Teaching middle school english

Try this free, fun, and interactive middle school ELA games in your classroom to teach grammar and literacy ELA skills!

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…

Since I don't have a vocabulary book or program that I HAVE to follow at my school, I used to always worry if I was doing enough vocabulary instruction. Even when I was theoretically following best practices or authentically investigating words as they came up in texts, I was concerned about if I was really helping my students become better readers. After a lot of trial and error, I'm now proud of what we do for middle school vocabulary, which falls into four main areas: Specific Words for…

Here are SEVEN engaging activities for the first week back to school in middle school and high school English Language Arts. #middleschool #highschool #8thgrade #7thgrade #6thgrade #ELA #english #languagearts

15 exit ticket ideas for any subject or grade level!

Create a classroom of writers with these fun writing activities for middle school students! There's something for everyone!

Ten Creative and Engaging Writing Warm-Ups for Creative Writing #HighSchoolEnglish #HighScholELA #CreativeWriting

The good, the bad, and the ugly of what daily silent reading really looks like in my middle school ELA classroom.

I began elementary school in the era of phonics. Looking back, I can honestly say that it seemed to work okay. Matching pictures with their word families in plaid workbooks... I learned to read, but

Classroom preparation is the key to success!