Stand Up For A Friend: A Social Emotional Learning Activity

One of the changes to our school’s schedule this year was to build in additional time for homeroom. Previously students had a 20 minute window of time to arrive, unpack, and report to homeroom before first period began. But because of issues with buses running late, many times half of our students weren’t arriving until 15 minutes into our first period.

This year our leadership team made some changes to our arrival procedures, buses are generally running on time, and we have a 15 minute period where all students are present so we can accurately take attendance and handle other homeroom business. Most mornings I put on CNN10 for students to watch and at least once a week, I do organization checks to help students keep their binder and folder in order.

This homeroom period is also dedicated to holding class meetings and implementing our school wide anti-bullying program (Olweus). Many of the class meeting activities I do are short and informal. For example, at the start and end of the week, I try to do a quick check in and check out. During these, I will ask questions about what they are looking forward to over the weekend, something they are proud of from the past week, something kind they did for someone or someone did for them that week, something they are struggling with in the transition from fifth to sixth grade, etc.

A more structured activity I did at the start of the year was called “Stand Up For A Friend.” First, students numbered a piece of loose leaf from 1 to 13. Students were instructed not to put their name on these papers. Then, in response to a series of statements (13 in total), students put a check mark next to each number that they agreed with. Statements included things like “I was nervous on my first day of sixth grade,” “Sometime I feel like I don’t fit in,” and “I worry about the future.”

Once students marked off all of the statements they agreed with, everyone crumpled up their paper into a ball and at my signal, tossed their papers to the front of the room, retrieved another paper, and returned to their seats. Then as I read each statement, students stood if it was checked off on their paper. After all of the statements were read, I asked students if they noticed anything, if there were statements where many or few students were standing, if there was anything that surprised them. Following our discussion, I shared with students how I would have responded as a sixth grader and how I responded as an adult (I did participate so my paper was one of the ones in the mix).

My hope is that activities like these will help build empathy among students and show them that they are not alone in some (if not all) of the feelings they have. If you’d like to try out this activity with your students, click here to make a copy of the Google Slides presentation I used.

12 Activities to Use During Literature Circles or Your Next Novel Study

A multiple choice quiz after reading is a quick and easy way to check student comprehension, but it doesn't allow you to assess deeper understanding and it certainly isn't fun or creative. If you are looking for more meaningful and engaging activities to use with students during literature circles or a novel unit, you'll find twelve ideas below that are favorites in my classroom and the Common Core standards they align with. Click the linked title of each activity for more information, student samples, and/or free resources.

1. Text Based Drawings
Asking students to cite evidence for every single question they answer when reading and responding to a text might be good practice and ensure that they are reading closely, but it also becomes repetitive. One way to mix things up is to ask students to draw a picture and label it based on details from the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1: Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

2. Summary or Synthesis Tombstones
Assess students' knowledge of an author or character by asking them to summarize their reading or synthesize information from multiple sources. Depending on the assignment, students may share important facts about the individual, reasons why he or she will or would be missed, or events that led up to his or her death.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2: Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

3. Mind Maps
Mind maps are a visually appealing summarizing strategy, which can be used to enhance students' recall of information as well as to synthesize information from multiple sources. This strategy can be used with fiction or nonfiction texts and can be added to as student progress in their reading.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2: Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

4. Character Silhouettes
Creating character silhouettes is a creative way to conduct a close reading of character or figure from an assigned or selected fiction or nonfiction text. This activity can be used with any grade level, during or after reading any text, and reinforces the ideas of character and characterization while asking students to closely examine evidence from the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.3: Analyze how and why individuals, events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.

5. The Spirits of Christmas
Inspired by A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, students select a character and his/her weaknesses to analyze. After identifying and illustrating scenes that reveal the character's flaws, students determine a message to be shared by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1: Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.3: Analyze how and why individuals, events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.

6. Tweet Sheets
Forget those boring chapter summaries you usually assign to accompany your students' independent reading. Instead, try out "tweet sheets." This activity reinforces characterization and point of view while also allowing students to use their creativity as they explore the characters in their novel.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2: Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.3: Analyze how and why individuals, events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.6: Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.

7. Literary Postcards
Literary postcards are a great writing activity to reinforce the ideas of character and point of view in any novel or short story and can be used with any grade level. Students must depict a key scene from their reading on the front of the postcard and then have choices as to the form of their writing on the opposite side.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2: Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.3: Analyze how and why individuals, events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.6: Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.

8. Personal Crests
Similar to a coat of arms, have students create a crest for a character in a novel. Students will select symbols and colors that represent the character to decorate their crests and then write a short paragraph explaining their choices. Have students compare crests made for the same character and defend why their choices were more appropriate, or hang them all and allow students to vote on the best ones.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1: Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2: Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

9. Word Art
Creating word art is a creative way for students to closely analyze a character and select a symbol representative of the character's traits. You'll be surprised with the creativity of your students and even "non-artistic" students will enjoy this activity on characterization and symbolism.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2: Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.3: Analyze how and why individuals, events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.

