Kids Reading Aloud: It Doesn’t Have to Be Painful! Easy, actionable steps to take to ensure your students can read aloud with real voice and tone: First of all, I just want to say that this particular blog post is focused on helping your Language Arts students learn to read
Teaching Flashback Activities for Your Middle School ELA Classroom Elements of Fiction: Flashback [Let’s say your students are reading a story and it begins like this:] Underneath the creaky, weathered deck of the front porch a pale, peeling hand was hurrying along the edge, coming up and over the top. It’s just
Teaching Tone Activities for Your Middle School ELA Classroom What is the TONE of the text? It’s not what you say… It’s how you say it. But how does that work when you’re reading and you can’t actually hear the person’s voice? The secret is in the words the writer uses.
Teaching Mood Activities for Your Middle School ELA Classroom MOOD Writers create it by using words, details, and descriptions to make a story seem gloomy, creepy, imaginary, pitiful, lighthearted, comical, or somber. Of course there are other mood words that a writer can use, but we can stick with these for now!
Theme vs. Topic Activities 6th Grade Language Arts Even though 6th graders have been learning how to identify the topic of their reading selections since pre-K, it gets all muddled when the teacher throws in theme and main idea, too. Theme? Topic? Main idea? They’re not all the same
Reviewing or Introducing Plot Analysis with Videos in Middle School English Language Arts Before analyzing plot, like really analyzing it, it may be helpful to review some basics. Regardless of where you are in the school year, you can count on kids in your class who just can’t remember
Teaching Characterization in 6th Grade ELA How Writers Show Characterization appearance inner thoughts & feelings outer actions & speaking what others say about that characters how others treat that character Terms to Know & Teach character traits character attributes protagonist / antagonist direct / indirect characterization static / dynamic characters conflict
Ideas for Teaching Setting in 6th Grade Language Arts Setting: How to teach it in quiz, easy ways. If you’ve ever been in my shoes, then you know what it’s like to teach a novel or to spend weeks on an amazing series of short stories at the beginning
Kid-friendly movie clips to help show, teach, and explain different types of conflict Conflict can be superfun and easy to teach! Start by using the image above, which I use as a bell ringer in one of my four-week units on teaching elements of fiction. I just throw that little PowerPoint
SUPERQUICK literature centers in the 6th grade ELA classroom Why I use literature centers in my 6th grade language arts classroom I need a way to reteach important concepts all through the year Students need a way to work on extension activities without much teacher input When I need to spend time working
NO PREP NEEDED! REVIEW ANY 6TH GRADE LANGUAGE ARTS UNIT USING YOUR SCHOOL LIBRARY! 1) GENRE REVIEW This is a no-brainer since you’re in the library, but it’s how you implement the review to make in interactive and memorable. Here’s what to do for this “scavenger hunt”
How to fill that extra 5-15 minutes at the end of class We’ve all been there: “That lesson didn’t take as long as I thought!” “I ran out of time last class but now I have 12 more minutes in this class! What the heck??!!” It’s Thursday afternoon and
I know what I’m doing the last two days of school! It’s gonna be crazy those last two days of 6th grade Language Arts! Two classes are DONE because of awards ceremonies. Two classes are NORMAL because, well, it’s just normal class time. One class is DONE because of yearbook
Ideas for the End of the School Year 6th Grade Language Arts Everywhere I look, it seems like teachers are gearing up for end-of-the-year lessons and activities. The 6th grade Language Arts classroom ideas I’ve been looking at online in particular seem to be loaded with all these incredibly
“2 for 1” Assignments Creative & Challenging Assignments WITHOUT ALL THE GRADING When you think of a “2 for 1” special, you think of getting a good deal— two things for the price of one a half-off special a 50% discount buy-one-get-one free They seem like a no-brainer, and they