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This website provides lesson plan ideas, teacher support, and a diverse approach to teaching all learners. It has certainly helped me incorporate methods that address all learners' needs while maintaining a creative learning environment. For example, a recent post was titled “18 Student Activities for AAPI Heritage Month.” In this post, the author discusses why it is important to celebrate Asian American heritages in school and provides direct approaches to do so, ranging from reading books that reflect their heritage, virtual field trips, folding origami, or writing a haiku poem. Incorporating cultures is crucial in any classroom to demonstrate "acknowledgment and recognition of the diverse and unique members of a classroom community, and establishment of an environment inclusive of all backgrounds and types of learners" (SEL Introduction to Diversity and Inclusion 2020).

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Category - Classroom Ideas Page 1 - WeAreTeachers

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Find Classroom Ideas resources on WeAreTeachers - Page 1 of 107

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Initiatives like Creative Educator provide access to online courses, webinars, and workshops to enhance creativity and innovation in the classroom. It also offers resources like lesson plans, teaching strategies, and project ideas to support educators' professional growth, helping them foster creativity and engage students in meaningful learning. As discussed in the principles of SEL, “teaching social-emotional learning, we are looking at the whole person. The emotions connected to learning are inseparable” (Karem 2018). It offers new and unique approaches to traditional lessons that are practical for newer teachers like me.

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Creative Educator lesson plans can help you provide your middle-school students with an engaging and creative approach to content learning.

Students in middle school need to be challenged with creative approaches that get them thinking and moving beyond rote responses. Creative technology projects done for a real purpose can engage them in the work necessary high-level content learning at this age.

Depending on your student's abilities, you may also want to explore sixth-grade lesson plans.

More sites to help you find success in your classroom

Rubric Maker

Create custom rubrics for your classroom.

Graphic Organizer Maker

Create custom graphic organizers for your classroom.

Pics4Learning

A curated, copyright-friendly image library that is safe and free for education.

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Technology Lesson Plans for Middle School

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Students in middle school need to be challenged with creative approaches that get them thinking and moving beyond rote responses. Creative technology projects done for a real purpose can engage them in the work necessary high-level content learning at this age. Depending on your student's abilities, you may also want to explore sixth-grade lesson plans.

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Edutopia & specifically 50 Ways to Check for Understanding

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Edutopia & specifically 50 Ways to Check for Understanding

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Edutopia is a resource I was shown in my undergraduate studies and have been familiar with throughout my education at National University. However, I discovered their comprehensive list through Kathy Schrock's blog link. This list has 50 ways teachers can practice formative assessments rather than repeated summative assessments. As many instructors know, it is crucial to balance summative and formative assessments throughout a lesson/unit. We can indicate whether students are best prepared for the "application" portion by checking for understanding. According to the SEL toolkit for Critical Thinking, one example is "‘Socratic Questioning.’ Socrates established the method of questioning beliefs by closely inspecting assumptions and relying on evidence and sound rationale" (2020). This is the indicator for instructors to see if students apply their knowledge correctly and are prepared for the next steps.

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This resource provides detailed modules broken up by unit to teach ELA or Math aligned to the CCSS standards. While the website does say New York, they align with both NYSP and CCSS. Within those unit guides is an organized table with the objective for the Unit and a list of guiding questions and the main ideas to reinforce. Next is the lesson-by-lesson guide on how to support learning targets, the ongoing assessments to use, and any anchor charts or protocols to implement. "Critical thinking refers to the ability to make constructive choices and understand metacognitive strategies to enhance learning. Critical thinking skills build responsible decision-making and analytical and critical inquiry skills" (Indiana Department of Education, PK-12 Emotional Learning Competencies, 2019). This is a resource I am certainly going to take advantage of, especially when it comes to tackling the standards in a more immersive way.

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English Language Arts (ELA) Curriculum Files Archive

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The EngageNY English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum resources were moved here on March 1, 2022 from the EngageNY website. These curriculum files will remain free and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA) license.