10. Theme Collages
Theme is one of the concepts in literature that students struggle with most. Use a simple graphic organizer to help students determine the theme of any piece of writing and then create a collage of text and images to reinforce their theme's message about life.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1: Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2: Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

11. Collaborative Poetry
Incorporate opportunities for collaborative writing in your classroom by using collaborative poetry. Students will first write individually from a character's perspective and then work together as a group to create a communal piece of writing.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2: Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.6: Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.

12. Literary Theme Parks
This fun activity makes for a great end of a unit or year project or summer reading assignment. Students will review plot, setting. theme, conflict, characters, and symbolism as they create a poster and give a presentation of their amusement park. After choosing a theme for their park, students will design rides, attractions, shops, food, and souvenirs.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2: Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

You can find all of my activities for use with any text here.

Resources For Creating Digital Breakouts: Ideas For Making Your Own Activities

Looking for a new and creative way of having your students learn a new topic or reinforce skills? Breakouts are a great way to make content more engaging and encourage cooperation among students. 

Learn more about creating your own breakout activities, also known as Escape Room games, and get ideas on how to lead students to a URL, clue, or code using text, questions, visuals, articles, videos, or songs.

Planning and Creating My First Digital Breakout Activity: Previewing The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton

Right now I teach intervention ELA classes to small groups of seventh and eighth graders. The class is a mix of supporting them with reading and writing assignments in their regular ELA class and providing additional instruction and practice in weak skill areas.

This year our standardized state testing schedule was extremely spread out because our spring break fell right in the middle of it. Since students were wiped from a morning of testing and our schedule was all mixed up after testing is finished, I thought it would be the perfect time to try out a Breakout EDU.

Text Based Drawings: A Creative Way to Get Students to Use Evidence from the Text

Asking students to cite evidence for every single question they answer when reading and responding to a text might be good practice and ensure that they are reading closely, but it also becomes repetitive. One way to mix things up is to ask students to draw a picture and label it based on details from the text.  

For example, as my students did a close reading of a passage from Chapter 1 of Of Mice and Men, they looked for the differences between the two main characters, George and Lennie. 

They used one color/symbol for George and another color/symbol for Lennie. Lots of students busted out their highlighter collection or colored pencils, but underlining, circling, starring, etc. works too. On a second read of the passage, students looked for language that compared the characters to animals and marked that with a third color/symbol.

One of the after reading activities was to draw and label a picture of Lennie using details from the text. Students had already identified these details in their close reading, but drawing Lennie helped students to better visualize what this character looks like and how he behaves. It was also a creative way of getting students to pull evidence from the text without just having them write.

As we continued reading Of Mice and Men, we did another close reading of the text, this time focused on a scene where Curley's wife is introduced in into Chapter 2. After reading, students drew and labeled a picture of her using details from the text.

This hands-on activity will engage your visual learners and even non-artistic students will love comparing their drawings with others. A slight variation of this activity would be to make copies of the page or pages that you would like students to pull evidence from. Students could then cut out the details describing the character, setting, etc. and glue it onto their drawing.

You can find all of my Of Mice and Men resources, including the activities and close readings described above, here.

Word Art: A Creative Lesson on Characterization & Symbolism

The inspiration for this project came from seeing an image of the mockingjay pin from The Hunger Games created out of words. My students were reading The Hunger Games at the time and I wanted to have them create something similar. I looked at sites like Wordle and Tagxedo, which let you create word clouds, but neither had the flexibility in shapes that I was looking for, so this project ended up being no-tech.

Students first selected their favorite character from the novel and brainstormed words to describe and associated with that character. During this brainstorming, you may want to remind students of the different methods of characterization: direct characterization and indirect characterization through appearance, actions, thoughts and feelings, dialogue, and other characters’ comments. I encourage students to use as much language from the text as possible.

From this brainstorming, an object that would serve as an appropriate symbol may arise. For example, in The Hunger Games, Peeta was a baker so a loaf of bread would be an obvious symbol to use for him. I’ve also used this activity with Of Mice and Men, and a red dress would be an obvious symbol for Curly’s wife.

You may want to encourage students to think a little deeper and choose a symbol that is representative of the character’s traits. For example, in Of Mice and Men, Lennie is very curious, so a question mark might be used as a symbol for him or George is the more intelligent one in the pair, so a brain might be used as a symbol for him.

Once students have selected an appropriate symbol, they will use the words that they brainstormed to create the image. I encourage students to do a rough draft first so they can play with the layout of the words. I find it easiest for them to lightly sketch out the lines of their drawing and then place the words on top. Some words may need to be larger or smaller than others. If needed, I allow students to repeat words. 

When students complete their final draft, I encourage them to use different colors for their words to help create the image. If they are going to color anything else, have them do light shading so that the words can all still be read.

