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Best Test Prep Ideas and Strategies for Middle and High School

Best Test Prep Ideas and Strategies for Middle and High School

When it comes time to start prepping for standardized testing, I like to plan a variety of activities to review the materials we’ve spent all semester covering. We all want students to show what they know and do their best on the tests that mean so much, and if you are like me, you are always looking for new test prep ideas and strategies. Thus, to make your job easier, I’ve curated this list of the Best Test Prep Ideas and Strategies for middle and high school students for any subject.

Classroom Decor

During the review process, it can be helpful to hang up posters that provide students with test-specific information and vocabulary. We often forget that test vocabulary can be a barrier for students, but a quick review of those words could really be worthwhile. Hello Teacher Lady created a poster set that contains 15 high-quality posters — including definitions and question/sentence stems — along with a helpful one-page student reference sheet to showcase test terms such as summarize, analyze, compare, interpret, and more. They are perfect and pertinent for any subject.

Test Prep Vocabulary Posters + Student Reference Page | Academic Vocabulary List

For all my ELA friends out there, you may be interested in some ELA-specific term posters. Capture your students’ attention and decorate your classroom with my 12 ELA terms posters made with real pictures that teens will love. Each picture illustrates, defines, and provides an example of one term.

Classroom Decorations Posters, Elements of Literature with Real Pictures

O Some Great Stuff for English Teachers has an alternative to the posters above. She created a vibrant presentation illustrating Literary Elements and Devices. It has slides featuring plot elements, characterization, and point of view and even literary devices such as allusion, foil, satire, hyperbole, etc.

LITERARY DEVICES Presentation or Posters Perfect Test Prep

Perhaps you’ll eventually have to cover your subject-area posters or remove them from your walls entirely. In that case, you’ll need new cute and motivational wall coverings that you can print and use easily! If you like an eclectic flair, check out my ten pack of posters with positivity and motivational reminders.

Classroom Decorations Posters, Positive Inspirational Quotes

The Scholar Source created a set of seven test motivation posters in a black and white with glitter gold theme that you can just print and go, and they are super cute.

Classroom Decor Test Motivation Posters Black White & Glitter Gold

I also like how Think Tank gets her students involved in creating the motivational classroom decor. Students work together to piece their Test Prep – Test Motivation “block” with their classmates. The result is a beautiful, fun, one of a kind pop-art to hang in the hall. Check it out here.

Motivation & Emotional Prep

At the end of the day, I suppose that no one really wants to take a series of tests, and no one really gets excited about all those bubbles. However, we need our students to feel upbeat and energetic about testing because the results often mean so much. That’s why this category is so important! One of the things that has always stuck out to me is how much emphasis we put on the tests… so much so that it’s easy to forget how all that pressure makes the students feel. A few years ago, my students were really worried, and I realized they were internalizing the test. I created a quick lesson and activity right away to teach them about the true meaning of success and how they are more than the test. You can grab that lesson here free.

Best Test Prep Ideas and Strategies for Middle and High School

During the testing week or weeks, it’s also important to keep students’ energy levels up. I created a Surviving the Standardized Testing Season Survival Kit with tons of goodies to do just that all around the theme of Rocking the Test!

Best Test Prep Ideas and Strategies for Middle and High School

Gifts are another easy way to motivate students by reminding them you care. Teaching and Caffeine created an entire bundle of test treat tags that you can print and use in a snap. There are tons of options!

Testing Treat Tags | THE BUNDLE

The Booked Up Tutor also gives her students a little treat for testing, too. I love her doodling growth mindset bookmarks that double as stress relievers.

GROWTH MINDSET BOOKMARKS

The Literary Maven helps relieves her students’ stress by giving them a fake test... all in good fun! You can administer this fake test as if it were real and once students realize that it’s not, ask them to generate their own ridiculous test questions. Have students take each others’ “tests” or ask students to share out their best questions. Laughter is the best medicine, after all!

