I say this because reading is changing. Some are familiar with BookTok (ahem), and others only read if it is on a video game. I have no problem with video game reading because it was the incentive I used for my boys to read because I grew tired of constantly reading the instructions for them, but at the same time, we need to encourage them to read more.

An article at Psychology Today reiterates the benefits that we get from reading. The increase in empathy, improvement of mental health, and an improvement in social cognition are all benefits to reading. With mental health being at the forefront of concern for middle and high school students, the push to encourage reading in this age group is founded.

When I was struggling with my own mental health and anxiety issues, reading was one of the suggestions give to me as a part of my health plan. Turning off my phone and TV to focus on reading at least a chapter before bed was a great way to destress and unwind. My bad habit was overstimulation from electronic devices (TV included) and the inability to sleep due to focus on external stimuli I had no control over. Reading provided me a way to calm my anxiety and focus on something other than those things I had no control over.

At one time, my biggest argument for reading was telling my students how little they would earn than those classmates who read, but all it took was one student to rally against that and state they didn’t care. They’d rather live in poverty and on welfare than pick up a book. That was their exact words. It didn’t matter. But this was the same student who later came to me to share a book that changed their life. Most don’t realize that they need the messages in books. Not the messages that parents feel are indoctrinating their children. No. Instead they need the messages of hope, love, and the ability to overcome.

In college, my professor had me keep a reading journal. In this journal, I listed those books read and made a note as to what students would benefit from reading that particular book. There were books that I wouldn’t suggest due to the material and the fact that as a mother, I don’t think so, but I did find books that I felt my students who were struggling with identity or loss of a parent might find helpful. These are books that the students found helpful because of the improvement in their mental health that they didn’t know they received.

Connections are everything…

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I don’t know what kind of odd colds are going around your parts, but I do know that this one I had was not a team player. It knocked me on my rear!

Even my oldest son complained about it.

I’m currently still struggling to pull it together. I promise I’ll get back in there and catch up my posts soon.

The post Being Sick Sucks appeared first on Teaching ELA in the Middle.

C was a bright and gifted student. Because of this, he often finished his work quickly or he ended up bored in class. The teacher he had before me stated that she asked mom if the child had worms or had been checked for worms because he was super skinny, but he was always asking other kids in the lunchroom for their breakfast or lunch. I ignored that and focused on teaching the child.

Soon, I began to notice he would often visit my classroom during his activity class in the afternoon. He would request to go to the bathroom (which was next door to my classroom) and stop in my room when I was eating my lunch. Always he’d ask, “Are you going to eat that?” Sometimes, if I had extra, I would give him what he requested.

It was a little later, when the Math teacher who was hired at the same time came to me to discuss C. She found out after talking to him that he wasn’t eating at home. We did report it, but nothing was really done about it. Instead, we would bring non-perishable food that he could take with him (he would either store what we gave him in his book bag to take home, or put them in his locker) and perishable food he could consume right then. See, what we found out is that he was being made to eat a bug before he was allowed to have dinner.

If what he was going through food-wise wasn’t enough to break my heart, the rest was. His parents fought over custody, not to mention the fact that mom didn’t want to give up her check. She loved on his sibling and talked down to him. It was heart breaking to hear how she talked about him with him in the same room.

He was highly medicated to the point that the medication caused him hallucinations. The day I had to write him up for “mooning” his classmates pained me. The episode was brought on by the medication and not the behavior the meds were supposed to treat.

Before long, mom decided to put him in a behavior camp. I cried the day he left for camp, but my assistant principal said the one thing that I knew to be true: At least he will be away from her. We all knew. We knew that he was better off, but we just hoped that the people at the camp would see what we saw: A broken boy in need of love.

