Remember that scene in Pirates of the Caribbean when the ugly old pirate Captain Barbarossa says the pirate’s code is “more what you’d call guidelines than actual rules”? Well, that’s the truth about comma rules. Most of what we consider rules of comma usage are actually guidelines from one style guidebook or another. That’s one […]
Teach SAFE-Q for Specific Details in Writing
Do you want your students to write prize-winning essays? Or to earn top scores on your standardized writing test? How would you like a quick memory trick that is guaranteed to improve your students’ writing? You already know the key components of writing are content, style, and mechanics. Too often, we English teachers focus our […]
Growth Mindset and the Standards
Standards-Based Best Practices As many school districts across the country did, my administration jumped on the Charlotte Danielson bandwagon. Among other requirements, each class had to begin with a statement of the learning objective, which also had to be posted on the wall. Curriculum supervisors conducted walk-throughs in which they asked students to explain the […]
How I Teach Academic Vocabulary
When my principal announced several years ago that our new focus was academic vocabulary, I may have rolled my eyes. Ugh! One more thing added to our list to do, right? Well, I was wrong. Implementing academic vocabulary instruction made a huge difference in my classroom. I saw (and heard) students begin using the language […]
Get Organized for Standards-Based Learning
The Common Core standards brought a paradigm shift to my middle school ELA team. We had a great set of thematic units developed over the years: engaging, rigorous, and connected to a broad variety of topics. But when we sat down to map them to the standards, we discovered that some standards were “taught” over […]
Why We Reteach Parts of Speech Every Year
Every year, it happens without fail. Some adorable little newly-minted seventh-grader will look up at me with big innocent eyes and ask, “What’s a verb, again?” Then I quietly walk over to the closet and bang my head on the door. Actually, it’s not so quiet–there may be a noise like moaning and gnashing of […]
Decorating Your Middle School Classroom
Middle school students are such a unique group. One minute they act like a bunch of little kids, and the next day they are so grown up. But next week, who knows? They may be sweet children again, or they may be hormonal teens, or they may be both at the same time. Creating a […]
Interactive Notebook Tricks to Teach Your Students
Believe it or not, some middle-school students will show up in your classroom next year without basic cutting and gluing skills. That makes the whole idea of using interactive notebooks so much more daunting. After all, it is concern about classroom management issues or “wasted” time that holds many teachers back from trying this strategy. […]
