📌 “Getting students to add details is like pulling teeth!” Sound familiar? You’re not alone. Many teachers find themselves begging students to add more, but what they get is a random adjective here, an unnecessary adverb there, and not much else. Here’s the thing: if we want students to write with detail and clarity, we […]
Lesson Planning
Micro Writing: Small Bursts, Big Results
📌 Why A common writing frustration—“Getting students to add details is like pulling teeth!” If you’ve ever heard this in your classroom, you know how difficult it can be to help students move beyond basic writing to more descriptive, refined work. ✍️ Why It’s Important Micro writing isn’t just about writing quickly, it’s about working […]
Active Reading, Dynamic Conversations, and Powerful Writing Strategies
Middle schoolers don’t often come to class eager to discuss global warming, but when you hand them a vivid image and ask them, “What’s going on in this picture?”—well, you just might surprise yourself. Recently, I had the chance to work with an incredible group of middle school students, most of whom are second-language learners. […]
Shared Writing: Bringing the Magic of Collaboration Back to the Classroom
Shared writing is a fantastic, collaborative approach that brings students into the writing process. Imagine sharing the cognitive load (and sometimes the literal pen) with your class – it’s a powerful way to model writing skills, strategies, and even the mechanics of encoding. It’s one of those teaching techniques that packs a serious punch. In […]
Empowering Your Students Through Summarizing: A Lesson with “Thank You, Ma’am”
Hello, dedicated educators! Today, we’ll walk through a practical lesson on summarizing using Langston Hughes’ classic short story, “Thank You, Ma’am.” Summarizing is an essential skill that helps students distill a text to its core components, promoting comprehension and retention. Why Summarizing Matters Summarizing requires readers to engage deeply with the text, evaluate information, and […]
A Close Reading Lesson for Stronger Reading Comprehension
Starting the school year with a focus on kindness and the power of words sets the stage for a compassionate and thoughtful classroom environment. In my recent lesson with a fifth-grade class, we delved into the story “Feathers” through a close reading, weaving in lessons on vocabulary, comprehension, and the profound impact of our words. […]
Unlocking the Power of Connectives: Practical Tips for Upper Elementary and Middle School Classrooms
As students advance through upper elementary and middle school, they encounter increasingly complex texts. One key to navigating these texts is understanding connectives—those magical words and phrases that link ideas together and clarify relationships. The research underscores the importance of teaching connectives to enhance comprehension and academic success. But how do we make this instruction […]
Boosting Classroom Engagement with Text Sets
Using text sets in the classroom can significantly enhance student interest, vocabulary, and background knowledge. Text sets are collections of related texts organized around a specific topic or line of inquiry. Here’s how to effectively implement them in your teaching strategy: 1. Anchor Text Begin with a rich, complex grade-level text as the anchor. This […]