and living life one day- and book- at a time
I had a conversation with a colleague about improving my students’ writing stamina while still making writing fun for them. I was discouraged by the fact that students didn’t often think that my prompts were as fun to complete. To make matters worse, I sat through a professional development meeting where the speaker pushed the …
At the beginning of each year, I teach my students the RACE writing strategy. I find that many times, as students reach middle school, they lack the ability to fully explain and cite evidence from the text. While the ability to cite evidence is a key standard, it is also an important skill when writing …
One of the hardest reading skills for students has been to identify and use text structures. Due to this, I decided to create a way of scaffolding instruction for text structures during this quarter. Generally I would teach text structure as I came across it in a text, but after reading their short stories from …
I’m going to start giving you a glimpse into the day in the life of a teacher on a regular basis. I’m still going to provide you with helpful articles and ideas for the classroom, but sometimes as a teacher, you just need a place to cheer about the positives and rant about the disasters. …
What if I told you that there was an easy way to increase reading scores in your students’ tests that didn’t involve more testing and more lessons? In the past, I was introduced to the concept of reading literacy. The district I worked with had a very strict policy of including Independent Reading, Read Alouds, …
When I began my journey toward teaching, I had big ideas and plans. Before I graduated, I had already been in the classroom for several student teaching experiences, plus I had written a lengthy paper on my personal teaching philosophy, and of course, raising my children made me feel prepared to step into the classroom. …
Finding a way to make learning fun and engaging can be difficult the older students become. Add to that the issue with technology, and teaching becomes more challenging. One of the problems that we have in middle school is that students who have never had a personal laptop are suddenly presented with one, and with …
Which is harder to teach? Middle school or high school? I’m not much of a veteran, but I started my teaching career in high school before navigating my way to the middle school waters. Both have their perks and quirks, but when it came down to it, I chose middle school. Or perhaps, middle school …
These two education books have been life changing in my classroom this year. I was introduced to the books last year when my school district decided to start using Jennifer Serravallo’s Reading Assessment Kit for Fiction. The district placed heavy emphasis on teaching reading due to the fact that so many students were struggling with …
Finding books for boys that they find interesting and that will engage them in reading can be difficult. So many times, especially in middle school, boys tend to move away from books. Last year, I challenged my students to read. They kept a reading log, and we started off with 15 minutes each class period …