Fake Humorous Test to Relieve Student Test Stress

Read a bit more about busting test stress over at my blog post, “Ways People React to Test Anxieties That Might Annoy Others”. My ELA teacher friend, Lauralee over at The Language Arts Classroom also shares four ideas that help her help her students shed the test-prep anxieties over on her blog.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is text-anxiety-blog.jpg

Test-Taking Strategies

Students can know all the content possible, but they most likely won’t be as successful as possible without some test-taking strategies up their sleeves. The Literary Maven also designed a lesson to help students be successful on standardized testing. You can use the section focused on multiple-choice questions, constructed responses, or both depending on the format of the test and your students’ needs. Students will fill in strategies in the guided note-taking packet and annotate the questions, passages, and prompts as directed throughout the lesson. Think Tank also gives her students some test-taking tips by having them complete an escape game! This Test Taking Strategies Escape Room will take students on a secret mission through two 360° VIEW rooms.  This digital escape room has students decode interesting facts about basic test taking strategies/test prep to help them succeed on a test. Your students will definitely have a blast; I want to play this game, too!

Test Taking Strategies DIGITAL ESCAPE ROOM for Google Drive® | Test Prep

Review Games and Strategies

From games to stations to task cards to Kahoot and Quizlet to trashketball to old-fashioned bubble sheets for practice, we are doing everything we can do keep the subject-area content fresh and our students engaged until it’s time for them to take the test.

If it’s ELA review you need, I love to play “I Have Who Has” to review vocabulary. The Littlest Teacher uses a variety of games to review terms and grammar with her English language arts middle school students. You can grab her entire bundle here. I also have my students review grammar with basic skill drill worksheets from my ten-minute grammar packs. Sometimes we get creative with my real-world grammar fails task cards — they are super funny, so they relieve stress, too! Melissa over at Reading and Writing Haven also shares a fun list of resources over at her blog, too.

Real-World Grammar Fails Task Cards BUNDLE, FREE UPDATES

High school history teachers will want to check out this bundle of US History Review Games from Social Studies Success. Plus, she has a very detailed blog post with tons of ways to review using task cards with any subject. Other subjects might enjoy this list from Write on with Miss G that offers plug and play ideas, which would work for any content area. Endeavors in Education shares her take on a test-review scavenger hunt; it looks simple and fun! When I’m having students work through a sample test, I like to use an activity called Tear and Share. Students fold a piece of paper down the middle vertically. They write their answers twice, and turn in one side. After everyone has finished, they take their remaining side to a group for collaboration. While working through the test again, the group creates a team answer sheet. It forces them to review, re-read, and justify their answers. We go over the sample test, and the team with the most correct wins a prize. No prep at all, but super effective.

Best Test Prep Ideas and Strategies for Middle and High School

After the Test

Once the tests are completed and sent off for scoring, then what? There’s likely weeks of school remaining, and failing to have student-centered, engaging lessons for those days following the test will only leave you frazzled and frustrated. The OC Beach Teacher is an expert at developing student-centered lessons, and she shares her tips here. I like to plug a movie in here and there, too, to mix it up a bit. See my entire catalog of ready-to-go movie guides here, and click over to this blog post where I share how to make showing a movie meaningful. You can also have students select a book to read independently… any subject can join in on this fun. Choose no prep book activities from my Making Literature Come Alive pack. Short research projects, escape games, and informational hot topics lessons are all other really doable choices that keep students tuned in the last few days of school without much prep.

As you are planning for test prep, it’s important to remember that mixing up your choices will help students stay focused. It’s also important to remember to keep the content first — and games second, meaning, if the game or activity is too complicated or too trivial, your entire purpose will be lost. As you and your students take on the test… best of luck!

Faulkner's Fast Five Blog

Love this content? Join a group!  There are already tons of ideas, freebies, and fabulous teachers in my new groups, and joining is simple.  Just click over to the following links, answer a few questions, and voila! Thanks again for following along my classroom stories and small-business journey. I really do hope you to see you over in my new “backyards” where we can chat and share all things English and Yearbook.

