The Struggle is Real Do you ever begin a lesson and realize your kids have no idea what you're talking about? Even though they should have background knowledge from previous school years? Yeah, me too. The biggest problem we have had at my middle school lately is the serious lack of grammar knowledge. I mean,… Continue reading ELA Student Handbook for Middle School
Category: Secondary ELA
Annotation Academy- Teaching Your Secondary Students to Annotate
My Introduction to Annotation Several years ago, I was attending AP conference at TCU and heard the term annotate for the first time. I say several years, it was probably more like a decade ago. Of course, as an English student, I knew what interacting with a text was, but I don't remember hearing the… Continue reading Annotation Academy- Teaching Your Secondary Students to Annotate
Anchoring Your Instruction: Using Anchor Charts in Secondary English
Do you ever go on Pinterest (of course you do) and see some of the incredibly adorable anchor charts for the elementary classroom? They are so colorful, and they have little drawings of people and fish, and they rhyme and stuff. Can you imagine hanging something like that up for your middle or high schoolers… Continue reading Anchoring Your Instruction: Using Anchor Charts in Secondary English
Censoring in the Middle- These Kids Laugh at the Craziest Stuff
The other day, I gave one of my fellow teachers my Magnetic Poetry Kit because I've never found a place for it, and she has some on the side of her metal desk. I figured she'd get more use out of it, you know? Well, we teach middle school kids, so of course I warned… Continue reading Censoring in the Middle- These Kids Laugh at the Craziest Stuff
My Flexible Seating Journey in the Secondary Classroom
I've always been a teacher that likes to make my classroom a bit more homey than most. Even in my first year of teaching, I wanted to add lamps, a couch, and a papasan chair to my room to give it that little something extra. Well, my first year was 20 years ago, and there… Continue reading My Flexible Seating Journey in the Secondary Classroom