Every summer, my inbox fills with the same happy request: parents and students asking me for book recommendations. Because I know these readers well, I can usually fire off five or ten titles I know their middle schooler will love. In hindsight, though, I should …
My classroom is the home away from home for my students and me, so I try to make it as welcoming, inviting, and inspiring as possible. A few years ago, I decided to change things up and try DIY bulletin board ideas to get my …
“Why do I have to read aloud? I hate reading aloud!” This reaction from a struggling 6th grade reader usually has less to do with hating read-aloud time and more to do with reading fluency. A number of years ago, when my school district began our …
As a middle school teacher, I find that all of my classes have a wide range of exposure to grammar fundamentals. Students come in with vastly different levels of grammar knowledge, and many concepts need more than a quick mini-lesson to stick. This makes it …
If you haven’t added an ELA word wall to your classroom yet, definitely do it today! It is the easiest way to transform classroom wall space into a perpetual learning resource. Word walls have been a staple of my classroom for many years, and I’m …
Rules by Cynthia Lord is a novel that will make students genuinely think about how they treat people. I have watched many middle schoolers connect with this book, make arguments about what Catherine should have done, and then change their minds by the end. That …
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