The lesson I learned in my 2nd year of teaching is that no matter what, I had to show my students love. I had to be their cheerleader and support even if they were the worst student in the class. Doing so, I realized that some of my worst students managed to become my best. It may have been difficult with some students. Especially the students who had built up walls to protect themselves. Those were the ones that I had to break through piece-by-piece to find the vulnerable student underneath. But had I not had C to show me what students needed, I wouldn’t have known to stick with the challenge.

After my encounter with C, I kept snacks in my room, had praise ready on my lips, and always found a way to find the good in my students. He may have been a challenging student, but once he allowed himself to become vulnerable in front of me, it allowed me an opportunity to teach him and be the teacher he needed. It was a lesson that I still remember to this day.

The post One Student Can Teach You A Lot appeared first on Teaching ELA in the Middle.

Nine years ago, the word rigorous was pounded into my head. I needed to make sure that my lessons were rigorous (challenging), but they also needed to be world based. In other words, the students needed to be able to apply this to the world around them. The principal who told me this started me down a road where I would constantly think about how to incorporate that into my lessons.

Socratic circles were incorporated into my lessons. Debates were incorporated. Research based on problems were incorporated.

Hands on activities were my students’ favorite. When giving them a project, it involved writing, research, and an output that allowed them to be creative. To keep things achievable, I let them know that being an artist was not the goal. If I saw them working diligently, using their time wisely, and producing a quality product, then they did what I asked them to do.

Prior to that time period, I was unsure how PBL would fit into an ELA classroom. There were plenty of ways for it to fit into a Science, Math, or even Social Studies class, but ELA? It took me realizing that utilizing a problem (an argument about pollution, overpopulation, and food choices in the cafeteria) fit into the curriculum. Reading a novel could provide students with an opportunity to create a project based on the reading. With Restart, they did a project around bullying. When I taught The Giver, they gave each other jobs based on their personality traits and researched those jobs.

In the past, we’ve created board games to teach grammar, movies to create book trailers of favorite books, and held character trials. These are all project based. The challenge isn’t in the what. It’s in the how.

The post Project Based or Problem Based Learning appeared first on Teaching ELA in the Middle.

For me, blogging started out as a way to take my journaling to a digital platform. It gave me the ability to not only share what I was going through, but to take chances with different styles of writing until I was able to craft my own writer’s voice. Grant it, it wasn’t always easy.

When I first began, it was not about teaching. It was about my struggle with my weight, exercise, and dieting, along with my affinity with a certain NASCAR driver who is now retired, and no, it was not Dale Jr. despite what people may think. I used this as a way to work through things. It became my emotional outlet.

The teaching blog? It was also my emotional outlet. A way to deal with those things that as a teacher we have to let go of if we are to move on.

I never expected teaching to be so filled with emotional heaviness, but as soon as I saw the disparaging differences in socioeconomics, I was filled with a heaviness. I first described it as a culture shock. I was surprised to see how different things were. I may have grown up poor, but I grew up in a 2 parent household. I didn’t have to go see one in prison. There were no visitations. Things were good. Wrapping my head around my students’ truths was not so easy. So I took to blogging to keep my sanity and keep my journaling in the digital realm.

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What happened during that time period?

During the time of Covid, we saw a huge jump in virtual education, but we also saw a huge influx of students who became as addicted to social media, such as TikTok. I remember having students in my class while I was trying to teach who were going through the motions of a TikTok dances. Guess what? TikTok is still popular amongst middle school students.

This influx of social media with its instant satisfaction (think of the constant scrolling and the fact that videos were extremely short) created students who were conditioned to expect that stimuli be short, quick, and satisfactory.

How do we compete with that in the classroom?

In our school district, we began to utilize this in our classroom. Mini lessons became the name of the game, and we could easily fit 2 or 3 in a 60 minute class. This meant jumping and transitioning from one to the other. Allowing students shortened writing and processing times. How did this help with reading? You were basically teaching comprehension in short 5 to 15 minute bursts. But building up stamina for reading? Not really.