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Achieve the Core provides a range of resources and materials specifically designed for middle school ELA classrooms. Includes high-quality instructional materials, lesson plans, and texts that align with the Common Core State Standards. It has premade lessons in its library, but you can also create your own lesson with their suggestions and AI options to aid in creating differentiation or essential questions, etc. Utilizing Achieve the Core's resources, middle school ELA teachers can effectively support their students in developing strong reading, writing, and critical thinking skills. All of these are necessary for day-to-day life, but communicating the listed skills can appear in numerous ways. As exhibited by Achieve the Core and SEL principles, "the way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our lives” (Tony Robbins, March 24, 2015). Teaching communication skills can help children’s ability to form and maintain relationships. The ability to communicate clearly entails being a good listener and having the ability to use a variety of strategies to exchange ideas, ask questions, and express feelings, all while exercising unique SEL approaches to the outlet for communication.

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Provide relevant texts that consider complexity, academic success, cultural competence, and critical consciousness.

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This website contains a resource option titled "Explore Teaching Topics" to access a specific lesson you will be teaching. For example, I found a lesson guide for How to Teach Inferencing. The website provided me with instructions on how to apply it to the different CCSS categories: Language Comprehension, Reading Comprehension, and writing. Next, they showed me options for sources on how to differentiate the lesson via pictures, read-aloud, sentences, and decodable text. Inferencing steps and examples were provided, along with a video of how it can look in the classroom! All the anchor charts/activities are conveniently supplied as a downloadable PDF. What stood out to me in this video example was the teacher's intentional approach to introducing her students to inferencing. This works in hand with the SEL principle of Critical Thinking, "the goal is for children to feel confident tackling challenges independently and understanding that the path to solutions isn’t always clear or linear" (SEL 2020). She sequenced the content to build off of each other while also calling back on what they had learned prior. These practices have proven to be effective for ALL learners.

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Reading Universe: All About Reading and Writing

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Explore ready-to-use teaching strategies, resources, and concrete answers to common questions about teaching reading and writing -- developed by experts.

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ASCD is similar to Edutopia. However, they provide a wider variety of topics that relate to the teaching community in terms of politics, lessons, and any other news that would be relevant to our lives. I think frequently reading updates about teaching nationwide helps inspire and bring a necessary perspective to the profession. In a way, this blog post format represents SEL in the adult world, which is the ultimate goal for students to discover/practice in their own lives. ASCD represents the landmarks of SEL, "the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitude, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy towards others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make reasonable decisions" (Durlak et al., Greenburg et al., 2003).

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We empower educators to reimagine and redesign learning through impactful pedagogy and meaningful technology use. We achieve this by offering transformative professional learning, fostering vibrant communities, and ensuring that digital tools and experiences are accessible and effective.

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We create practical, timely, affordable professional learning to help educators and instructional leaders provide students with a modern, equitable, and quality education.

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The NCTE, also known as the National Council of Teachers of English, is a platform that provides resources and support and is a community for middle school English Language Arts (ELA) teachers to enhance their teaching practices and promote literacy development in their classrooms. There are many lesson plans and tips on incorporating more significant picture ideas into lessons that will engage and inspire Middle School students. When we hand over some of the instructor's responsibilities to the students, they can showcase more individual traits, highlighting each of their voices differently. As instructors, this is an ideal opportunity to model empathy in the classroom to show students "the quality of sensing or imagining others’ emotions and feelings, in a way that creates connections and promotes understanding between people" (SEL and Empathy 2020).

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This blog post was written by NCTE member Carrie Santo-Thomas. This post is part of Build Your Stack®, an NCTE initiative ...

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I have followed this YouTube profile for the past three years! CJ Reynolds provides excellent lesson ideas, advice on every hiccup along the way with teaching, and guidance through difficult student or parent relationships. "Building a culture of positivity in the school is the most important step to setting the tone in a culturally responsive campus, beginning on the first day of school and continuing throughout the year" (Karem 2020). I highly suggest his videos because he exhibits a successfully inclusive classroom that strives to reach all his students daily.