You'll be surprised with the creativity of your students and even "non-artistic" students will enjoy this activity. If you try it out with your students, I'd love to see what they come up with!

You can find all of my Of Mice and Men resources, including the activity described above, here.

11 Activities to Spread Holiday Cheer With Secondary Students

It's almost impossible to ignore the holiday season. Christmas carols are playing on the radio, store windows are decorated, and advertisements for holiday savings are everywhere. Instead of trying to block out the merriment, spread holiday cheer inside your classroom by inspiring students with the texts you read, finding ways to give inside the classroom, and engaging students in volunteer work outside of the classroom.

Mind Mapping: A Visual Summarizing Strategy

Mind mapping is a visual representation of ideas, a combination of words and images, that can be used with fiction or nonfiction texts. This strategy particularly appeals to visual learners as well as to ESL or special education students whose vocabulary may be more limited or for whom writing is a struggle.

How to Mind Map

Step 1: Use a blank piece of paper with a landscape orientation.

Step 2: Start in the center with an image that represents your topic.

Step 3: Draw a branch stemming out from the center for each of the main ideas connected to the topic. On each branch, write a word or phrase that captures that main idea. If possible, create an image to accompany each main idea and place that image at the end of each main branch.

Step 4: From each main branch, create as many smaller branches as needed to represent the details connected to that main idea. Again if possible, create an image to accompany each detail and place that image at the end of each smaller branch. Repeat this step as needed.

Step 5: Add additional images and color to your mind map. This makes the mind map more appealing to the eye and easier to remember.

Using Mind Maps with Nonfiction and Fiction Texts

When working with a nonfiction text, a mind map could be used to summarize main ideas and supporting details. It could also be used to synthesize information from multiple texts. Asking students to create a mind map rather than fill in a graphic organizer forces students to pull out key ideas (and create visual representations to accompany them) rather than just copying details and whole sentences. They have to process the information and organize it in a meaningful way rather than just regurgitate it.

When working with a fiction text, a mind map could be used to focus on the setting, characters, or central conflict. Students could add details to this mind map as the story or novel progresses.

I first tried out this strategy after a short reading about teenagers involved in gangs, a nonfiction connection to my unit on Monster by Walter Dean Myers. While some of my students had experiences with mind mapping, many had not so we reviewed the directions on this site and Googled some additional examples.

Recently, my students examined a text set about school start time. After reading and annotating three articles on the topic, students created a mind map of the information. Students started with the topic at the center and then created branches for the main arguments surrounding the issue of school start time. Stemming off of those branches were the reasons and evidence to support the arguments.

If it is your students' first time using mind maps, remind them throughout the activity to only use key words and phrases and incorporate images as much as possible. This forces students who haven't read the text closely the first time to return to the text. 

Creative Writing 101: Crafting Well-Developed Characters

Often when my students write a narrative, their characters are flat and predictable. Students are so focused on the events in the plot, that they don't develop their characters into multi-dimensional or round characters. To help students practice creating well-developed characters, I created this writing activity.

First, I cut out people from magazines. I avoided celebrities or well-know figures so that students didn't have any preconceived ideas about what his/her character would be like.

To save yourself time, you could have students do the prep work for this activity by asking one class to cut out characters for another class. If you only have one class, allow students to cut out the characters for other students.

Then put several characters into an envelope, filling one envelope per student. The surprise factor is part of the fun of this activity. Students will select two people from their envelope to develop into characters, so put at least three or four people in each envelope to give students some choices. I tried to include a mix of genders, races, ages, etc.

After students have selected two people, they will complete a character sketch for each, deciding the details of what his/her characters look like, act like, their interests, etc. Have students glue their pictures of their people on the back of their character sketch in case students don't finish that day or for later reference.

Once students had a detailed character sketch, I presented them with Mad Lib-esque prompts. Students had to insert the characters they developed into these situations and begin writing short vignettes. I created a series of four prompts, giving students about five minutes to start writing in response to each.

It wasn't important to me that students write out a complete narrative for each prompt, I just wanted them to practice crafting a story around their character. You could allow students to pick one or more of the prompts to develop into a larger narrative or have students save their characters for their next narrative writing assignment.

You can find this creative writing activity and others here.

For more writing lesson ideas and resources:

Using Stations to Engage Secondary Students: 3 Ways to Incorporate Movement Into Learning

Stations, otherwise known as centers or rotations, are a great way to increase engagement in your classroom. Research has proven the connection between movement and the retention of knowledge. If that alone isn't enough to convince you to use stations in your classroom, try to imagine what it is like to be a typical middle school or high school student.

For about seven hours straight, you sit at a desk, pen or pencil in hand or in front of a computer screen. No moving except for your walk from one class to the next and little talking except at lunch time. Feeling bored yet? Fidgety? Maybe a little sleepy?