Teachers store that can help your students with elaboration!

Elaboration Bundle

Teaching Elaboration

Teaching Elaboration With Song Lyrics

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Are you reading a difficult novel in your classroom? Is it just not working? Teaching difficult literature to any age students can be an inundating task. Ten years ago, I introduced To Kill a Mockingbird to my 8th graders for the first time. It was an epic fail. I am sure some of you can relate to my situation. I bet you have dealt with teaching difficult literature that either has taken too long to get through, the text was too difficult for your students, or both! Over the course of the years, I have learned to adapt and use a variety of media to make a long, difficult novel more engaging, interesting and unforgettable.

Let Me Preface with This…

Ten years ago, New York State embraced the Common Core Standards and revamped our curriculum, creating expectations and goals where New York would be a more competitive state educationally and more of our students would be “college ready”. In order to do this, the state wanted to increase rigor within the classroom and expected the literature and texts read in the English classroom to be more challenging and demanding. The state then expected, regardless of the students’ reading level and educational capabilities, ALL students were going to read the new literature (insert hand to head). The state believed the students should be reading at least two grade levels higher than their current grade; therefore, some of the high school texts were moved down to the middle school level to complete this goal. One of these being To Kill a Mockingbird.

Originally, To Kill a Mockingbird was being read at the 10th grade level in my district before being moved down to the 8th grade. Any of you who are familiar with the book can probably agree with me that this book is extremely challenging, and it deals with topics that are mature for the middle school level.

The Epic Fail

The first year I taught the book to my 8th graders, it took an ENTIRE 10-week quarter to complete the book, activities, projects. It was arduous to get through, and by the end of the novel, my students were ready for the book to be finished. I knew, deep down, they really did not enjoy the book (I killed it for them). I heard whispers around the halls that some kids even hated it. No English teacher EVER wants a student to hate a book they teach.

This was really unfortunate because the novel is so rich and filled with so many wonderful lessons and themes; however, I think the length of the book, the close reading, and the amount of time we spent on the book ruined the experience for my students. I considered this one of my teacher fails, for I felt like I let them down as an English and reading teacher.

A Learning Experience

In hindsight, this was a learning experience for me, and it gave me the opportunity to revise my lessons on how I taught the book. I knew I needed to revise my plans, the time component, and the length of the activities. I needed to figure out how to shorten the length of time of the unit and have my students enjoy the novel while comprehending the events and plot. All and all, I NEEDED my kiddos to say to me at the end of the novel, “I really loved this book”.

Here is how I improved this learning and teaching experience for my students and changed my way of teaching to get through difficult, long novels.

Four Tips to Teaching Difficult Literature

1. Find an Abridged Version of the Text to Teach Difficult Literature

After doing some research, I found an abridged version of To Kill a Mockingbird online. A brilliant group of teachers rewrote the novel, eliminating 50% of Harper Lee’s description. Abridged versions do just that. They cut out much of the description an author uses and stick to the main plot. This was KEY to teaching this novel because there are chapters that are not necessarily important to the plot, but I wanted my students to get the overall context of the chapter. What normally is a 15-page chapter can be cut down to 3-4 pages! Brilliant!

Here are the links to the abridged version of To Kill a Mockingbird:

Newton Public School Version

Even if you cannot find an abridged version of a novel online, many educational book distributors often have abridged versions of the text. Make sure you do your research!

2. Has the Text Been Made into a Graphic Novel?

Graphic novels are “long text/long novel” game changers. This past October, the graphic novel was released for To Kill a Mockingbird. I was so excited, since I figured I could give some variety to the chapters. One chapter I could read the abridged, and another we could use the graphic novel. Since chapter 1 of the novel is very descriptive and long, I had the students read the chapter using the graphic novel. Bingo! Many publishers have adapted the original novel into a graphic novels, so make sure you check Amazon or Barnes and Nobles to see is one has been released.

Are you looking for the graphic novel of To Kill a Mockingbird? You can find it below! (Amazon affiliated link).

3. Use the Movie to Provide Visual Connections

We know many novels, especially classic novels, have been produced into movies. Using the movie gives the students a great visual representation of the novel. It also provides great discussion points and activities. Teachers can provide compare and contrasts activities, and high level discussions can be constructed about the characters in the text and movie. You can also have discussions about director’s ideas and choices to leave certain parts of the novel out, if applicable.

4. Bring in Some Audio!

It is nice to change things up, so why not have your students listen to some of the audio? Below, I included the abridged audio, along with the version read and narrated by Sally Darling. Below is both part 1 and 2 of the novel.