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This website provides direct lessons, graphic organizers, and assessments connected to Common Core Standards. It includes explicit content for ELA and mathematics. However, it also suggests cross-curricular ideas that can be used in social studies. When students see a cross-over between the content they are learning and what you may be teaching, it allows for critical observation and linking. Students can apply their knowledge in a deeper context and recognize the significance of collaboration. "Encourage valid thinking in a conflict situation based on observation. This helps develop compassion and collaboration" (SEL Critical Thinking 2020). When coinciding with compassion and collaboration, a safe learning environment can be prioritized and flourish.

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CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.6.9 Draw Evidence From...

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.6.9.a - Apply grade 6 Reading standards to literature (e.g., Compare and contrast texts in different forms or genres [e.g., stories and poems; historical novels and fantasy stories] in terms of their approaches to similar themes and topics).

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.6.9.b - Apply grade 6 Reading standards to literary nonfiction (e.g., Trace and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, distinguishing claims that are supported by reasons and evidence from claims that are not).

Authors: National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers

Title: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.6.9 Draw Evidence From Literary Or Informational Texts... Writing - 6th Grade English Language Arts Common Core State Standards

Publisher: National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers, Washington D.C.

Copyright Date: 2010

(Page last edited 10/08/2017)

1. Alliteration in Headline Poems - In this lesson, students are introduced to the term alliteration and asked to create their own examples of alliteration as well as find examples of alliteration in poems.

2. Analyzing Advice as an Introduction to Shakespeare - Students read and analyze the advice given in Mary Schmich's 1997 Chicago Tribune column "Advice, Like Youth, Probably Just Wasted on the Young," which inspired the popular recording "Everybodys Free (to Wear Sunscreen)" by Baz Luhrmann. Exploring the column and its recording, students focus on both content and style through the use of central questions.

3. Book Reviews, Annotation, and Web Technology - Students work in groups to read and discuss a book, keeping track of their feelings and opinions about the book, as well as facts and quotations, as they read. After reading, each group goes through their notes on the book, marking items they want to include in a book review. They look at sample book reviews and discuss the common elements of book reviews. Next, each group works together to write a review of their book and use Web-authoring tools to publish the review onto a Web page. Students then decide which parts of their review they wish to annotate, with each student in the group responsible for one topic. Students research their topics, taking notes. Each student writes about his or her topic, including bibliographic information. The writings are then peer-reviewed by the group, published to the Web, and hyperlinked back to the group's book review.

4. Choose a story to practice reading comprehension. - Click on a topic to see the lessons and exercises. Click on the lesson to begin.

5. Comparing and Contrasting: Picturing an Organizational Pattern - This lesson is designed to be used during a unit when students are writing a comparison/contrast paper. It will be most helpful prior to drafting, but it could also be useful during revision

6. Doodle Splash: Using Graphics to Discuss Literature - As students read a short story, they "doodle," either in a journal or using an online tool, responding to the text through images, symbols, shapes, and colors. They must be sure to represent all of the elements of the short story (setting, plot, character, point of view, theme) in their doodles.

7. Dynamic Duo Text Talks: Examining the Content of Internet Sites - While this lesson makes use of websites about Anne Frank and the Holocaust, teachers can easily adapt the activities to a variety of topics. Guided by the questions on the Observation and Inquiry Sheet provided, students work together to explore several online texts on the chosen topic.

8. Entering History: Nikki Giovanni and Martin Luther King, Jr. - Students read Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech in conjunction with Nikki Giovanni's poem "The Funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr." in order to better understand the speech and the impact it had both on observers like Giovanni during the Civil Rights Movement and on Americans today.

9. Everyone Loves a Mystery: A Genre Study - Students examine story elements and vocabulary associated with mystery stories through Directed LearningThinking Activities and then track these features as they read mystery books from the school or classroom library.

10. Exploring Author's Voice Using Jane Addams Award-Winning Books - This lesson uses Jane Addams Award-winning books to explore author's voice and style.

