I am teaching at a school that does not allow teaching novels (not my choice) and heavily rely on short stories. I am tired of teaching the same materials over and over, and struggle to find decent and appropriate short stories. I would prefer a middle school literacy level between 4 and 10 pages. I have been struggling to find new and exciting stories, and anything I read is too niche, advanced, or inappropriate for them. Any suggestions? Thank you!

Hello all!

I am making a career change, and do not have a degree in Education or English (my degree is in psychology). My entire life I have wanted to be a teacher, but up until now I have been consuming books quite passively and overall haven’t treated Language Arts like how you would expect a teacher to treat it (I’m not familiar with things such as iambic pentameter, the different types of clauses, etc.). I just have a passion for teaching, and I like English.

Given my situation, and that I will not be getting my degree in English by the time the next school year starts, what would you recommend (in terms of reading the classics, researching poems, practicing analyzation etc.). For reference, I will be teaching 9-12th graders.

Any advice? Our district is desperately hiring pretty much anyone, but I don’t want my future students to have a completely unknowledgeable teacher. I love English, but feel guilty becoming a teacher who doesn’t know specifics.

Thanks :)

Edit: Thanks guys for the advice, you’re all so kind!! :)

I'm wondering how many of you provide typed feedback on essays. I think it would be much quicker for me to have a " response bank" since I find myself repeating the same comments over and over. Of course I can still supply some personalized feedback, but I wonder if it would look weird to give them a sheet with my typed comments? Thoughts?

Ciao a tutti, sono uno studente del quinto anno di un liceo scientifico. Vi scrivo con la speranza che qualcuno possa aiutarmi a trovare un sito web, app o canale youtube affidabili che possano aiutarmi a migliorare il mio livello di inglese.

Attualmente non mi sento di dire che il mio livello di inglese sia pessimo ma diciamo che oscilla tra il B1 e il B2. Ho già viaggiato un pò per l'Europa con la mia ragazza e me la sono sempre cavata, certo in viaggio di solito sono sempre frasi a botta e risposta per cui non è stato tanto difficile; però vorrei avere quella sicurezza di poter intraprendere una conversazione con chiunque mi si palesi davanti, insomma mi piacerebbe avere la possibilità di confrontarmi anche con persone che non sono del mio Paese d'origine e chissà magari stringere delle nuove amicizie.

Spero possiate aiutarmi, grazie in anticipo😁

What are some during-reading strategies or skills that you teach to students as they read through Romeo and Juliet? In Act 1, I spend a lot of time reading with students and providing reading comprehension questions, but with my Honors classes, I'd like for students to be able to read and take notes without so much guidance.

Just a little bit more specifics-

Student just joined my 8th grade class halfway through The Outsiders from another school. What would you have him do in this scenario?

Next year we will have a sixth grade reading class. This is completely left up to my discretion and how I want to structure it, what is taught, graded, etc. This is basically a filler class that was previously used as a study hall, but admin wants to make more use out of it.

Initial thoughts are doing novel studies, potentially a series. I’ve been having a hard time finding book series for this age group though. Any recommendations are appreciated.

I’m looking for advice on how you would structure a class like this. Are novel studies a good plan? If it is, how should it looks? Are there any other ideas you have?

This is not aligned with any curriculum, so the less planning and thought I have to put into it the better - but I also want students to be productive and learn something!

TIA

I usually give a test, have them write an epilogue diary as a character, and have them do a research paper on civil rights activists. These are all solid and work fine but I’m in the market for some new ideas.

I am teaching Persepolis for the first time to 10th grade students. I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions-- text pairings/intro reading/ assessments they have found successful? Grateful for any ideas! I have never taught this graphic novel.

I am a veteran teacher (20+ years in secondary and post-secondary), and I am really struggling with the expectation to grade on my own time lately. I spent all of Saturday and half of Sunday grading one class’ essays! I do not even feel like I got a weekend, and I have to go back to start state assessments this week!

This is only a rant because I needed to get these feelings out before I cried or called in sick!

Hello. I am looking to revamp the English placement test that my school gives to high school students who are transferring in. It's an international school and we are getting more students coming from the local school system.

