Bright Light Writing

Not sure how to help your APLang students establish a line of reasoning in their argument and synthesis essay writing? Help your students banish writer's block on the AP Language and Composition exam by using these brainstorming thinking structures that guarantee a line of reasoning in their persuasive writing. If you've ever wondered how to move your students past the formulaic, five-paragraph essay, these strategies and collaborative activities will teach your students how to plan a more adva

Are your students struggling to name evidence quickly?  Inject some fun and energy into their practice with this persuasive writing examples game! Designed for the AP Language and Composition course, race the clock and each other to create different types of evidence to cover your board first.  It’s sure to be the highlight of your AP Lang exam prep! This resource includes Google Slideshow for 2 rounds of game promptsAnchor chart to teach CHORES (acronym to remember the different categories of e

Do you need no prep/no grading review activities for literary devices, story elements, grammar, poetic devices, the hero's journey, and citation language? Use these self-checking matching activities as pre-assessments, formative assessments, quizzes, or unlimited practice! In both digital and print options, students will actively review literary devices with examples, elements of a story, sentence combining, poetry terms, the journey of a hero, and citations. This resource includes self-c

Not sure how to liven up the same old Greek mythology unit?  Inject some fun, creativity, and entrepreneurial skill into your classroom with this no-prep, five-day Greek mythology project. Your students will research, design, and create trading cards of the Greek Pantheon in hopes of “selling” their cards to young consumers.  This project will challenge your students’ creativity, writing skills, and entrepreneurial minds as they focus on accuracy, quality, task, purpose, and audience awareness.

Not sure how to start your rhetorical analysis essay unit? Help your students by giving them the best tips for reading, annotating, and writing commentary. Use the best templates and thinking strategies to give your students everything they need to master the rhetorical analysis essay for the AP Lang exam. Thesis statement templates?  Check.  Sentence starters for commentary?  Check. Questions to prompt students’ thinking for excellent commentary? Absolutely!  49% of my students earned a 5

This Pre-AP & APLang Persuasive Writing Bundle includes everything you need to engage your students and prepare them for the argument and synthesis essays for the AP Language and Composition exam.  Teaching line of reasoning, writing style, evidence in an essay, and precise language CAN be easy, engaging, and interactive!  Increase your students’ confidence and competence the whole year, and inject some energy and fun into your review week with three APLang review games.   All materials

Have you struggled to figure out how to teach writing style to your APLang & APLit students?  Teaching style, syntax, and stylistic choices to students--as both readers and writers--will help them improve their sentence variety, rhetorical analysis skills, prose analysis skills, and improve their chances of earning the coveted sophistication point.  Help your students get there by using these 20 exercises to teach and review advanced punctuation and stylistic choices.  Enjoy this ready-

Do you want to see high engagement in your high school poetry lessons but not really sure how to teach poems?  Customize your own March Madness poetry bracket for any high school class you teach to get your students interested and invested in poetry. Choose from 25 poems that vary in content, form, and skill level to meet your students where they are and push them to grow at an appropriate rate.  Use the 12 task cards to teach students how to analyze poems step-by-step in whole group, small

Not sure how to liven up the same old Greek mythology unit?  Inject some fun, creativity, and entrepreneurial skill into your classroom with this no-prep, five-day Greek mythology project. Your students will research, design, and create trading cards of the Greek Pantheon in hopes of “selling” their cards to young consumers.  This project will challenge your students’ creativity, writing skills, and entrepreneurial minds as they focus on accuracy, quality, task, purpose, and audience awareness.

With this no-prep, five-day Norse mythology project, your students will research, design, and create trading cards of the Norse Pantheon in hopes of “selling” their cards to young consumers.  This project will challenge your students’ creativity, writing skills, and entrepreneurial minds as they focus on accuracy, quality, task, purpose, and audience awareness.   Want to increase engagement and creativity even more? Challenge your students to create an add-on to their trading cards to make the

Use these no-prep / low-prep class discussion strategies to add novelty, student engagement, and critical thinking to your in class discussions without adding any prep time to your day.  The discussion rubric begins as a self-assessment and ends with a quick grade in your gradebook.  Use the exit tickets to make the learning stick and to receive informal feedback from your students. With the streamlined step-by-step directions, it will take you minutes to learn how to facilitate the conversation

Show your students how citing evidence from the text by quoting words and phrases is more effective than quoting entire sentences!  Teach them how to embed poetic and prose quotes using MLA formatting in a way that will help make their learning stick and give them the practice they need beyond your introductory lesson.  With this resource, students will practice thinking through which parts of the quote they really NEED to prove their point and how to accurately embed the quoted words and

Tired of that same old Greek mythology unit? Do you want to compare and contrast mythologies of the world, trace archetypes, and explore the intersection of stories, beliefs, and cultures?  This world mythology bundle is the solution you’ve been looking for! Inject some fun, creativity, and entrepreneurial skill into your classroom with this no-prep, five-day trading cards world mythology class project. Your students will research, design, and create trading cards of the Greek, Norse, and Egyp

With this no-prep, five-day Egyptian mythology project, your students will research, design, and create trading cards of the Egyptian Pantheon in hopes of “selling” their cards to young consumers.  This project will challenge your students’ creativity, writing skills, and entrepreneurial minds as they focus on accuracy, quality, task, purpose, and audience awareness.   Want to increase engagement and creativity even more? Challenge your students to create an add-on to their trading cards to ma

Do you need engaging writing activities to help struggling writers in your classes?  Use these writing and editing warmups to engage all students in small-spurt writing, decrease students’ anxiety connected with writing tasks, and re-shape their assumptions about this skill set.  By using these 30 activities for sentence construction, students will learn to prioritize clarity, precision, and purpose without getting bogged down in grammatical terms.  Use these activities as: Warmups, bellring

Are you looking for an engaging way to get your students to experience and harness the power of precise language? Inspired by George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language,” this game will help you create a memorable, fun learning experience for your students that will improve their critical thinking, improve their writing skills, and reveal the value of expanding their vocabulary. With four rounds, you can play this language game in one hour or split it up over several class periods.

With this no-prep, five-day Egyptian mythology project, your students will research, design, and create trading cards of the Egyptian Pantheon in hopes of “selling” their cards to young consumers.  This project will challenge your students’ creativity, writing skills, and entrepreneurial minds as they focus on accuracy, quality, task, purpose, and audience awareness.   Want to increase engagement and creativity even more? Challenge your students to create an add-on to their trading cards to ma

Not sure what to do with the last two weeks at the end of the year?  Use this personal essay project--inspired by Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried--to guide your students through some of the most personal, meaningful experiences captured in their writing, in their voice.  With personal essay examples from previous students, scaffolding activities, checklists, suggested pacing schedule, suggested essay structure, teacher notes, and rubric, you will have everything you need to teach with c

Get to know your students as readers and writers with this personal narrative essay to prompt your students to reflect on how they've grown as readers and writers over time. This detailed prompt leaves room for differentiation and student choice, which allows students to play to their strengths. Rubric is included, and the schedule of progress checks breaks up the work so students avoid overwhelm and procrastination. This resource includes Detailed prompt with four variations of the projectQues

Tired of that same old Greek mythology unit? Do you want to compare and contrast mythologies of the world, trace archetypes, and explore the intersection of stories, beliefs, and cultures?  This world mythology bundle is the solution you’ve been looking for! Inject some fun, creativity, and entrepreneurial skill into your classroom with this no-prep, five-day trading cards world mythology class project. Your students will research, design, and create trading cards of the Greek, Norse, and Egyp