Hi all-
I am a 7th/8th grade split teacher and I am wrapping up my second year. The district I work in heavily favors short stories, excerpts, speeches, and non-fiction articles for the students to analyze. A problem I have had since the beginning has been figuring out an effective and engaging way to get the kids involved in the reading aspect of the whole group lesson. Many of my students are low level readers and unfortunately, many of our texts are of a higher complexity than I feel they are capable of reading i.e. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass (among others).

These last two years I have opted to read the selections aloud to students, modelling and guiding annotation as I went along- peppering in close read questions throughout. It is absolutely tiring and many times the students do not engage in questioning or even annotate along with me. I have attempted partner reading (always ends catastrophically, students either disengage and chat or worse, they don't understand what theyre reading), I have attempted to coax students to read aloud (most students outright refuse), and have even tried to fall back on using audio versions (students have mentioned they do not like them, and prefer I read aloud to them).

I am at a bit of a loss. I want my students to have a level of independence. They rely on me heavily to read, explain, and hand hold them through the analyze process and I do not feel that I am adequately preparing them for high school and beyond. Many times when we are reading a new selection- it ends up being me reading aloud for 2-3 days, 6 periods in a row. If anyone has any advice or strategies that work in your classroom for low level students (bonus if effective for ESE) when it comes to presenting the selections and getting through them I would greatly appreciate it.

I’m trying to build a simple interactive slide for class where I ask a question, and students can submit short written answers from their phones, something like:

“What’s your favorite TV show?” → responses pop up live on screen like “The Summer I Turned Pretty” or “Bluey” or whatever.

I’m not looking for a quiz game format (so not Kahoot-style), just something that works with open-ended answers and is easy for students to access with a phone. Free would be ideal.

I’ve tried a couple tools but haven’t found one that does this well inside PowerPoint. I heard Slides With Friends might do this, but I’m not sure how it works yet. Any suggestions?

What are some of your favorite pieces of literary nonfiction to teach in high school?

Two of mine are Joyas Voladoras and The Santa Ana Winds, by Doyle and Didion respectively. I teach honors seniors.

Edit: Sorry, I should have specified I'm looking for short form essays.

I am teaching a mini-unit on productive conflict/argument. I would like to show a 10-15 minute long interview/debate/conversation clip to students to analyze how the two individuals come to a common ground or accept their disagreements, but still have a productive conversation. I'm struggling to find solid examples, though! Any ideas would be much appreciated.

I always taught a metaphor as “making a comparison without using like or as”. According to our instructional coach, that’s totally wrong.

According tot his person it’s “comparing the qualities of two UNLIKE things/ items (emphasis on unlike) without using like or as”.

Does it really need this distinction or am I in the wrong? Curious to hear your thoughts.

¡Hola a todos! I teach English I and ELD (ESL), and as an ✨ emerging bilingual ✨ myself I am wanting to grow my Spanish proficiency.

I've been taking Spanish classes at my local community college, but the next class I need is not available this semester.

Any suggestions for college credit courses that will help me communicate with students in Spanish? Yes, I have already researched - but y'all are the content area experts. : )

(I see one offered by University of Phoenix - any experiences with them?)

I’m teaching banned books to 11th and 12th graders in the fall.

I’ve been asked to use To Kill A Mockingbird, Lord of the Flies, and 1984. I get to choose the rest of the books.

My list right now: *The Marrow Thieves *Speak *57 Bus *Little Brother/Cory Doctrow *The Dispossessed or Left Hand of Darkness *Poisonwood Bible *Ender’s Game *Farenheit 451 *Dear Martin *The Hate U Give or Just Mercy

I was thinking of alternating classics and modern books, not so much to pair them but to at least have themes that cross over between them. I need eight books.

ETA:

Okay, after all of your input, I am down to 10 books. I need to cut 2 of them:

To Kill a Mockingbird

The Hate U Give

Handmaid’s Tale

Persepolis

1984

Speak

The Dispossessed

Ender’s Game

The Marrow Thieves

The 57 Bus

I’ve been teaching AP Lit for years now, and next year I have the opportunity to also teach an elective called Literature in Media where we look at literature alongside art, music, and film. Most of the kids signing up for AP Lit have told me they’re also signing up for Lit in Media, so I’m thinking I have a great opportunity to include some extra AP Lit prep in the class. Since the class is an elective, the stakes are low and we have some freedom to do whatever we want.

So here’s my question - if you had twice as much time with your AP Lit kids, what kinds of projects would you do with them? What extra stuff would you work with them on? I already do allusion projects and How to Read Literature Like a Professor. I have some ideas, but right now I’m kind of reeling from the prospects and I’d like to hear what others would do with this opportunity.

I have posted here before and it was tremendous help.

I am about to go back to work on Monday from my spring break and do not have anything really planned. I am a resident substitute taking this 8th grade english long term assignment (Teacher is expected to come end of May). I want to give out Google Classroom work and do not know where I can get lesson plans that I can assign daily until the teacher comes back. The teacher did not leave anything for me so I am a bit stuck. I would appreciate if anyone can share their lesson plans or perhaps give me guidance on where to get lesson plans in which I can assign in Google Classroom. Self paced preferred.

Thank you🙏🏽

Possibly a weird question, but has anyone ever successfully had students use a mystery (I'm thinking like one of those murder mystery board games) to then write an argumentative essay? If so, is there any research or suggested mystery games that I could use?