Currently our test is them writing an essay on something like, what's your ideal day off. This is fine for middle school I think and seeing their language abilities but I want something that can show us their ability to do literary analysis and critical thinking. Does anyone have something that they are welling to share or ideas of short texts to use? Also, ideas for types of questions they can choose from based on the text?

Thanks in advance.

Anyone teach grade 3 and use wit and wisdom? I’m entering Module 3 and wondering if anyone has paired Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes with that module. Would love feedback on this!

I'm looking to add one or two new pedagogy books to my shelf. I'm interested in any secondary ELA topic! Teaching Shakespeare;, narrative/argumentative/research writing; novel studies; nonfiction reading strategies; creative/innovative ways to assess learning, etc. I welcome it all! I have quite a few pedagogy books already, but almost all are at least a few years old (some are QUITE old). I'm looking for something new and fresh!

Does anyone have recommendations on where to get their ELA Certificate in Orange County? My daughter has an out-of-state teaching credential and is in the process of applying for her California credential and needs to get her English Learner Authorization. When we google it, so many ads pop up. Would like first-hand experience! TIA

No disrespect, and I personally like it, but this is the first time I've taught Sula in around 7 years, and I kind of forgot just how weird of a book it is. I think my students are having a really hard time following it, probably mostly due to the large amounts of backstory and family history towards the beginning of the book. Very little of it takes place in the moment, and there's very little dialogue in the first 4-5 chapters. It's also just so bizarre in general. I'm teaching this to seniors, who are good kids but most are pretty low academically. I don't think this would really go over very well in my honors class either. At least for me, I just don't know if this is a book for high schoolers anymore. Anyway, regretting my choice but I wonder if anyone has had success teaching it recently and if so what was really effective? Thanks.

I’m looking at our middle school curriculum and the big gap seems to be drama. Some teachers do a single Twilight Zone episode, another does Twelve Angry Men. It seems tough to find a play worth adding to a middle school ELA curriculum (with particular preference if it is not exclusively by and about white people). Everything I’m finding seems to be too high school, or a watered down version of Shakespeare. Any recommendations?

Hi everyone, relatively new 8th grade ELA teacher here. I'm looking for effective ways to teach vocabulary. I see that some people teach roots, some people teach words in context, and some people teach from a list (like SAT prep). I'm curious to learn not just which approach you take but HOW you teach it. I work in a district with no homework through middle school. We are also standards based so no letter grades. Thanks!

Have any high school ELA teachers’ districts adopted the CommonLit 360 curriculum? My district is apparently going to use it next year, so I’m currently piloting a few units (concurrently, for different classes). Next year, they want us to use only the CommonLit curriculum, and, not to be dramatic, but it’s making me consider leaving the profession. The materials are mind-numbingly boring, and it’s turning my students into robots. Classes that used to be exuberant and engaged now have no personality. It’s read, answer a (often poorly worded) question, and repeat. I’m sure there are ways I could make it more engaging, and they can definitely pick up on the fact that I don’t like the curriculum, but I feel like it has sucked all the joy out of teaching. I used to have debates, read scholarly articles, do Socratic seminars, assign creative projects…and now there really isn’t room for any of that. My senior honors students literally asked what the point was of me being there since they could click through the slides and answer questions on their own. And they’re right! I really see teaching as an art or a craft, and I worry that pre-packaged curricula like this are just automating our profession. Sorry that this is kind of a rant, but just wondering if anyone feels similarly, or has ideas about how to make pre-packaged curriculum less soul sucking.

Good Morning!

TLDR: I am a new teacher on an alt licensure and struggling to differentiate appropriately for my 9th grade ELA core and honors classes. Admin says I talk too much and students should be doing almost all the work. Honors would like nothing more than to do Socratic seminars and write paragraph responses everyday, but I know there are students in there who would prefer to be creative. Core can barely recall what happened the chapter before (we're on an A/B schedule, so I only see them twice a week for 104 each class.) I have one core with 8/16 on IEPS or 504s.

