After years and years of holding seminars in my middle school ELA classroom, I have come up 6 tips you can implement to help you and your students get the most out of a seminar session! I believe these tips help my seminars run effectively in ALL of my classes (yes, even that class that can’t handle hardly anything) Click to see if there are any tips you can add to what you’re already doing!
Read MoreUp until this point, a lot of our students have just focused on plot, characters, POV, setting, etc. as independent concepts. This is how I got my students to go beyond thinking about story elements in isolation, and to start looking at how they work together and interact.
Read MoreThis one skill I have taught my students is something that is not only super useful for them right now, but it something that can be applied to all subjects throughout their academic career. This is WHAT I teach them and HOW I implement it on a consistent and daily basis!
Read MoreWow. Some days are just a struggle in the middle school ELA classroom. Trying to get 12-14 year olds to focus on reading for an extended amount of time takes some work and energy. After watching my students float off into la la land after 15 minutes of reading, I knew I had to come up with a way to keep them engaged during extended readings…
Read MoreI don’t know why today was they day, but it was. I mean, I’ve done it this way for years. But, for some reason, today was the day that where it became glaringly obvious: the way I was doing gallery walks to showcase student work was not meaningful or engaging. This is how I fixed the problem between class periods and instantly increased student engagement.
Read MoreDo you have students in your class that seem to get overshadowed? That struggle to get their thoughts out as fast as some of your other students. I saw this happening when I was asking questions, and knew something had to change. This is how I got my quieter students and those who need a little bit longer processing time involved…
Read MoreNo one in my class had any idea that the quiet boy who sat at table one had it going on. That his responses to our novel were insightful and went beyond the basics. It probably would have stayed this way and he never would have become a contracted response expert if I didn’t do this one thing….
Read MoreI am in awe of those teachers who can turn their classrooms into a mini Disney World overnight. I scroll Pinterest, save the ideas, dream a little, but secretly know that in this season of my life these amazing classroom transformations will live in the magical world of Pinterest Land. And that’s ok. I can still set the stage to engage without all the time and effort! In fact, this idea only took me less than 5 minutes to set up!
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