How I Structure My Middle School English Language Arts Class

I have a 90 minute period of English Language Arts daily with my sixth grade students. And before I break down what the structure of that period looks like, I want to acknowledge that seeing my students for 90 minutes daily all year long is something most ELA teachers can only dream of. Most middle school ELA teachers are working with 45-60 minutes, some even less. Some schools are on block schedules where teachers see students every other day or for only half of the year. And there's schools where reading and writing are broken up into two separate classes. 

While I don't know the pain of trying to jam it all into a 38 minute period, I have taught class periods of shorter lengths and could offer ideas about how to make things work with less time. But that is for another blog post. This one is just about what works for me in my current situation. I'll start with the parts of class that are always the same, the beginning and end of class.

The Start Of Class

For most of my 16 years of teaching, I have found the most success with starting class with a Do Now (otherwise known as a bell ringer or a warm up). The content of these Do Nows have varied over the years, but the best kind of Do Nows are ones that students can complete independently in three to five minutes. The independent part is important. I need those first few minutes of class to reset from the last class, check in with students, get materials distributed, etc. 

An added bonus to starting with a Do Now is that students need to have out their folders, where they keep their weekly Do Now sheet, and a pencil to complete the Do Now, so in those first few minutes it is also clear who isn't prepared for class and needs additional materials or supplies.

I tried starting class with independent reading one year, thinking that the most important part of class should come first, but it took too long for students to settle down and actually read, so that routine ended up wasting time instead of getting students ready for learning.

My current Do Nows have a daily theme, which keeps students on their toes, and includes a spiral review of content, keeping concepts fresh in students' minds. Mondays focus on unknown vocabulary, Tuesdays focus on sentence structure, Wednesdays focus on literary terms, Thursdays focus on grammar, and Fridays focus on word parts. You can read more about my Do Nows here.

After the five minute timer for Do Nows goes off, we review it and then go over our agenda for the day.

The End of Class

The last fifteen to twenty minutes of class are dedicated to independent reading, exit tickets, filling out planners, and packing up. Before students begin independent reading, they share the summary they wrote of their reading for homework the previous night. This helps students reorient themselves in the plot, in addition to being a daily opportunity for students to recommend books to each other and build a culture of reading in our classroom.

Students read for ten minutes. There is a weekly rotation of who gets to sit on our rug, the only flexible seating in my classroom, and who meets with me at the small group table. I use this time to review skills from previous exit tickets and target students' weak areas using their independent reading books or our whole class texts. 

Students then have five minutes to complete their exit tickets, copy their homework into their planners, and have it checked by me on their way out the door. Exit tickets combine elements of the day's learning, and might ask students to use a word from our vocabulary unit in a sentence to describe the main character in their independent reading book or write a compound sentence summarizing what they learned about natural disasters from our whole class text.

The Rest of Class

With five to ten minutes spent at the beginning of class on our Do Now and review of our daily agenda, and fifteen to twenty minutes spent at the end of class on independent reading and wrapping up our lesson, that leaves about sixty minutes for the rest of class. 

I break up that time in a variety of ways. We might read a short text together as a class and then students might practice applying a skill with that text. For a longer text, the class might start reading together and then students might finish reading independently. Or students might work in groups to write a paragraph in response to a text, followed by independent practice of a writing skill we've been working on. 

There's no one way the bulk of my instructional time looks each day or even throughout the week, but I try to include a mix of whole class learning, group work, and independent practice within that sixty minutes and balance the amount of time we spend reading (or rereading) and writing.

My favorite way to break up that instructional time is with rotations, which you can read all about in this blog post. After five to ten minutes of whole class instruction or directions, students work through three fifteen minute rotations with three minutes of transition time in between. One of the rotations is always working with me in a small group. The other two rotations might include reading, writing, vocabulary reinforcement, or application of a skill. Some of these tasks might be independent and for some of the tasks students might work quietly with others at their desks.

Let me know in the comments what questions you have about the structure of my class.