Sane and Simple Tools to Help You Teach Middle School ELA
Time (and sanity) saving tips that will improve your effectiveness as a writing teacher!
Fun and engaging tools to help students find books they LOVE, dig deep into literature, and share their understanding!
Tools and tips to help you plan, organize, and manage your classroom & lessons.
Do you plan writing projects and provide students with an assignment sheet? Doing so can help you focus instruction and improve student outcomes. Here are some quick steps help you plan your own projects: First, you get a great idea… You are driving home from school, listening to the radio, and daydreaming…suddenly an amazing idea […] Read more…
Teaching with a unit plan makes your weekly lesson planning a snap. It also helps you organize and plan your year. Here are some quick steps to unit planning that will really work! If you’ve already created a year long plan, you’ll use that to pick the unit you want to create. If your yearlong plan […] Read more…
One of the most rewarding and impactful aspects of writing workshop is the writing conferences your students will have with you and their peers. How can you make the most of this time? Here are some ideas for you: Start with the Ideas Ever collect a stack of completed essays, sit down with your giant […] Read more…
Your writing workshop is humming along beautifully. Students are working, you are conferencing, life is grand…until you look in your grade book. Gotta get those grades, right? But where are those assessments going to come from? You might not want to wait until the final draft or essay is turned in. Parents and administrators can […] Read more…
You’re ready to get started with writing workshop, but you have one nagging question looming in the back of your mind: What is the rest of the class doing while you’re holding student conferences? Fear not! Here are some ideas for how to manage your class during writing workshop. Teach routines Students should understand completely […] Read more…
If you’re thinking about structuring your class to include writing workshop, you might be wondering what the writing workshop format looks like. What does writing workshop look like? The most important part of writing workshop is to make it YOURS. There isn’t a “one size fits all” method. Adapt and adopt ideas that work for […] Read more…
If you’ve decided to teach writing using the workshop method, you probably have some questions. Here are seven questions and answers to help you get started. 1. What exactly is a workshop class? Remember the story of the elves and the shoemaker? I think of that story when I think of a workshop class. The […] Read more…
Congratulations! You’ve decided to adopt a writing workshop class! Now, you might be wondering: now what? Here are some tips to get you headed in the right direction! How Are Your Class Management Skills? Let’s be honest. One of the most important skills for a teacher is to know how to effectively manage her/his class. […] Read more…
Writing workshop can transform your classroom! Sounds magical, doesn’t it? I believe it’s true — and here is why: 1. Real Writers & Real Work Often students feel like they write something, it gets corrected, and…end of process. In a workshop, students grapple with the entire writing process: revision, determining what they really want to […] Read more…
If you assign homework, even if it’s just daily reading, you’ve probably encountered this excuse for incomplete work: “I didn’t have time…” Perhaps you’ve even had parents send notes or emails repeating the same thing — their child didn’t have time to complete homework. Kids are busy — that’s true, but are they managing their […] Read more…