11. Fairy Tale Autobiographies - Students work together in small groups to read, discuss, and analyze fairy tales. After compiling a list of common elements, students collaborate on their own original fairy talesbased on events from their own lives or the lives of someone they know.

12. Finding Figurative Language in The Phantom Tollbooth - This lesson provides hands-on differentiated instruction by guiding students to search for the literal definitions of figurative language using the Internet. It also guides students in understanding figurative meanings through the use of context clues and making inferences.

13. Found Poems/Parallel Poems - In this lesson, students compose found and parallel poems based on descriptive literary passages they have read.

14. He Said/She Said: Analyzing Gender Roles through Dialogue - This lesson has students brainstorm some gender stereotypes, find examples in popular culture, and discuss how the stereotypes affect their lives.

15. Heroes Around Us - Students will explore the distinction between a hero and an idol. Based on collaboratively established criteria for heroism and characteristics of heroes, students will select, read about, and report on a hero. Students will identify how their hero matches their criteria and characteristics.

16. Imagine That! Playing with Genre through Newspapers and Short Stories - This lesson uses narrative structures to introduce students to one form of expository writingnews briefs and articles. By condensing a short story into a newspaper article and expanding an article into a short story, students will explore the ways that exposition differs from narration.

17. Inflation in Russia - Read and answer questions [from the Internet Archive]

18. Internalization of Vocabulary Through the Use of a Word Map - In this lesson, students will use this helpful handout to create their own word map for a preselected vocabulary word.

19. Making Personal and Cultural Connections Using A Girl Named Disaster - This lesson is intended to help students experience both efferent (reading for information) and aesthetic (reading as a personal, emotional experience) responses to the story A Girl Named Disaster by Nancy Farmer.

20. On a Musical Note: Exploring Reading Strategies by Creating a Soundtrack - This lesson has students create a soundtrack for a novel that they have read. Students begin by analyzing how specific songs might fit with a familiar story. Students then create their own soundtracks for the movie version of a novel they have read.

21. Performing Poetry and Building Meaning - Through the use of dramatic reading and the exploration of Internet resources, sixth through eighth grade students build a greater understanding of poetry and the poet's voice.

22. Plot Structure: A Literary Elements Mini-Lesson - This lesson plan provides a basic introduction to Freytag's Pyramid and to the literary element of plot.

23. Press Conference for Bud, Not Buddy - This lesson can be used after the reading of Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis. The lesson encourages students to use higher level thinking skills and asks them to examine different character perspectives. Students demonstrate comprehension of the story by actively involving themselves in group and whole-class discussions.

24. Promoting Diversity in the Classroom and School Library through Social Action - Through an exploration of stereotypes in children's picture books such as books from Disney's Princess Collection, students identify the limited view established in these fictional worlds. Next, students compare these stereotyped representations to more diverse portrayals in matching texts

25. Read a Contract - Read and answer questions [from the Internet Archive.]

26. Reading and Writing Workshop: Freak the Mighty - This unit revolves around Rodman Philbrick's Freak the Mighty. Lessons include teaching and practicing pre-, during, and after reading comprehension strategies.

27. Reading Comprehension - Free reading comprehension worksheets for teachers and parents - includes original stories, poems, essays, and articles

28. Reading Comprehension Quiz - Ten-question multiple-choice quiz

29. Reading Comprehension stories - Interactive quizzes online for 5 stories - Each text is followed by a grammar exercise and summary writing exercise.

30. Reading for a Purpose - Brief site addressing the purposes for reading

31. Robert Frost Prompts the Poet in You - In this lesson, students write poems similar in form and style to one of three poems by Robert Frost. First, students learn key details about the life of Frost. They then read and discuss three Frost poems.

32. Seventh Grade Practice Reading Test - Two stories to read, eight questions to answer for each story. This online test could be printed.

33. Story Character Homepage - Combine higher order thinking with creativity in this lesson that uses diamante poems to illustrate the phenomenon of cause and effect. Students define and identify instances of cause and effect to help them generate their own examples.