Filed Under: ACT, ACT prep, test anxiety, Test Prep Strategies, testing anxiety Leave a Comment

End-of-Year Reflection: Top Five Classroom Success Stories of 2018

It seems to me that 2018 has been quite the long year… but then again it does feel like I was just rounding the corner of 2018 not too long ago, and here we are already at 2019.  One of the most important things we can do as teachers is reflect, and so that’s why I love this annual blog post.  It’s been my new year tradition for the past several years (2015, 2016, 2017), and choosing only five moments is always so hard, but here goes: My top five classroom success stories of 2018! This year in review…

1) Read-o-Lution: Reading is the hallmark – the cornerstone – of any English classroom, but let’s face it: In today’s time, even reading can sometimes take a backseat to everything else we cover. And with our teens walking around with tiny TVs in their hands at all times streaming the latest Netflix Original or watching the newest Youtube sensation, there isn’t much reading going on.  I started the second semester (Jan 2018) with a focus on reading and having my juniors make a reading resolution or “read-o-lution” after studying an article about the importance of reading. If you are a Common Core state, you can use the reading passage from Appendix A to discuss the importance and value of reading. If not or if you just want something ready-to-go for the new year, I have this super simple informational hot topics lesson on how Reading Is Good For Your Brain. Throughout the year, I implemented my Article of the Week program, too (another blog post to come on that this year but you can get the materials for it here now).  We also read more full-length short fiction texts in class, and my honors students read an out-of-class novel for book clubs.  (See more about my book clubs here).  I also set up a mini classroom library, and students checked out books all year long that way.  I left their poster up the rest of the semester, and many students truly did make efforts to take reading more seriously and achieve their reading resolution.

2) Podcasts:  I love introducing students to something new, and surprisingly Podcasts were actually kinda new to my students. They had, of course, heard of them, but they never really listened to them. Again… why would they when they could just watch something on the tube?  I actually used Podcasts two ways this year. First, with my yearbook staff, we listened to a Podcast crime series when we finished our book.  Up and Vanished (Season 1 carefully edited) was the perfect way to get my staff engaged. They completed a casebook to keep track of their listening and crime solving. That casebook is free in my TeachersPayTeachers store.  Second, in my English class, we did some spooky Podcasts from Lore during Halloween, and students took notes on a podcast worksheet I created.  (Get those here.)  Then, they wrote their own spooky stories.  My students wrote some really amazing stories: We had many laughs and many spooky cold chills, too! Readers of my email newsletter Teaching Tidbits with Julie Faulkner got that activity for free back in October. Be sure to sign up for that email at the bottom of the page, so you don’t miss anymore goodies. You can also see some of my Podcast suggestions via this link over to my Facebook page at Julie’s Classroom Stories.

3) Victorian Tea Party: Another focus I had this past year was on careers.  Whether students were going straight to a career or college after senior year, I still wanted them to be focused on their futures in terms of where will they work when it’s all said and done. I’ve found that this year especially, my students are so uncertain about what they want to do, and they don’t even really have any idea what’s out there.  I’m going to be adding a few more career-based lessons in the new year to possibly help students get a better idea of what their options are and what might be a good fit for them. But this project was an interesting way for students to really think about who they are as a person and what they’d like to become — just like our gal pal Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion/My Fair Lady.  Hats are a huge symbol in this text, and I wanted students to not only understand and recognize that symbol and it’s role in the characterization, but I also wanted them to make text-to-self connections as well.  I loved seeing how their hats turned out, and it was a fun way to make a class party text-based.  See this activity and all the instructions here in my TpT store.

4) Sieve and the Sand Experiment: I’ve lost count how many times I’ve taught Fahrenheit 451 over the years, but this year I did something new that I’d never done before: a science experiment.  No we didn’t burn anything… though it alarms me how many people want to burn books as part of teaching this unit. (Insert “I dunno” emoji here.)  This was actually an experiment that brought the text to life and helped students get hands-on with Bradbury’s choices.  I hid a few “surprises” in the sand for students to find, but ultimately, my goal of them being able to use the experiment as a jumping off point for discussion during book club meeting was super successful. I was really proud of how they went back to the text to see what Bradbury said and truly analyzed Montag’s memory.  Get my 451 unit here.

5) Character Stockings: About once a year I can get it together to make a huge reading display outside my classroom door.  I wish I could do it more often, but quality over quantity, right?  This year, we were inspired by Fahrenheit 451 to design a hearth and decorate it for Christmas.  I drew the outline for the hearth and printed up the stockings using clip art.  Several of my students drew the fire and bricks and put on the finishing touches with paint. Each student then chose one character from the novel and designed a stocking for that character using text-based details.  I LOVE the way it turned out!! I’m so proud of it, I’ll probably be “one of those people” who leave their Christmas decorations up year-round. LOL!