Audio for the Abridged Version

Using all four of these different components, I am able to get through part 1 in two and a half weeks. Now, we are able to get to the meat of the novel much quicker. The first part of the novel no longer takes forever to get through. In addition, I learned to cut the novel down to about 4-4 1/2 weeks. I use the extra time to assign writing and classroom activities that I add to the reading experience.

My students really appreciate the fact I am considerate about their reading comprehension and concentration. They also appreciate I take their interest in reading into consideration. For the last few years, I noticed my students really enjoy the book so much more with the differentiation of media and text. This is a lifesaver for me. It gives me the opportunity to read more novels with them during the school year.

Please enjoy two FREE journal entries I created for To Kill a Mockingbird! You can grab the PDF right HERE.

Like the journals you downloaded above. Grab all 31 journal right here!-

To Kill a Mockingbird Reflective Journals

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Modeling skills for your students is one of the the most successful teacher secrets out there.

I’m not a teaching guru, nor an educational coach; I have never considered myself the perfect teacher (I don’t think this can ever be accomplished! I’m always learning and adjusting); however, I have been teaching for 19 years, so if anything, I would consider myself a seasoned teacher. I have learned through my experience what works and what does not in the English Language Arts classroom. I have had my fair share of lesson snafus and light bulb moments. Nonetheless, modeling and mini lessons shows continuous results and student progress in my classroom. 

MODELING exemplary work and skills for your students.

First, modeling cuts out major confusion and provides students with a clear skill or concept.

Have you ever assigned an essay, explained to your students they need to write four paragraphs, review the requirements and in the end, receive a pile of writing catastrophes? At this point you then asked yourself where your students went wrong- Why are their introductions two sentences long? How come they did not include parenthetical citations? Why are they making all these errors?  Grrrr…this is so frustrating for a teacher. Regardless of how many times they have been taught a concept, it needs to be modeled.

Showing students what is expected and desired for a particular assignment eliminates confusions, questions and any type of intimidation that comes with the skills, especially with writing. The first time my students write an essay, I go through each paragraph process with them, showing and modeling for the students how to write an exemplary introduction paragraph, body and conclusion. It does not bother me that it takes days; it sets my expectations. Throughout the year, when I assign new essays, I still review the requirements of the assignment and model anything I think is necessary for my students to succeed, whether it is sentence structure or a specific skill I want them to focus on in their writing.

Secondly, modeling sets students up for success. 

Think about it. If teachers model their expectations and the skills they want their students to use or accomplish, the students know what they have to do, and they are more likely to do it right the FIRST time! Instant success is how I see it! I equate it to reading the questions first before reading a passage; one knows what to look for and will more likely to answer the questions right the first time.

A great example of this is if you are assigning a project that requires a presentation. Presenting is something that many students are amateurs at because of their age level and confidence. Students have a very difficult time presenting in front of their peers. They fidget, they do not address the class, and they often read their notes rather than “present” their notes. Modeling these behaviors and skills (how to stand, make eye contact, etc.) for your students first will help them understand the specific skills and make the technique of presenting a bit easier. In addition, the idea of presenting will not be so arduous, and in the end, they will feel more successful and confident.

Yikes! I Don’t Have Enough Time to do all this!

No sweat! There are ways to take this teaching technique and slim it down to fit into your schedule. Modeling does not have take an entire class period, and actually it does not even need to take more than 10-15 minutes! This is where the mini-lesson comes into action.

My mini-lessons take no more than 15 minutes, and I teach a mini-lesson if I am introducing a new skill, behavior, and sometimes if I feel it is necessary for reviewing a skill or technique. In order for a mini-lesson to fit into 15 minutes, you cannot have an abundance of note-taking for either the teacher or student. Note taking can be very time-consuming. This is why I have all of my mini-lesson information in a PowerPoint slideshow-I can click and go! I don’t have to write anything on the board.

My mini-lesson has three parts: Connect the lesson to the unit/activity (1-2 minutes) , teach, guide and model for the students (3-5 minutes), and then independent practice (3-5 minutes). It looks like this:

Let me give you an example of how I run a mini-lesson. One of my most important mini-lessons is “Citing Text-Based Evidence”. My students have done this before from the year prior, so the skill is normally review; however, I want to make sure they to do it correctly, so I always run a quick lesson on it.

After introducing the lesson (my students were writing paragraphs in response to a short story), I introduced what it means to cite evidence and how to correctly cite the evidence, as you can see below. This PowerPoint presentation is animated, so all I had to do is click through the slides. The instructional part of citing text (MLA style) is only two slides-quick and to-the-point.

My students also had a worksheet that correlates with the slides. It included some note taking space, my model and their independent work. The worksheet is a great reference sheet for later lessons, and it is easy to refer back to when needed. Here is what the worksheets look like:

Next, I began to model how to cite a line from the text. I posed a hypothetical question, and I used an excerpt from a short story (“All Summer in a Day” by Ray Bradbury). What you cannot see from this image is the text in the slideshow is animated and highlights as I click. This model shows how I highlighted text to support that “Margot is unhappy”. Then, I lifted the lined from the actual text and properly cited the evidence for my students.