We are going to have to move past just competing with social media. We are going to have to retrain students in building up reading stamina if we are going to have any success in the classroom. Among my students who tested well this year, it was learning to skim read that helped them with their tests. But here in South Carolina, we have new standards and new tests in ELA. Skim reading may not help, but teaching students how to read a question and then find answers could benefit them. Over all, finding a way to engage students into reading and incorporating the shortened lessons to activate their need for constant changing stimuli could benefit post-Covid students.

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To make sure that it was fair, they even had to complete an application to take on the classroom job. They could even be fired from their job if they did not take it seriously. One of my jobs was a classroom greeter. This person stood at the doorway with me and greeted those entering. They even answered the door when someone came to the classroom while I was teaching. Another job was errand person. This is the person who took things to other classes/teachers or even the front office.

I actually started this because I taught The Giver, and the students had to decide what each person would do based on their personality and what they knew about them. This gave me the idea that some are qualified to do more. I felt that as a teacher, I should nurture these natural abilities.

No one had to take a job if they did not want it. I didn’t push it. I did have a rotation in place. Plus, it was nice not to have 20 hands shooting up in the air when I needed something done. That person had already been assigned. It was fair. I even had substitutes to fill in when someone was out sick. When Covid came into play, I stopped my classroom jobs and just never went back to them.

Some jobs to consider:

• Classroom Greeter
• Plant caretaker
• Errand Runner
• Paper/Supply Handler
• Technical Assistant
• Peer Tutor/Helper
• Clean up Crew

This is not an absolute list. Some years, depending on the activities that I had planned, things may be added or changed.

The post One thing I’d do again: Classroom Jobs appeared first on Teaching ELA in the Middle.

The word “FLEX” has been used, but considering it was used in a Will Smith (Fresh Prince) song from the 90s, was it really new? For some reason, old things become new again, and word meanings change.

Skibidi Toilet pretty much became the bane of my existence, along with Sigma. The combination of that with Ohio and Rizz left me bumfuzzled. When I thought I understood it in the correct context, something changed.

Apparently, Skibidi Toilet is something that isn’t good and when paired with Ohio, it is much worse. But Rizz is charisma, while Sigma means to be in charge. You’re the big dog. Basically an Alpha, but you are all alone in your alpha-ness. You don’t need a pack beneath you to prove you are the best.

Yes, I made this mistake. I had laryngitis and the only way to have a voice was to talk much deeper than normal. Pair that with me stepping in front of a male student about to harrass a female, and well, one thing led to another, and I proclaimed that I was the Alpha in my classroom. I was dominant. My room. My rules. I was in charge.

Don’t do that. You will never live it down.

Just trust me on this.

The best thing to do is to demand that they use regular language in the classroom unless they are prepared for whatever consequences for using the slang may be. Just keep up with what is trending. Otherwise, it could get quite interesting.

The post Are you ready for the slang? appeared first on Teaching ELA in the Middle.

• Pentel Energel Retractable Pens: These pens write smoothly with no smearing.
• Better Office Products Folders with Pockets: I used these for bellwork and even writing folders. They come in several different colors and I was able to get a class set.
• Dabo&Shabo Highlighters 60 pk: If you teach ELA, these come in handy for highlighting.
• Ticonderoga Wood case Pencils: These are by far the best pencils.

The post Must Have Teacher Faves appeared first on Teaching ELA in the Middle.

We may come up with some crazy kind of game with the kids, or become kids ourselves chasing each other around with the water guns, but just know that it will involve being outside and having a blast just hanging out with family and friends.

For the food, it’s going to involve an absolute feast. We will definitely have grilled burgers, but the grilled hot dogs and the potato salad are going to be the stars of the show.

I’ve made the same potato salad for years. If you want the recipe, you’ll find it here.

The same goes with the chili for the hot dogs. You’re going to need a beer for that one. Find the recipe for the chili here.

Once you’ve made those, just know that people will be beating down the door to get to your next cookout.

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