As you can probably see, this year was about all about a focus on reading — fiction and nonfiction. I wanted students to see the value in reading and truly immerse themselves in it. Making text-to-text connections, text-to-world connections, and text-to-self connections really taught students to dig in and read closely. I think the reading focus paid off: Just seeing students doing more guided reading in class and independent reading out was fulfillment enough, but we also saw major improvements in ACT reading scores with students making gains of 5-6 points on the reading section and some students scoring 30+. That sounds like a great year to me! Share your best moments of 2018 below, and here’s to having your own classroom success stories in 2019!

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Filed Under: ACT prep, Book Clubs for Secondary Classrooms, books, Christmas, Christmas lessons, classroom decor, classroom parties, classroom success stories, classroom teaching strategy, close reading, holiday lessons for high school, informational text articles, Lesson Ideas, Reading Strategies, real world connection, secondary classrooms, secondary ELA, secondary English Teachers, teacher ideas, teaching strategies, teaching tips Leave a Comment

What I Learned About Test Prep from My Handgun Permit Class

Last week I took a handgun safety/permit class.  My husband had accidentally let his expire, so we did it together this time around.   I wasn’t super sure it was something I wanted to do, but I accepted the challenge.  While I was taking the class, it dawned on me that I really hadn’t been a student in a really, really long time, and I’m really glad that I had this opportunity.  As a result, after the second day of class, which was the performance test, my head was swimming with ideas for this blog post – super fitting for this test-prep-time-of-year.  Thus, I’m writing this blog post from the point of view of a student, but I’m going to throw in a few teacher take-aways along the way.

  • Practice – Prior to the class, my husband prepped me some at home with the firearm. We practiced what I needed to know for the performance part of the test because that was the hardest part. He set up a target in the back yard, and gave me a quick tutorial of what I needed to know about loading the gun and shooting at the target.  The whole time we were shooting the wind was blowing, and the teeny, tiny target he set on the ground fifteen yards away kept moving.  Honestly, it wasn’t doing much for my confidence level.  He assured me I would be fine, and we wrapped up the practice session. It wouldn’t be until the performance piece of the test that I would realize the value of the level of “hardness” of that practice session. The instructors of class also provided a run-through of the performance segment of the test, too, and in that exercise we learned that we would be shooting a target much closer than what my husband and I had practiced at home, which was actually good news. And when we got to the range, we saw the targets were posted high and steadily on a board.
    • Teacher Take-away #1) Once at the range, I felt really prepared for the actual test because I had practiced with someone who knew the test. My husband had already taken it once, so he had an idea of what would be expected.  It’s really hard to prepare for something unfamiliar or unknown.  That gave me confidence in him as my tutor, and it allowed him to teach me what I needed to know to be successful.  Anytime I can go to training for assessments that my state offers, I do because knowing what’s expected is half the battle.
    • Teacher Take-away #2) We practiced at home with circumstances that were way harder than the actual test, and I think that was critical. If I had practiced with something too easy – which it isn’t in my husband’s nature to let me off the hook anyway – then it would have been very likely that I would have struggled with the actual test.  It helped tremendously that my practice session was set up harder than the real thing.  I don’t test my students in class with the easiest prompts or questions. In fact, I go overboard sometimes with the difficulty level, so I can truly push them. Then, when test day comes, they are relieved at how prepared they were.
    • The left picture below shows what my husband had set up for me at home…. and it was so windy that day, so the little yard sign with the little orange dot was waving in the wind. The right picture shows the targets at the range, and you can see the other people back there setting up. Look how closely they are standing and large the targets are!! LOL!

