Now that the first weeks of school are in the books, principals will begin scheduling classroom observations. On a full-cycle evaluation year, I am observed three times throughout the school year. This includes two scheduled observations and one that is not scheduled in advance. Despite …
Friendships are a big part of growing up—developing them, growing them, and maintaining them. Being a middle school teacher, mom, wife, sister, daughter, coach, and friend, I find that friendship themes are a focus in many of my school days. If you teach upper elementary to middle …
America has had plenty of tragedies that are not easy to explain to our children. 9/11 is one of those events, but it is also an important part of American history. Will you be teaching about September 11th this year? If you are thinking about …
Every summer, I get a few emails or texts from parents and students asking for book recommendations. I typically know these readers well, so I can fire off 5-10 book recommendations that I think their middle school readers will love. In hindsight though, I should …
As a middle school ELA teacher, I am always in search of resources that best meet the needs of my readers. Having a good selection of novels and a diverse set of reading comprehension activities are two ways I incorporate differentiated instruction into my language …
“Why do I have to read aloud? I hate reading aloud!” -a struggling 6th grade reader A number of years ago, when my school district began our work with Response to Intervention, or RTI, it became even more abundantly clear that many of our upper elementary …
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