Secondary english activities

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

Last year, in my first class with my all my Grade 9s, I did a quick quiz to find out what they enjoyed about studying English, what they struggled with, and what were their areas of weakness. As you would expect, their answers varied. Yet there was one resounding finding: they hated studying poetry. I was devastated. Poetry made me fall in love with language: beautiful nuggets of human experience, wrapped in delicious words and stunning imagery. How could one not love it? My work was cut out…

Pretend you're an alien from outer space ...

These English teacher supplies are must haves for quick ELA lesson plans. Pair your back to school wish list with ideas for English teachers!

If you need new ideas for group work to use in your high school classroom then this blog post is for you. It includes 3 fantastic ideas and a free download!

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

Now that the 2017-2018 school year has come to a close, I am spending some time reflecting on my practice as an educator. While there were some lows of the

Check out this engaging informational text activity for high school students. These informational text worksheets are engaging for students but also focus on the ELA standards. It’s always important to teach the standards, but I like to do it in a way that gets my students’ attention and keeps them motivated to read. It’s fun […]

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…

Three Academic Routines for the Secondary ELA Classroom - Prepare your middle school ELA and high school English students for success by implementing these three academic routines in the classroom. From teaching writing to sentence combining lessons to academic vocabulary, these ELA academic routines will help your students succeed. High school English lessons | Middle School ELA Lesson | ELA Activities | Teaching Middle School ELA | Teaching High School English