Michael Winchell

Why not have your students explore their creativity in a structured manner? You can do so with a poetry unit that asks students to study 13 different poetic forms, and stresses the importance of using each form to express their ideas. Included is a collection of 13 different poetic forms, on 13 handouts. Each handout (each poetic form) has a graphic representation of how the poem comes together, an example poem, and a writing assignment. The unit should take about 2 weeks to complete and by un

Junior High/Middle School is a time when students have tons of things on their minds, the least of which is the plethora of grammatical concepts they should have learned during the elementary years. That said, the junior high/middle school ELA classroom MUST be a place where various grammatical concepts find review, and are elaborated on. I have combined the major concepts that should be covered in the junior high ELA classroom (intended for use anywhere between grades 4-9). Each concept ha

Two handouts included. One is an information page that explains what a double negative is, and how to correct a sentence that contains a double negative. On this same sheet, there are a few in-class sentences that the entire class should do together to gain a formative assessment of students' understanding. The second sheet is a homework page that contains 15 tasks. The first five tasks ask students to choose between two words to refrain from using double negatives. The last ten tasks ask s

Two items included, two pages in all, including basic quotation marks usage rules and a homework assignment. If you'd rather have more than just quotation marks, you can choose to purchase the "JH ELA Grab Bag" for $5.00 that includes this topic and a lot more in terms of crucial grammatical concepts for elementary and junior high ELA.

Two items included, four pages in all, including information about sentence combining (includes four sentence-combining strategies), and a homework assignment. If you'd rather have more than just sentence combining, you can choose to purchase the "JH ELA Grab Bag" for $5.00 that includes this topic and a lot more in terms of crucial grammatical concepts for elementary and junior high ELA.

Two items included, two pages in all, including basic apostrophe usage rules and a homework assignment. If you'd rather have more than just apostrophes, you can choose to purchase the "JH ELA Grab Bag" for $5.00 that includes this topic and a lot more in terms of crucial grammatical concepts for elementary and junior high ELA.

Four handouts included, along with 2 answer keys for homework. Includes an information page that explains spelling rules, an information page that includes pluralization spelling rules. Then, there are homework handouts for each (spelling rules & pluralization, and I even threw in the key for the homework sheets. A good review of basic spelling rules for junior high, or a good introduction to them for elementary grades. If you'd rather have more than just spelling rules, you can choose to pur

Three items included, four pages in all, including information about fragments, information about run-ons (includes correction strategies), and a homework assignment for both concepts. If you'd rather have more than just fragments & run-ons, you can choose to purchase the "JH ELA Grab Bag" for $5.00 that includes this topic and a lot more in terms of crucial grammatical concepts for elementary and junior high ELA.

Three items included, five pages in all, including information about homophones, a list of 20 common homophones & problem words, and a homework assignment. If you'd rather have more than just homophones, you can choose to purchase the "JH ELA Grab Bag" for $5.00 that includes this topic (homophones) and a lot more in terms of crucial grammatical concepts for elementary and junior high ELA.

When students read a work of fiction, a great way to assess their understanding of literary elements of fiction is to have them complete a Story Map. Here is a simple story map for students to use. It is clearly organized and not intimidating to students.

Two items included, two pages in all, including basic capitalization rules and a homework assignment. If you'd rather have more than just capitalization, you can choose to purchase the "JH ELA Grab Bag" for $5.00 that includes this topic and a lot more in terms of crucial grammatical concepts for elementary and junior high ELA.

The use of the comma can be perplexing to young students, especially in junior high. For this reason, it is important for them to have a handy reference to turn to when they are in a comma quandary. Included is a detailed explanation of six basic rules for comma usage. Each rule is explained and examples are not only given for each, the examples are explained. The three information pages are followed by a homework assignment that asks students to read 20 sentences and insert commas where the