Lastly, the students were instructed to try writing a citation independently from another passage. Again, the whole goal of a mini-lesson is for your students to mimic your actions. Below, you can see the passage I gave my students to cite their own text-based evidence. In total, 10 to 15 minutes to complete this mini-lesson.

After creating mini-lessons for my own classes, I wanted to start sharing these with my buyers. Why create mini-lessons from scratch, when I have already done them?!?! Below is the lesson plan for the “Citing Text-Based Evidence Mini-Lesson”. I started a whole product line for the Common Core reading literature standards. Feel free to check out some of my new mini-lessons!

 

I hope this teacher secret will be helpful in your classroom. Remember, modeling creates successful and confident students. Teach on, friends!

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Teaching empathy, compassion and kindness are three of the most important character qualities I try to instill in my students during the school year. I want to share an engaging and important lesson and activity that I teach to 8th graders that is on empathy and compassion.

 In my school district’s English department, our entire English Language Arts theme for the 8th graders is empathy.  The literature we read are To Kill a Mockingbird, “Flowers for Algernon”, and The Diary of Anne Frank. They all link to the theme of empathy. We constantly connect the theme into the short stories and articles that we read.

I have to be honest; I love having the theme of empathy and compassion in 8th grade. As a middle school teacher, this age group often lacks compassion and empathy for one another, their peers and others. I don’t entirely blame it on them either. We know this is a pivotal time in their adolescence. Teenagers are immersed in their friends, social media and “their” world. Nevertheless, we do know the video games, social media and other things help desensitize them from reality and the real world. This is a perfect theme to have resonate throughout the year.

Activities to Teach Empathy, Compassion & Kindness

The first activity my students start with is an article called, “Are You Empathetic? 3 Types of Empathy”. This is a great introduction into the theme, and it helps my students understand the different types of empathy and what category they fall into as a maturing, young adult.

Secondly, I show them an empathy video clip. I have a few that I have in my teacher toolbox, and depending on how much time I have, all depends on how many I use; however, I always show “Empathy: The Human Connection. 

I came across this video on accident. I was searching for activities to complete with my students when introducing empathy, and I found this gem! It is amazing! It is very hard to show students to see through others’ eyes, and this video does just this! What I love about the video is there is no talking or speaking, but just the thoughts of the people. It gives an excellent perspective to others. If we knew what others were thinking or feeling, would we have more compassion and empathy for them?

Walk in Someone Else’s Shoes Activity

The culminating activity I give my students in order to introduce the theme of empathy and compassion is, “Walking in My Shoes.”  I introduce the infamous Atticus quotation from To Kill a Mockingbird, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”  Here, I teach “Perspective-Taking Empathy”, which is the ability to put oneself into a person’s “shoes” and see things from his/her perspective.  

From there, I introduce my shoe activity.  On the front side of the shoe, my students write down ten things that people would not know about them unless they told you or could get into their mind.  This ranges from sports, passions, interests, favorite movies, broken bones, hardships, obstacles, successes, and other interesting facts.  

On the back of the shoe, my students choose a line from a song that best represents him/her (I assign this as a homework assignment I instruct the students to bring in the song lyrics to school, so they are able to write.)  You would be amazed at the lyrics the students use to represent themselves.  They range from popular pop songs to 70’s rock!   In addition to them choosing a line, the students have to explain why they chose the line.  The students have to give a detailed and thorough analysis of the line and relate it to their life.  I am usually blown away by the amount of perseverance and strength many of the students have and how much they are willing to share with me regarding some of their struggles, obstacles and future goals.

For the final presentation of the two-part activity, the students get to choose their shoe template on which they want to complete their final piece. I have a variety of shoes from heels to Converse to sneakers. On one side of the shoe, the students write their ten facts about themselves, and on the other side of the shoe, they write their song lyric paragraph.  The students love coloring in the shoe, and they are usually very creative with them.  As you can see from above, the shoes come out a-mazzzzzzing! You can grab this activity below!

After I grade the shoes, I hang them up in my room in a “walking” pattern.   I absolutely love this activity, and I hope you do too!  The students really enjoy this activity, and they are always awfully proud of their shoes.

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Enjoy the heat, the beach and the sun!

The post Becoming the Techie Teacher in the English Language Arts Classroom for the New School Year appeared first on English, Oh My!.

Check out my End of the Year Digital Escape Room and other escape rooms!

