What to Teach Your First Week of Class
Planning your first week of class–whether you’re a seasoned teacher looking for a change or a teacher new to the middle school ELA classroom–is laid out right here, day by day for you!
Whether you have a 45 minute class or a 90 minute block schedule, knowing what you will do for the first five days of school relieves so much pressure and anxiety. Plus, if you teach multiple grade levels (as in, you ARE the entire ELA department at your school), then using the exact same plans for those first few days of all your classes will bring peace, organization, and simplicity to what is typically a hectic week.
In fact, to see how I structure my very first day of Middle School ELA, click here for the only four activities I’ll ever do.
Here we go:
The Reading + Writing Lesson: “Why We Read” and “Why We Write”
I know middle school ELA students will inevitably ask questions like Why do we have to read? Or Why do we have to write?
At some point (ok, at many points) throughout the school year. To be proactive, and to get students thinking, I do a very particular activity during the first week of school, and it takes less than 40 minutes total.
Here’s what it is:
I went to YouTube and curated a video collection of students who look like they’re in that middle school age range (at least 5th – 9th grade give or take). The videos are short–maybe around 3 minutes or so. And in the videos, students are talking about WHY they enjoy reading or writing. Their answers and insights are amazing and compelling and they have nothing to do with standards, schoolwork, or school-driven reasons.
These are kids who CHOOSE to make reading or writing a significant part of their lives for all kinds of personal reasons that they share in the videos. It’s eye-opening for my students to hear these perspectives and to get a chance to think about the benefits of reading or writing outside the classroom.
This is the step-by-step process I use:
(1) Before showing any videos, have students to jot down or explain *why* we read and write (get curious about their responses).
(2) Now show them the videos you’ve found without any discussion questions—they’ll have a chance to discuss and write in a moment.
(3) Use this as an opportunity to teach them your expectations for viewing and responding (we’re still in the first week of school with this lesson, so teach expectations before, during, and after).
(4) Now show them the questions you’ve planned for the videos (are there any questions about what the questions are asking?)
→ I view the videos ahead of time (obviously) and think of several open-ended questions I want my students to consider based on the videos. Such questions might be like why a video changes from using color to using black and white and how that impacts the speaker’s message. Or another one could be based on a personal truth spoken by a student in the video, and then to what extent that statement is true for others.
(5) Show the videos again in your class so that now students know what they’re looking for in terms of the discussion questions. And yes, they’ll want to see the videos again!
(6) Students record responses (either right on the document itself, or using whatever digital platform you wish). This is a perfect opportunity to teach procedures and expectations around using complete sentences, how and where to submit work, or what an early finisher should do while everyone else continues to work.
For the specific videos + discussion questions I personally use, I invite you to join the Middle School ELA 1st Week Lesson Plan Workshop to get ALL the resources and materials I’m talking about here!
It’s Free!
In just 15 minutes a day, for 5 days, you’ll have your ENTIRE 1st week of plans DONE along with all the lessons you’ll be using.
