I had planned to take a trip to add to my literary trip collection that I usually have in my classroom for when I do return to teaching, but that is something that had to be postponed as many of the roads I planned to take were washed away due to flooding and mudslides.

This made me think about how would I choose to teach after a natural disaster. When big events happen, I’ve always make it a point to allow normalcy of routines and opportunities to process. Writing can be cathartic, as many need to process through this information themselves. They may have had loved ones injured. They may have had their houses destroyed or damaged. Allowing students to find ways to help one another as some may have been fortunate to not have any damage.

In my local area, some things were hit and miss. I had one small hole in the roof of my house, but across the street, entire trees were on the ground. Tops of trees were sheared off in the wind. Down the road? Houses were crushed. Whole landscapes were changed. Power was out for us for 24 hours. Other areas, it took a week to restore. Some places more than that.

What I witnessed in my neighborhood was a lot of children playing outside after the storm had cleared. We had no internet for almost a week, even if we had power. It was nice to see people outside and not inside.

My grandchildren were displaced at Mom’s because she lived in the mountain area, so they were staying somewhere else. And when they were back home, they were with me having an opportunity to stay at my house overnight, something that they can’t do much of during school days. We made it as fun as we could.

Many schools in our area were out for a fall break, so the timing was better, but I know that many of my teacher friends were happy to get back to make sure that their students were safe and accounted for after the storm.

I’m hoping that I will be able to get back on track with my blogging since things are back to normal. I managed to read quite a few books that I’m looking forward to reviewing for you, plus compiling my research for some upcoming articles. Later.

The post Teaching after a natural disaster appeared first on Teaching ELA in the Middle.

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.

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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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.

The post How I like to spend the 4th of July appeared first on Teaching ELA in the Middle.

This past school year was nice having a ten day break between each 9 weeks, but our district decided to do away with that and just have two long breaks when we normally would have them (Christmas and Spring Break). Without school ending early, its still a long year with a short summer. With so many taking courses during the summer to pursue Masters, it really leaves no time to relax and unwind. It was one of the reasons why I created my ideal travel destinations with long and short trips.

The best way to take a vacay or break is to go on some short day trips or trips that do not require a long length of travel time to get there and back. By doing this, you can get out and have some fun, but you are not going to be as exhausted when you get back. Short energizing trips are just as great as those longer trips.

What’s your favorite short trip destination? Comment below.

The post Summers are getting shorter for teachers appeared first on Teaching ELA in the Middle.

Truthfully, I went searching for information on classroom ideas, and I realized that while there were many blogs about Elementary and even High School, but Middle School seemed to be left out of the loop. Especially when it came to ELA teachers.

You’ll also find that I do try to cover different trends with teaching reading and writing to middle school. Middle school is its own animal, so to speak. Elementary is cute and high school is more elevated, but middle school requires a special type of teacher. Plus, these days, finding ways to engage middle school students in the middle of the “Skibbidi Ohio Toilet Rizz Tuesday Tuesday So Sigma” era of slang can be challenging as well.

For that, I offer my blog.

The post Why did I become a teacher blogger? appeared first on Teaching ELA in the Middle.

In the past, I have tried the colored baskets to turn in work, and it didn’t work effectively. Students failed to remember what color basket was their grade level. I have even tried the lovely mail sort shelves, but even that didn’t work.

This year I decided to have almost everything online, and those things that were not, would have their own space in the room. For example, each class would have their own bellwork folders that were color coded. Writing notebooks or folders would have a space of their own separate from the bellwork folders. Plus, the iReady sheets would have their own space in class labeled file boxes.

Throughout the year, what I found was that bellwork folders did not get returned to their space, or they were placed in another class (which was obvious since they were color coded). The writing folders were placed in the wrong spot, and this was problematic due to the fact that these were NOT color coded. And as for the iReady section? Don’t get me started about how students shoved their trash and unwanted food into the file boxes.

I would have had better luck if I had just kept everything online, but unfortunately I had a few that lost their computer privileges and had to have paper copies of everything.

Even the lovely supplies that I put out in their own individual containers were stolen from said containers. If someone finds a solution for organization that truly works in middle school, let me know. I’d love to see it.

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