34. The Big Bad Wolf: Analyzing Point of View in Texts - Lesson plan helps students look at the author's purpose and viewpoint, and also recognize gaps in the text - Extension activities include debating a fairy tale using different character viewpoints.

35. The History Behind Song Lyrics - In this lesson, students research and categorize items from the song as well as illustrate their historical relevance. Students use an online chart to display their research.

36. The Reading Performance: Understanding Fluency Through Oral Interpretation - This lesson examines how oral reading of poetry may be useful in supporting fluency for sixth- through eighth-grade students. Central to this lesson is the idea that students require practice and repetition to master decoding skills for fluency and comprehension in oral reading.

37. Using the Four-Square Strategy to Define and Identify Poetic Terms - In this lesson, students will learn the definitions of alliteration, assonance, simile, and rhyme. Using these definitions and a graphic organizer, they will search through a variety of poems for examples of each poetic element.

38. What am I? Teaching poetry through riddles - In this lesson, students explore, analyze, and discuss how metaphor, simile, and metonymy are used in riddle poems.

39. Writing Free Verse in the "Voice" of Cesar Chavez - This lesson gives students the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the characteristics of free verse and to write a free verse poem using written material about the labor activist Cesar Chavez.

40. You can customize the lesson, if desired, to promote reading any time of the year. - In this lesson, students first explore resumes using the internet. They then work as a class to construct a sample resume for a character in a book they have all read. Next, they explore want ads and online job sites for possible jobs for a character from a book they have read on their own. They write a letter of application and create a resume for their character for the selected job.

41. You Know the Movie is Coming-Now What? - In this lesson, students take on the role of the director of a movie. After exploring cinematic terms, students read a literary work with director's eyes, considering such issues as which scenes require a close-up of the main character and when the camera should zoom out to see the entire set.

Internet4classrooms is a collaborative effort by Susan Brooks and Bill Byles.

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6th grade common core english language arts

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CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.6.9 Draw Evidence From Literary Or Informational

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CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.6.9 Draw Evidence From Literary Or Informational Texts... - Writing - 6th Grade English Language Arts - Common Core Standards at Internet 4

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This online resource has a variety of pre-made templates for teachers. They have the potential to boost student engagement and encourage creativity in their assignments. It also has teacher templates that make grading an easier experience and organizes assessment targets and lesson planning.

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is devoted to sharing digital activities with you! We've created them, used them, and we want you to use them, too!

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This website is a collection of kid-appropriate and parent-approved videos. This website makes finding appropriate videos easy without sifting through hundreds on YouTube. 'Teach Flix' is also highly accessible by offering video categories based on subjects or general content topics!

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Free Video Activities for Class TODAY

Save yourself some time and frustration. Get 14 activities you can copy and assign to your students right away in our Teaching with TEACHFLIX ebook !

BONUS: You'll get FREE teaching ideas in your inbox every week.

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Free Video Activities for Class TODAY Save yourself some time and frustration. Get 14 activities you can copy and assign to your students right away in our Teaching with TEACHFLIX ebook ! BONUS: You'll get FREE teaching ideas in your inbox every week.

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On this source found in the Hamilton book, there are tons of categories under the 'English' section. It ranges from both literature to english language which is perfect for my current class. There are some interactice word sorts, videos, mad libs (which is extremely popular in my classes), and other challenges that is centered around the learning topics. You can also set parameters on the age range which makes it accessible for all grade levels.

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This is another excellent option for game-based learning, random group generators, seating assignments, text element identifiers, and graphic organizer templates! This website is a resource that can provide unique approaches to engage students.

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Russel Tarr, International School of Toulouse

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ClassTools.net: Create your own interactive learning resources

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Dozens of templates, quiz generators and learning tools for use in the classroom

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FunBrain is a resource that has video and game content for children. It is essentially like YouTube but has safe content for any minors. The appealing part about this website is that there is not a risk of ads that may not be appropriate for the classroom. There are also digital books like the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, which could be useful for when students finish their work early and do not have a physical book with them (which happens quite often).