24 Days of ELA - Fun, Fresh Ideas for your Classroom
To celebrate the end of another wonderful year and the countdown to our winter breaks (in the US, that is!) twenty four talented, creative English teachers have come together on Instagram with ideas, handouts, strategies, games, and more to inspire your teaching spirit. These ideas are ready for English teachers around the world to be reinvigorated by and launch them into a fabulous 2019.
To see all 24 Days of ELA, simply head on over to Instagram and search our hashtag! Once you’re there, you can follow each of us (we promise to deliver lots of exciting ideas all year long!) and grab the ideas that will most help you in your time of need. For me, that time is now!! Click through the images below to take a look at just a few of the simple and brilliant ideas shared during our campaign.
#24DaysofELA
SHOP THE MUD & INK TEACHING STORE
October is here, and with it comes the annual challenge for secondary ELA teachers: how do you bring seasonal fun into the classroom without derailing the curriculum map?
Your students are buzzing with Halloween energy, but you have standards to teach. You can’t afford to spend a week on a "fluff" activity, but you also don't want to be the only room in the school ignoring the holiday.
The solution? Don't stop your unit. Instead, plug in a high-interest, rigorous, seasonal activity that matches the exact skills you're already teaching. Here is a quick guide to easy, "spooky season" lessons that keep the critical thinking rolling.
Navigating the intricate themes and symbolism of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby can be a daunting task for both new and experienced high school English teachers. As a veteran educator, I've found that close reading strategies are invaluable in unlocking the novel's complexities and fostering deeper student engagement. In this post, I'll share insights into my close reading approach and provide practical tips for incorporating this method into your Gatsby unit.
When it comes to choosing a Shakespeare play to teach to your high school students, there are a lot of factors to consider, but none more pressing than will this be engaging for our (mostly) disengaged students?
Engagement in learning is at an all-time low, so it is rapidly becoming a driving decision-making factor for teachers. Shakespeare, to begin with, has historically been written off by many as out of touch, irrelevant, and not necessary for students in their everyday lives. And while this has not been my experience at all, I can completely understand how it may have been the case for teachers.
As an educator, I've always been passionate about instilling critical thinking skills in my students. It's a topic that I recently had the opportunity to reflect on during a professional development session, and I want to share with you the insights and strategies that I believe are essential for deep engagement in the classroom.
Dr. King’s legacy is especially powerful in the ELA classroom: his words, his rhetoric, and the passion with which he speaks them is not only worthy of study in its own right, but the overlaps into our content area make the analysis of the layers of his work that much more rich and impactful. Here is a free lesson walkthrough for your middle or high school English class celebrating Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday.
The art of pacing out the reading during a novel unit can be tricky, so we’re going to take some time today to talk through the process. Whether you’re teaching a classic or a contemporary YA title, there are special considerations to be made for the design of your calendar and how we backwards plan for ELA. Let’s jump in!
And here's the thing: if your students are talking about Taylor, then so should you. This is an open door into engagement and skill building that is not to be missed. Here are three ways to pull the power of Taylor into your classroom and spike engagement among your students…
In a world where the love for books is timeless, as educators, we know the magic of a well-told tale. We ignite knowledge and passion for literature in our students. We spend hours immersed in stories, guiding young minds and sharing the joy of reading. Have you thought of gifting a little magic to yourself or other book lovers? Imagine unwrapping a gift that honors your love for books — and the immense joy that would be! In this blog post, I have curated a list of delightful gifts for book enthusiasts, including a FREE DOWNLOAD Gift Guide for you to skim through as well.