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.

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.

The post Reading Trends 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.

Then, this year happened.

This year, things changed in my thinking process because we switched over to another data system that revealed to us some cold hard truths about our students: Many were far behind. We had 7th graders whose reading skills were between Kindergarten and 3rd grade level. How could I possibly expect everyone to understand the theme of Poe’s poem, “A Dream Within a Dream,” when they couldn’t grasp the meaning of words in context or sound out words they didn’t know or identify the speaker? We’re talking about a lack of vocabulary and phonics skills. We’re talking about reading something and not remembering what they read.

The problem became clear when we first started reading a text. I asked a question about a character and the students were clueless. They couldn’t identify which details were about the character. They couldn’t identify which details were about the setting.

Example: “A man was traveling at dusk…” “The primrose were just beginning to blossom…”

Question: When did the story take place? Answer should be in the evening and the time of year is beginning of spring. Answers I received: Morning. Fall. Early in the morning. Summer.

The sad part is that we talked about what dusk meant. We talked about primrose, and prime meaning first, etc.

So I went back and retaught using colored highlighters. One color for character. One color for setting. Still there were struggles.

I’m back to the drawing board and we are in October. I realize that I have to abandon my ideals of teaching texts for teaching reading skills. Using those graphic organizers to keep track of identification. Teaching how to use the organizers. Teaching how to find the information when it is not right in your face. How to connect the dots in the middle when all you have is the beginning and the end.

When I was in college, I didn’t think about teaching students how to read. I thought about teaching those classic stories that I loved so much. Teaching reading was for elementary, right? Wrong! As teachers, we are having to go back and teach students how to read. Teach them how to find information in a text. Teach them to skim. Teach them what it means to find the information in the “context” of the paragraph. To read before and after. To re-read something multiple times to pull out all of the information and not just what they think it might say.

Some of this I feel came from that Covid bubble, but much of it can be traced back to how we once taught reading. It’s the same as when we moved away from teaching writing. We decided to do it prescriptively and only teach what was needed. Now we have students who lack writing skills. No punctuation. No paragraphs. Just words on a paper. No capitalization even. And then these students enter middle school and we have to teach them all over how to write. I told a student that a paragraph should be about the same thought. They didn’t know how to read their own writing and distinguish what information talked about a similar thought. It’s their writing. You would think that they would know what they wrote. Alas, no they can’t.

What about you? What instructional strategies are you discontinuing, and why?

The post Which instructional strategies have you discontinued in your classroom? appeared first on Teaching ELA in the Middle.

As I stood at the front of the classroom with my copy of the article in my hand and the one projected on the board, I looked out at all of the confused faces. Even the journal prompt had stumped them when I asked them to “define” bullying and what is “unintentional” bullying? The words “define” and “unintentional” were lost on them. If these words confused them, how could I manage to get them to understand what it was that they were reading? Even my honors students struggled with some of the vocabulary.

In the long run, it set me back in my plans. I needed to find a way to unlock the skills needed so that they could understand. I needed them to know that reading word-for-word wasn’t always necessary if you knew what the questions were or you were given a set task. In this instance, I asked them to find some facts in an article. We even made a list of what facts would look like. Skimming through to find those facts should have been easy, but they gave up quickly.

Is this the trend? If it seems too hard, you just quit. We will be reading a novel soon, and I need to know that they can push through. Their stamina is at an all time low when it comes to reading. Their motivation is non-existent. It’s time to teach some new skills that will help keep them motivated in the long run.

The post Anti-Bullying Unit Update: Unlocking the skills appeared first on Teaching ELA in the Middle.

I think I have tried everything possible with these students, and it had become clear that what had worked in the past would not work with these students. This is a different generation of student. One that has come through Covid. One that no longer has the intrinsic motivation necessary to become successful students, and extrinsic rewards do not appeal to them. Plus, behavior is horrible.

Now, not all teachers have the issues with the students that I have. Those teachers have either another teacher in the room with them, or they have taken on the role of a stern teacher from the beginning. My mistake is that my reputation precedes me. I have tried to be the one who seeks out the problem and take a kind approach, but what I’ve learned is that my reputation is one of a “pushover,” and you can do what you want in her class.

There was a change this week. My newly medicated self (thank you, ADHD meds that make me feel like I’m on top of my game) has taken a complete 180. I’m fully aware. I have my stuff together and organized. I am more than capable of pulling myself together rather than feeling like a tightly wound ball of anxiety.