  • Vocabulary – During the lecture segment of the course, one of the main components the instructors focused on was the vocabulary. As a student, this was really important for me because I didn’t really know all the terminology I needed.  It may be odd to consider that I would even need vocabulary words to be able to handle and shoot a gun properly, but it really is key. For example, during the performance test, the instructor told us to load our magazines and hold them up.  In my domain, a magazine is something you read.  In this very different domain, a magazine is what holds the ammo.  Without an understanding of the vocabulary for this domain, I wouldn’t have known what to do.  The vocabulary also showed up all throughout the standardized test, as well, and it either helped me choose the right answer or eliminate wrong ones.
    • Teacher Take-away: I had to know the terms in context in order to understand what I was expected to do on the multiple choice test and at the range.  On some of the questions I had to use process of elimination with the answer choices based on the vocabulary.  I am also thankful we covered key terms because many of them were used in the questions. The same is true for state standardized tests; without an understanding of crucial vocabulary, students may not even be able read and understand the questions. And it’s really important to learn the words in context. I rarely give my students just lists of words to memorize; we take words from the texts we read and do a lot of work with context clues.  I use this list of vocabulary words for my high school English class.
  • Scenarios – For someone who hasn’t been in a situation to use a handgun or need one (and hope I never am), it would have been really hard to work through some of the questions on the test since all this was pretty foreign to me. A key component of the course, along with the vocabulary and hands-on demonstrations, was the use of scenarios.  They not only gave scenarios for when to use a firearm, but also when not to use a firearm.  For me, it helped me not to just memorize the information, but I was truly able to internalize it, and I still remember those scenario/stories days after the test.
    • Teacher Take-away: Brain research says that teaching strategies such as role playing and storytelling are effective because we remember what we are involved in, and the brain remembers stories because they are connected together with a beginning, middle, and end.  When I giving examples and demonstrations to my students as well, I try to bring in examples and non-examples to show the actual target.
  • The Right Tools – During practice at home, we used a semi-automatic. I wore protective eye and ear gear.  I practiced my stance and how to hold my hands.  I loaded the gun myself.  When we got the class, some people shared they had practiced with revolvers, and some shared they hadn’t previously practiced at all.  The latter wasn’t really as big of an issue as the first.  The instructors wanted everyone to qualify with a semi-automatic because they can shoot more rounds, and it’s faster since we had so many people in the class.  So, the people who had practiced with a revolver prior or who had already been shooting and developed bad habits struggled quite a bit during the exam.
    • Teacher Take-away: When we do practice for testing (because that really is a thing that must happen), we must do so with circumstances as similar to the real thing as possible. When my students take a practice writing exam, I run copies of the lined paper they will actually use. I set timers for the exact time limits. When we can, we even go test in the same rooms. The unknown and unfamiliar can be uncomfortable, and I want to eliminate as many curve balls as possible.

  • Encouragement – My instructors and husband were so encouraging and uplifting the entire time. They weren’t worried about failure, but rather so confident of success. I needed that because I just wasn’t so sure of myself. I tend to fear failure, and I can let it get the best of me – to the point I shut down and won’t keep trying.  Thankfully, their positivity and confidence helped me do my best.
    • Teacher Take-away: I am very guilty of pushing too much – review, practice, review, practice, review, and so on.  I don’t mean it to seem this way, but I think that can convey the message that I don’t have confidence in what students already know.  So, this year I packed up my intimidating, draining test review materials and made a conscious effort to use games and positive projects to keep my students’ self-esteem built up.  And words.  Just the power of positive words.  Take a look at this lesson that I created earlier in the week with some words to inspire.

Going into to the class, I knew there would be a standardized test and performance test.  So, I had to concentrate and focus, even if it was at the end of a long day and even if it was going to be a lot of new material that I had to learn quickly.  Honestly, I was nervous; in fact, a wave of anxiety hit me when the instructors were handing out the test. I thought, “This is exactly what my students must feel like.”  I hadn’t been in this place in YEARS. I am really glad that I had this opportunity if for nothing else than that reason alone. Sometimes we forget to put ourselves in our students’ shoes, and that paradigm shift was just what I needed to help me help my students through this testing season.

What do you do to help your students de-stress before the test? Leave me a comment below!

Filed Under: ACT prep, best practices, classroom success stories, teaching ideas, teaching strategies, teaching tips Leave a Comment

Tips for Covering and Teaching Grammar

Teaching Grammar, 10 Minute Grammar

Teaching grammar and getting it all in no matter what schedule you have is a challenge because time is limited… and grammar is difficult to teach.  Nonetheless, there are standards we must cover before the final end of course exams or standardized tests roll around.  Plus, if you are a writing teacher like me, you really just want to see your students’ grammar, usage, and mechanics improve.  Grammar is one standard that must be covered, but it’s a huge umbrella encompassing so many skills that it becomes overwhelming to plan for.   This 10-minute grammar strategy was just sort of “born” organically in my class from years of just trying to figure out what works.  Thus, here are the five classroom-tested pieces to my grammar program that I’ve found to cover all that grammar — in just 10 minutes a day!

