Episode 237: Get Your Students Actually Enjoying Writing with this FUN Activity

Listen now!

On this episode of Teaching Middle School ELA, Caitlin and Jessica discuss a fun and engaging lesson called “The Case of the Stolen Pearls” that can help middle school students enjoy writing. The activity involves solving a mystery to figure out which teacher stole a pearl necklace using an evidence-based writing approach. They discuss the importance of teaching literary analysis as the foundation of every other writing style and share tips for improving student writing scores.

Tune in now to hear:

• [00:00:52] In this episode, Caitlin and Jessica welcome listeners and invite them to a free workshop on teaching literary analysis hosted by EB Academics this month. They then dive into the main focus of this episode:a fun activity to help students enjoy writing and improve their literary analysis skills.
• [00:04:35] This engaging lesson involves a mystery called, “The Case of the Stolen Pearls” where students have to find out which teacher stole the pearls by analyzing evidence from a given text. The activity follows the EBW approach and includes writing and discussion. 
• [00:09:17] This activity is available for free at ebacademics.com/pearls. Listeners can sign up for the free ELA PD series all about teaching literary analysis at ebteacher.com/writing.

The Case of the Missing Pearls
https://www.ebteacher.com/free-argumentative-writing-activity-SM

Register now for our FREE summer workshop!
https://www.ebteacher.com/writing

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Now if you’re feeling extra awesome today, we would be super grateful if you left us a review over on iTunes, too. Those reviews help other people find our podcast, and they’re also so much fun for us to go in and read. Just click here to review by scrolling down our show page, selecting a star rating, and tapping “Write a review.”  Let us know what your favorite part of the podcast is. You’ll receive a free sentence/fragment activity resource. Just screenshot it before submitting it and email it to us at caitlinandjessica@ebacademics.com with the subject line TMSELA Review| Sentence Fragment Activity. Thank you!