In the last few weeks I've been playing with, talking to teacher friends, reading articles, and thinking about one thing... Chat GPT. I learned about this new AI tool in early December through a Facebook Group post that had 100+comments. The comments scared me, so I...
Every classroom has struggling writers. There are many reasons young writers struggle during our writing units. They may feel overwhelmed, be uninterested, have writing skill deficits because of past experiences with writing, or have learning differences. Often...
Table of contents: Give Student ChoiceMake it a ContestThrow a PartyPublish Student WritingUse Last Resort TacticsSo you want to excite students about your upcoming writing unit? Before I wrote this post I asked some 7th and 8th grade students this question: What...
Coming back to school after having two weeks off (or the summer off) can be really rough for students and teachers. The last thing anyone wants to do is get right back to work the first day back. It’s important for us to reconnect with our students, have some fun and listen to what they’ve been up to the last few weeks/months. Here are five activities that can help you do just that!
Sometimes we just need to have fun with our students and what better way than with simple classroom games? Having fun is important for many reasons some of which include: it builds community, it's a stress reliever, it fosters respect for the teacher (students are...
Don't Have Time to Read? Fiction writing is neglected in English classes everywhere for many reasons. We don't have enough time. Or we are afraid students might produce pages and pages and pages and we feel too guilty about not reading all of those...
The end of the school year can be chaotic, so keeping students engaged and having fun is incredibly important. I have used the project detailed here every year I've taught and it never fails to keep students loving their school work and writing until the very end....
Teaching students how to identify themes in literature can be challenging! It takes a lot of abstract thought which students may not even be capable of yet. Why not use the Valentine’s Day holiday to your advantage? Often, themes in literature involve relationships, and what better time to reveal this to students than on Valentine’s Day?!?!
Students are glued to their media...YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat are the top apps used by secondary kids. As educators our job is to engage our students in the process of learning and what better way is there to engage than through video?!?! In this post...
Welcome back! This is part three of a series revealing the truth about writing with mini lessons! In each blog post I provide a mini lesson you can use with your class to discuss topics all students think about but rarely get the chance to talk about in their...