I hope these idea will help and motivate you as you wind down the last few weeks.  This blog post motivated me to really think about my favorite activities for the end of the year.  I hope your last weeks are smooth.

The post The Best End of the Year Activities for the Middle School English Classroom appeared first on English, Oh My!.

  

Here’s a tip from a seasoned teacher who is still learning daily-Bring relevant information and ideas into the classroom.  Your students will appreciate it. Believe me.

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A List of Awesome ELA Websites

1. UEN-Utah Education Network-This ELA website has a variety of interactive English Language Arts activities that are interactive.  It has word games, vocabulary practice, grammar practice and writing and spelling.  If you are lucky enough to have 1:1 devices in your classroom, this is an educational, engaging site to send your students if you have early finishers!

2.  John Greene’s Crash Course YouTube Channel: Have you ever watched any of the famous author, John Greene’s, Crash Courses?  They are FANTASTIC! He has so many of them, and there are great videos for novels, skills and other English-related topics.

3.  The Literacy Shed:  The website has incredible short films that are categorized by themes.  These short films are great for teaching concepts like inference, drawing conclusions, main idea, summary and other important reading skills.

4.  English Grammar 101-Working on grammar with your students? Need bell ringer ideas?  This website brings students through the steps of grammar.  I use this website ALL the time.

5. Teachers Give Teachers-Do you use HyperDocs in your classroom with your students?  Here is a website where you can search FREE HyperDocs by subject, key word and category.

6.  Writers Digest Writing Prompts-I am always looking for fun, creative writing prompts for my students, and Writers Digest has just that! Read through the scores of prompts that you find appropriate for your classroom.  Many of them are soooo creative!

7.  DOGONews:  Looking for quick, interesting, informative reading passages for your students?  This site is great for non-fiction, engaging articles.

8.  Teaching Tolerance-This website has such great teaching resources to teach the theme of “tolerance” in many different facets-religion, heritage, disabilities, color of skin, nationality and so forth.  This website has perspective texts and lesson plans to use in the classroom.  This is great for texts like The Diary of Anne Frank, To Kill a Mockingbird, and other texts with the man vs. society conflict.

These are just some of the websites that I use.  In the future, I will share some more, along with Google Apps I use.  Keep your students reading, writing, engaged and excited!

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How I Implement Bell Work into My Classroom

This year, I have implemented bell work activities for the first time.  I have seen bell ringers on Teachers Pay Teachers, and I implemented bell ringers with my 8th graders last year; however, I will admit it was slightly disorganized.  This year, I have stuck to a schedule with my 8th graders, which I will share in a bit.  First though, I want to tell you about the bell work I have created for my 7th graders and work that they ACTUALLY rave over!

In the last two weeks, I have heard the following comments: “Mrs. Crouch…I love doing the bell work.  It is so much fun!” and, “This is my favorite part of the day.”  I know…you would not think a 7th grader would say this about “work”, but somehow I have hooked them.  I created the bell work with the intentions of keeping my 7th graders busy for the first five minutes, so I can take attendance, collect work, and any other things I have to take care of at the beginning of class.

I don’t know about you, but the first five minutes of class is CRAZY-attendance, collecting work, checking homework, and all of the other entrance items at the beginning of the period.  The students NEED a task during the first five minutes to get them situated, and if they don’t have a task, a classroom becomes quickly chaotic. I used to have my students answer writing prompts, but eventually, the prompts became flat and anti-climatic, being it was same routine every day.  I eventually abandoned the writing prompts; it just was not working.  I was back to square one again.

Each day has designated skills and activities for the students to work on for the first five minutes of class-

*Monday First, the teacher introduces and/or reviews a grammatical term; secondly, it asks the students to write a commonly misspelled word 5 times; introduces a vocabulary word, and asks the students to write a sentence with the vocabulary word included, and write a headline to a short passage.

*Tuesday requires the students to define the grammatical term from Monday, and give examples of the term; answer a question about figurative language; read/answer a riddle, and draw a conclusion on a short passage.  There is also a “Fact of the Day”, as well as a small picture to color if students finish early.

*Wednesday asks the students to identify the grammatical device in sentences, and highlight them; a commonly misspelled is introduced again, as well as another vocabulary word; Last, the students have to write a main idea sentence for a short passage.

*Thursday the students are asked to create their own sentences using the grammatical device; identifying or define a figurative or literary device; edit a short passage, and if there is time, students can read the “fact of the day”, the riddle, and/or color if they have extra time.

*Friday the students are asked to draw pictures of the grammatical term in action, practice commonly misspelled words, using a new vocabulary word in context, and complete a fun and engaging journal activity.

Here are some visuals of my bell work, and I would love to offer the readers of this blog post a FREE week of my November Bell Work!

Bell Ringer Freebies & Websites

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