I started on Tuesday reading and discussing Cisneros’s “Eleven.” It’s short enough to keep their attention. They can easily identify the fact that the teacher shouldn’t have pushed the sweater onto Rachel. They can also empathize with Rachel’s feelings about Sylvia who states the sweater belongs to Rachel. Plus, they can think about why Rachel states the fact that the teacher is right because she’s older. Later we will read an article on intentional and unintentional bullying by teachers and discuss that in reflection of this story. My biggest purpose is to make them think outside of the stereotypical bully by hinting at a teacher could bully or someone you don’t expect could bully.

Wednesday we talked about the problems around laws that address bullying. We also started a first glimpse at South Carolina’s Safe School Climate Act. They started talking about some of the forms of bullying, and I had them look into some vocabulary that they may not know. Friday we will completely unpack the law that addresses what schools need. From here on out, the SC law will be a frequent piece in the classroom as we read and discuss several text pieces. We have a Fall break coming up starting next week, and when we return from break, I am planning to start our novel study.

Today they started building a case for how they feel about the punishment for bullying and whether that should be more strict. I pointed out on Wednesday that an author who was interviewed on NPR stated that labeling a bully could be a stigma that they couldn’t get rid of. My hope is to help them understand that all of us tend to bully, and we don’t want to be labeled as a bully. We want prevention. We want conflict resolution. We want to change the climate within the classroom and school. Not just “Here’s a law and if you don’t abide by it you will be punished.” The Safe School Climate Act specifies that schools have a set of rules in place, but how do you teach them? Just saying don’t do it isn’t the clear answer. Because of this, I love to teach this unit. It makes them think. It makes them take ownership in what we are doing and why we are doing it.

With that said, I can’t do it if they are not willing to listen. I had to put students out of my class this week because they were disrespectful. Not just to me, but to each other, as well. And some had to learn that what they asked for is a two way street. You can’t say to me, “You never stop so-and-so when they say stuff to me,” and then when I deal with it, you say something rude to them. It doesn’t work that way. Me handing out a consequence to them doesn’t give you a free pass to do it back thinking you won’t have a consequence.

I just hope that this new backbone holds strong. They’ve pushed me into a corner, and I don’t do corners.

The post New Unit and a Backbone appeared first on Teaching ELA in the Middle.

When I taught 8th grade, and 8th grade honors, I utilized Socratic Circles frequently. When I began teaching 6th and 7th grade, I moved away from them, but after this past year, I have decided that I want to incorporate Socratic Circles in my classroom once again.

Socratic Circles can be quite scary in the beginning. A teacher’s job is hands off. You are not in charge. You are merely a facilitator, not the teacher. You maintain the time, beginning topic, and make sure that the students are cordial with one another. The prep work for the first one can be quite laborious, but once you get the ground work laid out and have students do a practice run, it gets easier.

The Prep

Many things need to be introduced before you can have a Socratic Circle. Students need to know:

1. What it looks like?
2. How to participate?
3. What types of questions they need?

What it looks like?

Most students have worked in groups before, but they really haven’t participated in Socratic Circles. Sometimes I will have them do Fishbowl Discussions as a precursor to Socratic Circles, but not all the time. I make sure to share with them video of students in Fishbowl and Socratic Circles so that they know what it should look like. We discuss what they notice (believe me, most students love to share what they see). We talk about the importance of it. For example, there were questions. Why did they need a question? To keep the discussion going. To add to the discussion. To question what they just talked about.

How to participate?

Students need to understand how to participate in a Socratic Circle. While students understand the concept of talking, they may not understand social cues when talking. They will need to learn how to listen for someone who is finished speaking. They need to know how to take over in a conversation. With a first time group, I may choose to give them speaking cards until they understand how to ease into a conversation. If they have something to say, they use a card rather than raising their hand. (They are used to raising hands)

I even offer sentence stems to give them an idea of how to go about participating in the discussion. They need to know how to refer back to a comment, or how to add to a comment. They also need to understand that it is important to have come prepared to the circle.

What types of questions are needed?

Before your first Socratic Circle prep, you need to teach students about the different types of questions. I teach them about Costas levels of questioning and go over as a class building questions. We may do this several times before we begin with a Socratic Circle they will be graded on.

The Socratic Circle

When I do Socratic Circles, I tend not to do one giant circle. Instead, I have smaller ones. To cut down on the noise on the outer circle, I give them a job. They are to observe a student in the circle. These are chosen by me. I’m also observing both circles.