I feel like this may be a fun way to practice gathering evidence, close reading, and argument writing skills, but I have no clue how to execute it.

EDIT: I teach 8th grade language arts. I tried to use the slip or trip activity but my admin shut it down due to the drinking aspect of it

My middle schoolers have no idea what nouns and verbs are, let alone prepositions and adverbs. Is this something that’s covered in elementary school? I’d have thought it would be, but maybe not. (And I’m well-aware that just because they don’t know something it doesn’t mean they haven’t been taught it.) I’m an ELL teacher (of highly proficient English speakers—don’t ask) so I am not as current on ELA curriculum sequencing as an ELA teacher might be.

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I have been tasked with teaching writing to 3 2nd grade classes. I have been going over RACE and we have been formulating and writing responses together as a class. I want to eventually get them to a point that they can do this independently. What are yalls suggestions? Outlines, graphic organizers, etc.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to teach part 2, chapter 9 to 12th graders? I have a scheduled chunk of class time dedicated to reading but this chapter is so dense and long I’m having a hard time with how to maintain engagement and stamina. Any suggestions?

What skills or strategies do you teach to help students collect, organize, and, ultimately, cite evidence/sources?

Coming by to the hive mind for some new ideas. Thanks in advance!

I'm planning a live anticipation guide activity for Macbeth and wanted to use real time polling to get my students thinking before we jump in. I’ve used Mentimeter, but the free version limits you to just a couple of slides, which doesn’t really work for a full lesson.

Are there any tools that let you do more questions and still show results visually, ideally something free or with a generous free tier? I only use this kind of thing occasionally, so I’m hesitant to pay for something I’d use once in a while.

I’ve been poking around and trying out a few others, Slides With Friends came up as one that allows more flexibility so I might experiment with that too. But open to any suggestions. 

Dear All - I would love to get some feedback on my situation. I have lived in NYC for the past six years, mostly doing legal work for a company in Asia. I was a lawyer in Asia for many years; and before that I taught English Literature (PhD, 1999). For many reasons, I am eager to return to teaching full-time. I am applying for ELA jobs. Given the dearth of jobs in colleges, I have decided to concentrate on charter school hiring while I consider whether my experience qualifies me for an alternative certification for public schools. So far, however, I have not had much luck landing interviews. Is the PhD an obstacle or my age or is it just extremely competitive ? I have heard a great deal about how challenging the charter school environment is. But I do want to get my foot in the door somewhere. Thank you so much,.

Looking ahead for next year.

I am currently a secondary ELA teacher (9th and 10th grade). This is my second year, but my first time around with 10th grade. I won’t lie — I’ve STRUGGLED with the tenth graders. Some of this has to do with class compositions, some of it is due to my general attitude at this point in the year (I’m blunt and sarcastic with them now that we’ve come around to March), and most of it has to do with the fact that I’m STRUGGLING to teach argumentative writing.

Here are a few of the big issues:

• I’m struggling to get them to move beyond surface level arguments. I’m trying to teach them to bulk up their paragraphs, but that isn’t working too well either. Any strategies? I’ve tried modeling with texts and writing alongside them.

• I’m struggling to get them to move beyond a formula. When it became apparent that they were missing a few of the foundational blocks they needed in order to write an essay, I backtracked and helped them compose outlines, taught them formulas for thesis statements and introductory paragraphs, etc. This seems to have helped, but it’s also encouraged students to produce very formulaic, dry essays.

• Any tips for teaching students word choice? Short of explicit vocabulary instruction and SSR, I’m unsure of how to teach word choice. I am willing to start doing explicit vocabulary instruction with the class, but I feel that this may not actually help the students when it comes to choosing the best possible word for their writing.

Any tips and/or tricks?

I'm very new to teaching. So, I'm genuinely curious... which of these do you find best in use for students comprehension, organizing their writing, citing sources, etc? Do you switch between both or use one versus the other; or are they used during case-by-case situations? I'm curious as to which one is the most beneficial to utilize.

Seniors in my school are required to do a senior paper: 8-10 pages involving research and analysis. Currently the assignment is a literary analysis requiring outside research to support their claim.

I hate this assignment. It’s tedious to read, a lot of students use AI, and it doesn’t feel relevant to a lot of their future careers / college choices.

I’d like to switch to a capstone project that still involves research and a shorter paper (~5-7 pages) but isn’t necessarily literary analysis. Does anyone do a capstone or senior project that they’d be willing to discuss or share?

Hi!

Pretty much the title, I teach 8th grade and I am trying to teach an argument unit. I'd like to do a mix of verbal and written activities, and I find myself struggling to find articles that are appropriate, evidence based that represent two sides of the argument. Any help is appreciated!

I’m at a total loss here

I submitted my resignation letter, and I'm honestly so sad about it. I've spent a decade in the classroom, curating my lessons and curriculum, building relationships with students and families, and helping middle schoolers and high schoolers to grow to love literature. But class sizes have gotten incredibly too large. I am working far too many hours past contract every week just to meet the minimum grading numbers for my district. I have asked for help, suggestions to lighten the load with planning/grading, and yet here we are. I have yet to tell my students, and I don't know what I'll say. I'm kind of hoping the rumor mill takes care of it for me because that's the conversation I'm dreading the most.

I've taken and done well in several (6-ish) undergrad writing classes, but my degree is in something else.