We’ve into part 3 now of how to create a short story unit for your middle school students – and an awesome unit at that! If you missed Parts 1 and 2 where we talked all about the hook and…
After 10+ years teaching writing, you can bet we’ve made plenty of mistakes! We want to share with you some of these, but we’re also going to share strategies that you can use to easily fix them. These tactics took…
Using writing stations in your middle school classroom can be a game changer in may ways. One of the most effective ways we have found to use writing stations is for reviewing concepts at the beginning of the year. Before…
While we know that one of the best ways for students to become better writers, is to read more, we also know that explicit writing instruction is critical for student success. In our experience, out of all the different types…
How many of us get excited to teach informational text? Our guess is not many. But, it doesn’t have to be that way! We’ve found that integrating an informational article or two within our literature units makes the units much…
Using sentence strips with your middle school students can be a pretty powerful way to get them thinking about writing in a different way. Normally, whenever we hear the term “sentence strips,” we always think of the 1st graders who…
What better way to get into the holiday spirit in your ELA classroom than to do a Gingerbread House for Sale Descriptive Writing Activity! (Side Note: Our moms are both realtors in the Bay Area, and they inspired this resource!) It…
Teaching literary analysis in elementary school can be challenging, but it’s incredibly important. Because, as Middle School ELA teachers, we’re often asked, “What are the main areas teachers should focus on in elementary school to prepare their kids for middle…
We love playing games in our ELA classrooms! Frankly, it’s a great way to review concepts and keep students engaged. Recently, we created a grammar bingo game and a figurative language bingo game that our students LOVE! We thought we’d…
Fall is officially here … candy corn is on the shelves, pumpkin spice lattes are a morning staple, and in school, we’re settled into our new routines. Now, that we can catch our breath after the start of the school…
Hi there! We're two middle school ELA teachers with a mission to share ideas, tips, and tricks for effectively teaching reading and writing in the secondary classroom. We're so happy you stopped by!
Caitlin + Jessica
