Middle School English

Have you tried blogging with your students? Ever since reading this post by my sweet friend Holly, I’ve been meaning to try Kidblog with my fourth graders. I finally took the plunge a few weeks ago and my kiddos have been absolutely loving it! Kidblog is FREE and extremely user-friendly. It took me less than 5 minutes to set up my class. Logging in for the first time was super easy—students simply select their name from a dropdown menu and enter their password. (I gave all my students the…

TEN alternatives to the grammar worksheet. Implement some of these tomorrow!

FREE ELA Resource for Middle School Teachers and Classrooms: PEEL Writing Strategy, Two Column Notes Organizer, Student Bookmarks, Teacher Planning, Summer Reading, Classroom Decor, and More!

Engaging grammar games for review in middle or high school ELA #grammargames #HighSchoolELA

Are you frustrated that students don't read your carefully crafted feedback? Do you wish they would actually use it to learn? Check out Room 213's latest blog post to get strategies for getting your students to read your feedback.

By Presto Plans I first realized the power of bell ringers years ago, thanks to a particularly unruly class that would bounce off my walls after lunch. After consistently wasting the first ten minutes of class getting students seated, settled, and ready to learn, I decided to give bell-ringers a try. They were immediately a classroom game-changer. Bell-ringers—sometimes referred to as “warm ups” or “do nows”— are questions, tasks, or other warm up activities that students complete at the…

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This past school year was a great one. With every school year that passes, I like to take a moment and reflect on activities that were successful in the classroom and really think about why they worked. Here are nine of my top activities from this previous school year. SWIFT Poetry Analysis Collaborative Poster Projects As a way to have my students practice their poetry analysis skills while also building their self-efficacy, my students worked on these collaborative posters. Using the…

This past school year was a great one. With every school year that passes, I like to take a moment and reflect on activities that were successful in the classroom and really think about why they worked. Here are nine of my top activities from this previous school year. SWIFT Poetry Analysis Collaborative Poster Projects As a way to have my students practice their poetry analysis skills while also building their self-efficacy, my students worked on these collaborative posters. Using the…

Teaching middle school is like no other teaching assignment - like no other task on Earth for that matter. As a teacher, you need to be just the right mix of cool and strict - but most important, calm. You need to have a good relationship with your students overall based on mutual respect. But that's much easier said than done. Here's the thing about middle schoolers in particular: They want to look good in front of their peers. What their peers think of them is of utmost importance to them…