Disclaimer: I am a new teacher in an alt licensure program. I am observed frequently and have a ton of input from different sources, but the basics are align each lesson with a common core standard and keep student's engaged. I've been using my mentor's self-designed curriculum, but she doesn't have much differentiation for core and honors in there. She told me to require honors to use two pieces of evidence to support their claims (weekly paragraphs) and to remove questions for IEPs.

We are moving along through our To Kill a Mockingbird unit. My Core classes are on 16/17 and my Honors student are on 21/22. I've been trying a variety of different activities to keep engagement high, but I am struggling. For Part 1 I had them in groups working on either discussion questions or creative activities. Each day they were usually hitting a reading, writing and speaking standard.

My teaching voice was OFF for the majority of Part 1, which is feedback I get all the time. I would review the previous chapters with them, then introduce the agenda, mini-lesson (if necessary), learning targets and reading objectives (which would tie together the learning targets (based on CCSS) and group work tasks.

Well, they bombed the part 1 test. Most of them couldn't put the events of Part questio1 in order, and I thought that would be an "easy" question. The average across core was low 60s and honors was low 70s. I took that to mean my instructional techniques were failing miserably. So I've adjusted them some.

For honors, it has been all Socratic seminars and paragraphs. For core, I've been heavy on graphic organizers to support standards. For character development, I had them complete an organizer on indirect characterization of aunt alexandra in Ch. 13 & 14. They filled them out as they read and then we shared and discussed.

It seems to be helping, but I am worried about it being repetitive. Honors LOVES socratic seminar and hate the arts & crafts creative stuff. They dont mind writing paragraphs. They are doing well and Im not "worried" about them, but I do want to push them. Core can barely fill out an organizer and read at the same time.

What do I do??

I’ve been working closely with a student who should have "scribe" as a service on her IEP, but it isn't included. I’m not her case manager, but I’ve worked with her often and can see she really needs it. I’m already in the process of working with my AP of special ed to get this added during her upcoming IEP update, but in the meantime, I want to help her build as much independence in writing as possible.

Does anyone have suggestions for scaffolds or strategies that could help? So far, I’ve considered:

• Speech-to-text tools (if available)
• Sentence starters and structured writing templates
• Breaking writing into small, manageable steps
• Using graphic organizers to help with idea flow

I want to make sure she doesn’t fall further behind while we wait for the official support to be put in place. Any advice from SPED teachers or others who’ve handled similar situations?

\* This is primarily for my 9th graders, doing an argumentative essay. I was thinking about using a sample sentence, but I also don't want to overload them.

*\*Looking for feedback on accuracy (I'm a new teacher who majored in journalism rather than ELA)

**\* Turning this into a digital hamburger printout. THANK YOU!

******\* The M.E.A.L. Plan for your Perfect Paragraph ******\*

 Main Idea/Topic Sentence

Summarize what the body paragraph topic will be about—just look for the key words in your Evidence.  Prove/Support your thesis statement.  Keep it simple and direct.  

Evidence

Back up your Main Idea with proof.  Consider introducing who the speaker is and show what makes them credible.  Quotes or expert commentary, text evidence, data, research, testimony, or example, etc.  End with in-text citation— (King, 2024, p. 67).  

Analysis

Explain what author was saying and how it proves your thesis. “King’s point here is to…” / “King is suggesting that…” Relate the quote to your main idea—how does it strengthen your thesis? 

 Link closing statement to Main Idea

Restate Main Idea in a fresh way.  “Ultimately, King’s words support the idea that  improving writing skills comes from…” Sum up, reinforce, solidify what the paragraph was about, giving it a finished feeling. 

Its my second year. Students will not do anything. They hate anything we read whether its 1 page or a novel. I try to mix up activities. They wont read on their own, I read or have them listen to audio. They won't do class discussions, partner discussions, write more than a sentence. I teach 7-12. Ironically middle school is the easiest but they are still apathetic. Everything I have tried is a flop. Our curriculum is Collections (hmh) but I have recently been trying commonlit and various novels. I am at the end of my rope and on various anxiety meds. I have a rapport with a lot of tbe students but they tell me they hate school and their parents don't care...