They sign up for a topic ahead of time. For example, when I taught Romeo and Juliet, I had topics such as, How is love portrayed in the media? and students must tie that in to the play. These topics are usually based on one of the themes of the text we are reading. When we read “The Most Dangerous Game,” we also read articles about the ethics of hunting, and one of the questions was on the feelings of animals. Or after reading “The Necklace” and “The Gift of the Magi” I asked a Burning Question, “Who sacrificed the most?” My hot seat was on fire for that one.

I do include a Hot Seat for Burning Questions. This is an empty seat that anyone from the outer circle may enter into the discussion. They can ask a question or make a comment. They may not stay in the seat for the discussion. They may also not line up behind the seat. They can only approach the seat if it is empty. In doing this, they have to do several things: pay attention to body language both around the inner and outer circle, know when they can enter into the conversation, and know how to add without disrupting the flow of what is already happening. To make it easier, you can always have a person who is in charge of the Socratic Circle. They turn everyone’s attention to the person who has approached after they finish the discussion they are in. This worked wonderfully with my honors group because they would finish their discussion, and allow the person who joined to discuss their question before they left. The person in charge also had access to the timer. They knew how much time they still had to discuss.

I always give them a time limit for discussion. This gives them several benefits. One, they know they have to have questions to keep the discussion going. Two, they also know how much time they have and to wrap it up if discussions are getting to in depth. Of course, as the facilitator, I do keep questions written down to make sure they do meet their time goal and also to make sure that they discuss what I want them to discuss. I may know a question that may come up on a test or TDA or once they are in high school (for honors entering AP classes).

The most important thing that they need to know is to come to the circle prepared. They have to refer back to the text. That may mean a marked up text or their textbook with post its placed on certain pages. If they say something, they have to back it up with the text if it is necessary. Defend it with text, Define it with text, and Explain it with text. This is the one reason why I have decided to go back to Socratic Circles. The 8th grade teacher talked about students not knowing how to find textual evidence. I realized that the one thing that my Socratic Circles did was to force them to back everything with textual evidence. I have 6th grade and 7th grade students back to back. Going back to Socratic Circles gives me the opportunity to teach them to find text evidence to support questions and comments.

If you would like to try Socratic Circles in your classroom, I have a zip file that includes all of the things that I use. When I first was told about Socratic Circles, I wasn’t given any information. I had to search the internet, and over the course of 10 years, I have narrowed things down. You are more than welcome to use them in your classroom or adapt them to your own needs.

Socratic Circles

The post Using Socratic Circles in the Classroom appeared first on Teaching ELA in the Middle.

This is a wonderful concept, and one that I was casually reminded of when I stopped this afternoon to check the mail at the post office, and entered into the vehicle to screams of “Hey! Ms. Thurston! Hey!” My son looked over at me and said, “Your students?” I looked around and saw the student in question, “No. I don’t teach him, but I know him.”

My son pondered this for a moment before asking, “Then how do you know him if you don’t teach him?”

I smiled and said, “You wouldn’t understand.”

Only a teacher would understand, I suppose. Many of my students that I teach in 7th grade, I don’t teach when they are in the 6th grade. Instead, I see them in the morning during my duty time of watching over students prior to dismissing them to the middle school hall. I see them in the hallways and at lunch. Do they know me? Do I know them? I begin to build many of these relationships prior to ever teaching them. I have even had an opportunity to have exchanges with my students when they are in elementary because our school is K-8.

I have learned over the years that students will forget what you taught them, but they will never forget how you made them feel. At 53 years of age, I still recall my 5th grade teacher who was harsh and how she made me feel like a failure at everything I tried to do. Or my 2nd grade teacher who forced me to use my name, Martha, and not my nickname, Marcie. She did that because her name was Martha, also. She taught me to embrace my name.

To this day, students that I taught, who are now adults, seek me out and tell me how they felt accepted, encouraged, and loved in my classroom. If they feel this way, then surely I did something right in my years of teaching. We have to show students that we care. We have to build those relationships with them. Sometimes, students make it difficult, but we have to push through. We have to pull them aside and ask, “Hey, this isn’t like you. What’s going on?” Open up the communication.

The post Love First, Teach Second appeared first on Teaching ELA in the Middle.

When Covid struck and schools were shut down in 2020, we had entire groups of students who suddenly were moved along with gaps missing in education and their social emotional development. The years that followed were about social distancing and maintaining a separate space, but we still failed to teach them how to interact with their peers.

Now that we are back to a somewhat normal schedule, we still have educational gaps and students who do not know how to deal with conflict in social environments. Their way of dealing with conflict is disruption in the classroom environment and screaming. Yes. Middle school students screaming across the room at one another in the middle of class. And it has happened on multiple occasions.

