The Daring English Teacher - The Daring English Teacher

10 Secondary ELA Writing Resources to Help Students Become Stronger Writers

When it comes to teaching writing, there is just so much to teach. To help students become stronger writers, students need to be well-versed in sentence structure, grammar, and how to organize their ideas, just to name a few skills. One of the best ways to teach middle school ELA and high school English students to become stronger writers is by focusing on specific skills one at a time. This way, students are not overwhelmed, and teachers can more easily assess a certain writing skill. Here is a look at ten secondary ELA writing resources teachers can use to help build strong writers.

3 Coloring Activities for Secondary ELA: sketch notes, mind maps, and one-pagers

When it comes to engaging middle school ELA and high school English students, I’ve noticed a pretty consistent trend: teens like to color, doodle, and create. As much as some teens might moan and groan about coloring, it’s actually quite therapeutic, and it helps many disengaged students focus on the lesson, assignment, or assessment. That is why these coloring activities for secondary ELA are great additions to your curriculum!

However, when it comes to coloring in the classroom, all coloring-type assignments are not created equally and should not be used synonymously. In fact, sketch notes and doodle notes, mind maps, and one-pagers all have their own distinct place and purpose in the classroom. And when used effectively, these activities and assignments help unlock students’ creativity and analysis skills.

Before diving into the different coloring activities, it is important to have the materials you need to successfully facilitate these assignments in the classroom. There have been quite a few times when I walked into my classroom at the start of a school day not planning on coloring, but I throw it in because at the last moment I felt that it would serve a purpose in my daily lesson. This blog post contains affiliate links that help cover the cost of the blog.

How to Plan a Short Story Unit: 4 Tips for Planning a Short Story Unit

Planning a short story unit can be daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. Here is a look at how I plan my short story unit. HINT: It requires backward planning! When I teach short stories, I like to use this close reading unit that follows along with these four steps.

Keep reading to learn how to plan a short story unit for your middle school ELA or high school English class.

Teaching Journalism: 5 Journalism Lessons and Activities

You and your students will absolutely love these journalism lessons! The beginning of a new school year can be hectic for journalism teachers who are tasked with simultaneously teaching new journalism students who don’t have any journalism experience while also planning and publishing content for the school newspaper.

Back to School Night Stations: A Twist on the Traditional Presentation

I’m not sure about you, but I always kind of dread Back-to-School Night. It’s late, I’m usually exhausted from the first couple of weeks of school, and many times the turnout isn’t even that great. I recently tried Back to School Night Stations though, and it was much better!

I’ve had my fair share of Back-to-School Nights. I’ve done the standard ten-minute presentation where I talk about the class the entire time. I’ve had parents write notecards to their students. I even tried playing Kahoot! with parents one year, and that was just a trainwreck. Even with the best-laid plans, Back-to-School Nights are just awkward.

At my school, we have six class periods. We have a ten-minute presentation for each class period that is supposed to be just for that class. Then, there is a ten-minute passing period. Parents often come in right at the start of the passing period, and for me, it’s just awkward having that weird silence with some parents waiting as I awkwardly stand at the door trying to guess what parents are mine.

Teaching Email Etiquette: 3 Reasons Why You Need To

The start of a new school year brings promise and new hope. It also brings a fresh set of students unfamiliar with your classroom policies. One of the best ways to help students jump-start the new school year is to teach them all about email etiquette! Teaching email etiquette to your middle school and high school students will help set them up for success all year long!

5 tips for teaching vocabulary in secondary ELA

For many middle school ELA and high school English teachers, teaching vocabulary in the classroom is just one more task, one more thing to do

Teaching Journalism: 5 News Determinants to Teach to Student Journalists

One of the most critical middle school and high school journalism lessons you can teach your students journalists is about the main news determinants. Before

Teaching Journalism: 10 Tips for New Journalism Advisers

Welcome to the amazing world of teaching journalism and advising the school newspaper! Whether you’ve signed up to teach journalism or were assigned the class, teaching students journalism and advising the school newspaper can be a gratifying aspect of your career. In this post, I will share my top tips for new journalism advisers.

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