English World

Alternate Title: 10 Tickets to Keep You from Looking Like You Just Stepped Off the HotMess Express ;)

I think my brain must work better in panic mode because most of my more creative ideas come to me about 5 minutes before class beings when I have absolutely no plan for the day. I can normally throw something together pretty quickly, but I've learned that if I have my "oh crap what am I going to do today" go-to's already printed, ready, and stored in my classroom, then I can actually act like I have my sh*t together without my students (or surprise evaluator) being none the wiser. :)

10 Things to Have on Hand:

1. DIY Dry Erase Boards. All I did was take a cheap poster frame that I found at a yard sale and turn the poster around to the blank white side. I have two of these now, but I'm going to add more. They work SO well for random activities such as game playing stations, brainstorming group boards, poll taking, 4 corner consensus, etc. If you look at the pictures below, you can see that I added some cheap plastic holders under each one for markers and erasers. I put them on with command strips. If you can't find these frames used, Amazon sells a 2 pack of 24x36 frames for $24. $12 each for whiteboard isn't too bad!

"Survival" Planning Stations for Lord of the Flies

Command Strip holder for stations supplies

2. Sticky Notes (obviously). It's hard to tell how many times sticky notes have saved my you-know-what.

*I have used them to do the "Thought Tug of War" Strategy

*Revealing character traits like in my Serial Unit (You can do this on plain paper too in a pinch)

*Weigh the evidence strategy. An original of mine that I thought of on the fly when I knew my students were on the verge of falling into major zone-out mode during To Build a Fire. Gist: Put students into groups. Have them write evidence for something controversial siding one way or the other. Then, have one group member stand up and use their arms as a tippable scale. With each bit of sticky-note evidence that is placed on one arm, it tips to on side. You can then have the scale people come up to the front and consolidate all evidence to one human scale.

*Group sentence combing practice using key quotes from a text (free template and further explanation in link to an older post)

3. A Soccer Ball. Another strategy to have ready for when you need them to wake up and focus is a soccer ball with literary questions written on it that can be used with any text.

If you would like a full set of 35 questions to choose from, be sure to sign up for my monthly newsletter for secondary English teachers (see email form below). If you already get my newsletters, just email me for a copy!

SOCRATIC SOCCER QUESTIONS + ENGLISH TEACHER IDEAS

4. Act it out task cards. These work especially well when you are reading a play and have no specific activity to do. I will find a key part in the section we are reading that day, and I will assign it as silent reading. Then I put my students into groups of 5 and let them quickly put together a mini play for that section. I don't give them any help in figuring out what the lines mean and when they act it out around 15 minutes later, the group to have the most correct and creative interpretation wins. I am always so amazed at what they can come up with in such a short amount of time!!

Want to see how this works in a 1:1 classroom? Click Here: Digital Act It Out Sample

5. Four Corner Signs. The strongly agree, agree, strong disagree, and disagree signs are classics to have on hand for when you are working on argumentative writing. I just leave them up all year and use them when I need them!

6. Literary Yoga Centers Here is something else I always leave hanging up in my room for when I want to quickly do a fun activity for any text. You can read all about it here: Yoga for the English Classroom

7. Page protectors. If you cut the seam out of a page protector, it will lay perfectly in a textbook and allow for close reading. Combine that with some sort of close reading strategy, and you have yourself an instant plan!

Free DownLoad from my drive here: Mark Up the Text PDF

I share all of my ideas on Instagram first, so follow me here: Bsbooklove

8. Critical Reading Lenses. These are super fun. You can use them with ANY fiction text, and it really helps students to think about the different lenses in which we can view literature. Link: Analyzing Fiction through Critical Lenses with Harry Potter Examples

9. Nonfiction Reading Lenses. Like the ones above, students use these to find different aspects of informational text. I keep both sets of these printed and ready for when I need a go-to reading activity. They work great for group roles as well! Link: Informational Text Reading Lenses

10. Rhetorical Devices and Highlighters. This is one of my best sellers because it's very simple yet effective. The visual helps students to learn, and there are so many things in which you can use the highlighting strategy.

Here is an example of how I used it with Julius Caesar. I put them into groups of three. Each person had one rhetorical appeal to search for. Once they finished, they cut out their highlights and formed a bar graph on my board to show Brutus' rhetorical strategies compared to that of Antony's. Interesting data!

Bonus idea: Playlist assignment (I thought of this one after I finished this post, but I'm not going back to change the title and picture now. Ha!) My history teacher husband and I collaborated on this one (he is a huge music fan), so it will work for any novel or author or any person from history. We use these ALL the time because they are so easy to do students LOVE it.