Teaching middle grades reading and ELA
My students are just finishing up their novel study for Freak the Mighty this week. They’ll take the final test tomorrow and watch the movie on Thursday. Of course, we’ll be comparing the book to the movie. I’m using the test and book vs. movie chart from Secondary Solutions’ Freak the Mighty unit. I’m loosely calling this a novel study since my… Read More
I can’t think of many things worse than having to settle for a less-than-great class novel because it’s all that’s in your closet and you can’t afford anything better. This happened to me four years ago when teaching sixth grade reading for the first time. I had no choice but to teach Esperanza Rising. I didn’t love it, but my… Read More
It seems like it’s been way too long since I’ve blogged about what we’re up to in my classroom. The month of November has been a CRAZY one for me, but in a great way! We spent four fun-filled days in Nashville attending the AMLE conference. We brought all three kids with us (!!) as well as my in-laws, who… Read More
In the past, my students have read Al Capone Does My Shirts as the summer reading novel for incoming sixth graders. At a new school this year, that didn’t happen. So, I decided to make it my first novel study! Most novels are hard to start, right? It takes a while for students to get into the book and become… Read More
(Download this project here!) So, let me be the first to confess that I’m NOT a project-assigning kind of girl… I tend to avoid them like the plague. But here’s a project that my students did an AMAZING job with! I was thrilled with the level of critical thinking involved and the evidence of comprehension of the novel at such… Read More
