Basic Brilliant ELA

This unit plan was designed to accompany the book Castle by David Macaulay. Activities encourage students to slow down reading and to analyze both the words/images of this incredibly detailed book. Depending on the teacher and delivery of the activities, this would last 1-2 weeks. Predictions activityDesign your own castleMapBrief HistoryVocabulary Parts 1, 2, and 3Timeline summaries in order of bookChain of Command activity to track jobs throughout book with answer keyJournal writing activity i

These simple and kind behavior reflection sheets are good to have copied and on-hand as an intervention to behavior. I recommend showing them to the class before enforcing them as an intervention and let them read through the behaviors individually, with partners, or with small groups. Students can discuss if they feel like the behaviors in the sheets are reasonable. To the teacher's discretion, students can provide feedback and the class can generate a class contract that they feel is reasonabl

This is a lesson on the basics of writing organization that I have refined for over a decade! Students will need a set of colored pencils for this lesson. Everything that is included is: a key, essay template, example essays, pictures of an example I have done with students on a document camera, and an original color-coded essay where it talks through the goals of each piece of a 5-paragraph essay. This is a great lesson for visual learners. I like to do it at the beginning of the year and refer

This is a fun little poetry practice for middle school students. This is a great assignment just before Winter Break or to ease back in right after Winter Break. Students love the fun name of writing Snow-etry or Snow-ems. Resource includes: Poem prompt and instructionsExample PoemGrading Rubric

This is a great spring poetry project that can be done before or after Spring Break. It exposes students to three different styles of poetry and provides original poem examples of each for students to consider while composing their own original poems.

This is a fun, simple poem activity to use in conjunction with Valentine's Day. Students get to write a love poem to the subject of ELA! This could be a 1-3 day lesson depending on how you want students to draft their poems. I always liked having them make a colorful final draft on upgraded paper with pens, markers, or colored pencils. This resource comes with instructions, an example poem, and a grading rubric. No muss! No fuss! Just print and go!

This is a fun writing project for the end of a unit reading Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech. Students will have to consider point of view, figurative language, and basic poetry knowledge to complete this project. I also recommend doing a rough draft and final draft of the poem. When students are ready for their final drafts, they can do it on upgraded paper and add some color/drawings to their poem. This is a great opportunity to practice poetry, creative writing, and to think critically about t

This is a simple tool for explaining different essay structures to students. The five-paragraph essay structure is the most basic skeleton teachers tend to teach to students, which translates well to argumentative and/or informative essays. Narrative essays, (or any kind of story writing), is a little more free-form. It tends to follow a plot diagram structure where a lot of the paragraphs might be dedicated to the rising action. This is a handy little tool for students to reference or keep in a