By Presto Plans
When I plan for the first few weeks of school, one of the most important things I like to consider is what routines I want to establish for teaching ELA. Students thrive on predictability and structure - and let’s face it, so do we! I find that establishing good middle school classroom routines right from the get-go is one of the best ways to set up a new school year.
When students know what to expect in their learning space, it takes all the guesswork out of classroom management. I've always found that middle or high school classroom routines helped give me a few extra moments during the day to connect individually with students, take attendance, collect forms, or even just enjoy a few sips of coffee while it’s still hot! Here are five routines that every ELA teacher should use.
1) Bell-Ringers
One of the most game-changing routines that I ever incorporated in my classroom are bell-ringers. Bell-ringers helped to smooth out the transition of moving from class to class (this can be tough for middle schoolers - and chaotic for their teacher!), and really set the tone for learning in the classroom. I also find they’re a really useful way for students to practice specific ELA skills related to writing and reading comprehension.
If you’ve never used bell-ringers as part of your routines for teaching middle school ELA, here’s how they work. As students come into your classroom, they can immediately begin a short, focused, and targeted activity that introduces, reinforces, or allows them to practice a concept related to a certain area of ELA. Each of these short tasks takes about five to ten minutes to complete.
Over the years, I’ve expanded my bell-ringers to include skill-focused activities related to specific days of the week. Although each of my bell-ringer sets are different, here's an example of how I structured my third volume:
- Monday Mistakes: Students correct the errors in a short passage.
- Tuesday Terms: An opportunity to examine unfamiliar words and use context clues to determine their meaning.
- Wednesday Wise Words: Students explore the deeper meanings (and their own personal interpretations) of famous quotes.
- Thursday Thoughts: After viewing a short video or reading a brief excerpt of text, students share their reflections in writing.
- Friday Figurative Language: A weekly opportunity to practice finding (and using) a variety of types of figurative language.
If you’d like to check out the magic of bell-ringers for yourself, try out a free sample (including four weeks of daily activities!) of my full-year programs!
2) Sustained Silent Reading (SSR)
Setting aside dedicated time for students to enjoy books is a pretty standard routine in a lot of elementary school classrooms, but can sometimes become less of a priority in middle and high school ELA. I can definitely see why this happens - there are so many standards to cover! However, I still think that a regular reading routine can support older students as well.
Here’s the way I see it. Yes, our job as teachers is to make sure we are teaching the standards in our curriculum. But in a world where students increasingly communicate through technology, I think it’s also important to create opportunities for them to engage with physical books, too. Fostering a genuine love of reading is why I don’t put too many “rules” around my SSR time. As long as students choose appropriate, good-fit books that they find engaging, pretty much anything goes (yes, even graphic novels and comics!). My hope is that the practice of sustained silent reading (SSR) helps to build students into life-long readers, who continue to be open and empathetic to the stories and experiences of others around them.
I find an SSR routine very helpful if I need to quickly conference with a student, or complete a brief 1:1 or small-group check-in. Over the years, I’ve also noticed that building this type of routine from the beginning of a new school year can also increase students’ stamina, and their ability to focus on a task for longer periods of time.
3) Quick Writes
If your students struggle with the writing process, I’m not exaggerating when I say that quick writes can be an absolute game-changer! I find that some middle schoolers can struggle to generate ideas, or write about a provided prompt. Quick writes allow students to practice these skills in a low-pressure way (that can also be a lot of fun!). Here’s how they work:
At the beginning of class, provide your students with a prompt. This might be an image, a short video, or a quote - pretty much anything goes, as long as it has the potential to spark creativity. Depending on your goals, you may like to help students focus on a particular type of writing (descriptive, narrative, persuasive, etc.). From here, I like to set a timer for about five minutes, and allow students to write freely on this topic.
What I like about quick writes is that they allow students to practice the process of writing without the pressure of evaluation - although they can also act as a springboard for a narrative or functional writing task that incorporates student choice and voice. For example, you might your class complete a week’s worth of quick writes, and then ask them to select their favorite to turn into a full-length short story or persuasive essay! From time to time, I also like to conduct spot-checks of students’ notebooks (or digital files) to gauge their progress as writers over the course of the term.
4) Individual Conferences
I think individual conferences are one of the most valuable tools in any ELA teacher’s toolkit! Conferencing with students holds them directly accountable to their learning goals, and allows me to quickly assess their progress, troubleshoot any tricky areas, and provide praise and encouragement! I try to keep my conferences brief (three to five minutes, tops) and low-pressure for students.
For me, I find it easiest to incorporate conferences alongside other routines for teaching ELA. For example, I might schedule two or three quick conferences a day during times where the rest of the class is engaged in an activity like a daily bell-ringer, or sustained silent reading. I like to schedule these conferences in advance so that students know what to expect, and I keep brief notes from each student meeting. These notes can be especially useful in preparing for parent-teacher conferences, or when I need to write report card comments!
I also find that in addition to learning about my students’ areas of strength and growth, conferencing also helps me to get to know each member of the class individually. Through conferences, I can quickly learn about students’ extracurricular commitments, personal goals, and other useful information that can help me support them in ther learning.
5) Attendance Questions
Are you one of those teachers who struggles to get your attendance in on time? I’ve been there, too! Finally, after one too many reminders from the front office, I realized that I needed to incorporate a better routine for taking attendance.
For me, integrating attendance as part of my daily teaching routine for ELA really saved my relationship with the front office (and made things more predictable - and fun! - for my students, too). I found that students really enjoyed it when I posted a daily attendance question on my board. Here’s how this process works:
As students enter the classroom, they can read the daily attendance question on the front board. I’ve had a lot of good success with Would You Rather? and True & False style questions, depending on the group! Then, when you take attendance, each student can call out their answer to the question, rather than simply saying “here” or “present.”
Hopefully these routines for teaching ELA help you out as you ease back into a new school year!
Looking for more great classroom routines for teaching ELA in middle or high school? Our bloggers in the Coffee Shop have you covered!
A Year of Journal Writing Prompts (over 400 prompts) from Tracee Orman
Classroom Management Strategies for the Last Minutes of Class from Room 213
