I have a confession to make. 

We are seven school days away from our end of grade state testing and I have not done much review with my students. 

This may be because we have 5,326 standards in our curriculum to teach and it’s a stretch to get through everything in the short amount of time we have. 

It may be because this year was a little challenging on the behavior front and we had to spend time learning how to do school again.

Whatever the reason, the fact remains that I’m a little behind. 

I am not one that likes to teach to a test, but just as an athlete prepares for game day with a scrimmage and a dancer for a performance with a dress rehearsal, I understand the value of practicing for game day.

This weekend I sat down with my calendar and came up with a plan that is going to help my students review the power standards and concepts before the big test. 

If you’re in the same boat with me and are looking for a last minute review plan, get ready to take some notes! We are about to hash out our last couple of days!

First, I took the three main categories for testing - Literature, Informational Text, and Language - and pulled out what I felt are the three most important concepts from each section. 

The Concepts

Literature:

• Making inferences and supporting with text evidence

• Determining theme

• Analyzing dialogue for character traits and motivations

Informational Text:

• Determining the central idea of a text

• Understanding the structure of a text

• Identifying and analyzing arguments and claims

Language:

• Determining the meaning of words using context clues

• Analyzing figurative statements for meaning

• Understanding and making analogies 

Next, I want students to be able to move through the review at their own pace, so I created a simple Google Slide review board that has-

• Each concept separated into categories

• A “cheat sheet” for the students to review the vocabulary words and examples related to the concepts

• A hyperlinked 10 question Google Form practice quiz  

BTW…I am in love with the targeted practice quizzes for each concept! By doing it on Google Forms, there is immediate feedback for the students and I am not drowning in papers to grade! 

Each practice quiz has multiple passages for students to practice their reading and annotation skills, so I also plan on providing them with an annotation sheet to use for each passage.

My plan is for students to work through the review at their own pace. They will click on the “cheat sheet” to review the concept as needed and take the practice quiz when they feel ready.

Students will have to show me their grade before they can move on to the next concept. 

If students have a 70 or below, I am going to review with them what they missed so we can see if there is a pattern. (Are they not reading the passages? Do they not understand theme is different than a summary? Are they confused on what makes evidence relevant? Etc.)

This last minute, but comprehensive review should take a week to complete and will take us right up to state testing. I love that students will work at their own pace so it will give me time to work individually with students.

If this is a plan you can jam with, I have some resources to help you get started!

Resources to Help You

Standards ‘Cheat Sheets’ FREE Download!

Just fill out the form for the direct link to the Google Folder!

Complete Activity on TpT

Get started quickly with this immediate download!

ELA Unlimited

A hub where you can download this resource plus tons of other creative and engaging activities for your middle school classroom!