AI and Academic Integrity: 5 Ways to Combat and Embrace Student AI Use
AI and Academic Integrity: 5 Ways to Combat and Embrace Student AI Use
How to Teach Essay Writing in Secondary ELA
Teaching students how to write a multi-paragraph essay is a process, and it isn’t something that can be taught in one class period, nor is
Teaching Short Stories at the Start of the School Year: 4 Reasons to Begin the Year with Short Stories
Starting off the school year with teaching short stories is a great way to engage the learners in your classroom as soon as you are
15 Back-to-School Activities for Middle and High School
It’s time to go back to school! With the back-to-school season upon us, it is time to start planning back-to-school activities for the first week
The Most Effective Strategies for Teaching Short Stories in the Secondary ELA Classroom
Short stories are easily one of my favorite types of texts to teach! They are short, which the students already appreciate, but they are also jam-packed with so much complexity and meaning!
An author can embed messages and observations about life in ways that informational texts cannot, and this makes reading them that much more enjoyable!
Teaching short stories and teaching students how to interpret and analyze a short story can be overwhelming. There is so much packed into one short story, it can be hard to figure out how best to approach it.
20 Spooky Short Stories to Teach in October
There is something about October that makes spooky short stories especially fun to teach. Maybe it’s the darker mornings, Halloween decorations popping up everywhere, or
My Teaching Philosophy: How I Build Strong Writers in Secondary ELA
The instructional beliefs, classroom routines, and writing strategies that transformed the way I teach writing. I Didn’t Become a Better Writing Teacher by Finding a
Classroom Whiteboard Organization: 6 Teacher Supplies I Swear By
This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. One of my favorite back-to-school
5 Engaging ELA Activities to Help You Power Through the Last Two Weeks Before Winter Break
The final stretch before winter break is always a unique season in the ELA classroom. Students are buzzing with anticipation, schedules get interrupted by assemblies
Growth Mindset and SEL Activities: 20 Ideas for the Secondary Classroom
Helping students build resilience, confidence, and self-awareness is just as important as teaching academic content. That’s why incorporating growth mindset and SEL activities and social-emotional
Back-to-School English Activity: Baseline Writing with Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”
Start the school year with a powerful baseline writing activity using Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour in your high school English class.
Bring Literature to Life with This Creative Theme Park Literary Analysis Project
As ELA teachers, we’re always looking for fresh ways to help students dive deeper into literature, especially with ways that go beyond the standard five-paragraph essay or chapter quiz. That’s exactly why I created my Theme Park Literary Analysis Project. This is a creative, engaging, and rigorous assessment that invites students to interact with literature in a totally new way.
This project has quickly become one of my favorite go-to final assessments for novels, plays, and even short stories. Whenever I finish a novel, I usually assign two major summative assessments: a standard novel test and a fun, collaborative project. Together, these two forms of assessment help me see what my students know. And this literary analysis amusement park project fits the bill for an engaging, collaborative, summative project!
3 Quick Ways to Boost Student Engagement and Energize Any Classroom Lesson
We’ve all been there—the class period feels sluggish, students are zoning out, and your perfectly planned lesson just isn’t landing the way you hoped. Whether
Build Classroom Community with Would You Rather Slides
At the start of a new school year (and quite frankly, all year long, too) one of my top priorities is building a strong, supportive