Whether your classes dive into poetry in April or throughout the year, teacher Megan Kelly has lots of activities to enrich your students’ experience. Her latest unit has kids collaborating on visual analysis, horoscope haiku, matching teachers to their poems, and more.
In Between the Commas 6th grade teacher Jeny Randall is delighted to have found a new mentor in writing instruction who emphasizes a sentence construction framework. She looks forward to growing even more as a writing teacher thanks to Martin Brandt’s “irreverent wisdom.”
The Drama Book a great resource for introducing drama into the ELA classroom, especially for inexperienced teachers who are unsure how to best tackle it. It offers practical teaching advice and amazing lesson plans, writes middle school teacher Erin Corrigan-Smith.
Should culturally responsive teaching include “pop culture” as a unifying interest in multicultural classrooms and schools? A.P. Andrew Canlé makes that argument, singling out online competition-based gaming as his example of the engaging pedagogy Generation Z wants.
Understanding concept words like ‘innovative’ can help students to make sense of complex sources. Britany Harris and Sunday Cummins share a four-step process to introduce a few new vocabulary words before reading an information text and then focus on them as kids read, talk and write.
Bringing the four types of writing from ELA to math class allows students to explain their thinking, opening a big window for teachers into their level of understanding. “Why Write in Math Class? K-5” by Linda Dacey shows how to make this happen, says Kathie Palmieri.
In addition to using brain science and psychology to help students overcome test anxiety, Logan Thompson’s Beyond the Content offers ways to put mindfulness practices to work in support of student and teacher self-awareness, writes middle grades teacher Laura Von Staden.
Teacher Social Media has had a powerful positive effect on Brent Gilson’s professional growth. That’s the plus, he says, but there are also the minuses, including too-safe and comfortable conversations, edu-celebrity, and frequent failure to give credit where it is due.
The magic of Les Misérables has Anne Jolly revisiting her ideas about whether STEAM deserves a spot next to STEM on the list of science acronyms. The musical’s set engineering left her amazed. See her latest reflection on what’s essential for the marriage of Arts and STEM.
Helping the many kids who seem to struggle with attention is what Teach for Attention! is about. Formatted into 7 power-packed chapters, the book offers methods, tools, and strategies to help all students become engaged learners who like school, writes principal Rita Platt.