Dare I mention the addiction to TikTok? The app that so many became addicted to during the quarantine. They are so addicted that they forget they are in class and start dancing.

Our professional development was to adapt lessons to overcome the missed learning, but we did not have any on how to help these students adapt to a normal environment. I still have outbursts of “Corona virus” anytime a student sneezes or coughs to clear their throat. It is now a joke and form of bullying. Despite trying to teach students the right and wrong of being in the classroom, students still fail to understand the importance of an education. Their mindset is that they will be passed along regardless of knowledge, and because so many failed to turn in assignments when quarantined, but were allowed to do so, they don’t see the connection between assignments and success. They lack the intrinsic motivation to be successful. Even extrinsic rewards do not motivate them to do well.

Through this year, our admin has been trying to find ways to motivate students by having Honor Roll rewards and behavior rewards, but honestly, some do not care and would rather not have the rewards. Are these students problematic? Not all the time. They just refuse to do their work and at times, they can’t sit still or quiet in the classroom. Staying in when others get an extra recess? It’s nothing for them. They don’t care because they are getting their normal recess. Taking away canteen time? No big deal. They didn’t have money for it anyhow. Or they can just get a friend to buy for them. Now if the school decided to limit the amount that one student could purchase like they do with Elementary, that might change things, but I still doubt it.

What we need is how to motivate these students who give up completely.

What about you? What professional development do you wish you had?

The post The professional development we need appeared first on Teaching ELA in the Middle.

Homework may have its place in some classes where extra practice is required, but in ELA, I find that the only thing that homework brings is endless late night emails. If I’ve assigned essays or projects, I generally provide time to work on them throughout the week in class, even if we are working on something else entirely. By doing this, I can answer questions as they arise rather than at a time when I am in bed.

Why the sudden interest in homework?

Currently our school is completing its School Climate surveys. The teachers, students, and parents all take this survey. One of the questions is about homework, and I noticed that a student made the remark that hardly any teacher gave homework.

It’s true. Homework is a rarity, and it is mostly due to the fact that our district decided that homework cannot be counted as a grade. You may give a participation grade, if you like, but you cannot grade it right or wrong, and then give them a failing grade, or a zero for not turning it in.

Even before this, I had already made my stance on the subject prior to becoming a teacher. I had to go to a parent conference with his social studies teacher about his failing grade. This was odd because he was an honor student and history was his favorite subject. Even today, you could ask him anything about geography or historical events and he could tell you.

The teacher told me that he always made an “A” on his tests (this was when an “A” was 93 and above) and if he missed a question, he could even tell her which one he missed or was unsure of when he turned his test in to her. So why the failing grade?

As it turned out, she gave them vocabulary words to complete each week for homework, and he didn’t do them. I looked at her and said, “You do realize that he has an extended vocabulary, especially about history, right?”

Her reply was that he generally got the vocabulary right on the test despite the fact that he didn’t do the homework.

My suggestions was that she give him a pre-test of the vocabulary, and he would be responsible for only those that he didn’t know. I also argued that homework should not make a difference as to whether or not a child passed a class because it didn’t necessarily prove knowledge of the subject, only knowledge of the terms used in discussing the subject. I further argued that if a child did not have the resources or the capability to complete the assignment, then it was punishment for what a parent couldn’t provide, and not necessarily what the child could do.

I have no clue as to whether or not she took my idea, but he did go from failing to passing. Maybe it was just to get me to stop making valid points.

My observations through my children

My biggest pet peeve has to do with children being punished for something that was the fault of their parent.

When my oldest son was in elementary school, I had a teacher inform me that it was a shame so many students in her class couldn’t read and that they were failing. The students were not doing their homework. The students were not doing their reading at night. She just didn’t know what else to do.

These were children who were being raised by grandparents who could not read or write. The teacher was the only teacher in their life. Parents were in jail or on drugs, and they definitely were absent from their child’s life. The only people who were available to help needed help themselves.

Illiterate grandparents are not as common as they were 25 years ago when my son was in school, but their are quite a few parents and grandparents who do still struggle. It is the reason why here in South Carolina so many parents complained about the Common Core standards and new math. It wasn’t necessarily new, but the teaching concept was unfamiliar to adults who were not taught that same way. For this reason, they decided to do away with the Common Core standards, but it was still some time before the textbooks were replaced, and these teachers are still having to attend classes to show them new ways to teach.

To be honest, just leave the classwork in the class, and let homework be getting rest or unwinding for the day.

The post My view on homework appeared first on Teaching ELA in the Middle.