1) Daily Proofreading Starters: On Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, my daily starter is two sentences with various mistakes.  I have those on the board when students come in, and they know to get started making corrections. I give them time to write the sentence as is, and then they go back and make corrections with a red (or colored pen). — Why do I have them write the sentences as-is? As we make corrections to the sentences, I am explaining rules and using proofreader’s marks to make corrections.  I want students to be able to see the original mistake, how to fix it, and what the rule is. — Then, we go over the answers together, and I use that time to provide any additional instruction, explanation, or rules.  It takes about 10 minutes each day.  Students keep up with their corrections and notes in their folder from day to day.  The sentences that I’ve written in my complete grammar curriculum are based on research from current events or provide information about authors, so there’s always something interesting to read about!

See a video of me doing these bell ringers “live” right from my classroom!

2) Flipped Classroom Videos: I recently discovered the value of the “flipped classroom.” I was aware of the idea but had never tried it. I hadn’t tried it because I just couldn’t really place an effective way to make use of it – until this year.  My students struggle with grammar concepts, as most students do. They actually asked me for more lectures on grammar because they were concerned about the ACT.  But, I just couldn’t devote large chunks of class time to PPT presentations of grammar. Even though they said they wanted more instruction and practice, I don’t really think they wanted that either.  My solution was to try the flipped classroom concept.  Each week on Tuesday afternoon, I send out a link to a grammar tutorial via my Google Classroom.  You could also just send and email or use the Remind app.  It is a short video over one skill.  I encourage students to watch it as many times as needed and to take notes.  We will typically work on the same skill or skill set for a few weeks but with a different video each time.   So, where do I get the videos?  I certainly don’t make them myself ;)!  I once had a college professor say, “Work smarter – not harder!”  All the videos I send come from youtube.com. Some of my favorite go-to channels are GrammarBytes, Shmoop, The Sentence Center, MrsBartonFWA, and MisterSato411.  These weekly videos work pretty well for my juniors and seniors partly because most grammar has been covered by the time they get to me, so a quick refresher typically will suffice.  Even with younger students, though, I could see the value in sending home the video link the day before a lecture to set it up. The more times they hear and see the information the better. My complete grammar curriculum includes links to the videos that I’ve carefully curated and collected over the years.

3) Worksheet Wednesday: Students need regular practice with specific, isolated skills.  I like the idea of a skill-drill to give students specific practice.  These worksheets are unlike the daily bell ringers, which have a random selection of mistakes.  Each Wednesday when students come in the room, they have a grammar worksheet to pick up and do as a grammar drill for the day’s starter. It’s timed (10 minutes), but they can use their notes that we’ve take in class or from last night’s video. The worksheet usually has some notes at the top and examples for that skill.  This way students can give their attention to that skill and work through examples of all the rules associated with that skill.  The skills that I’ve included in my grammar curriculum were selected primarily from the skills covered on the ACT.

Teaching Grammar, 10 Minute Grammar

4) Weekly Quizzes: Weekly quizzes go hand-in-hand with the daily proofreading starters.  Yes, students may see a question from the skills worksheet, but mostly the questions from the skills we covered in the bell ringers.  That is because it’s during the bell ringers that I’m giving the most instruction and rules.  Plus, just like on the ACT – the skills are all mixed it, so I want these quizzes to simulate that experience.  When I first started doing the daily proofreading, I was collecting notes and notebooks and giving credit for that.  It was cumbersome and so time consuming, and I realized I wasn’t actually assessing if students knew those grammar skills we had worked on all week.  I was just measuring if students could take notes and keep up with them!  At that point, I started making multiple-choice weekly grammar quizzes.  The task was huge, but after several years I had a nice compilation.  Since they are multiple choice, my students can take them on the ActivExpressions or Scantron, and that makes easy grade recording for me.   We take the short 5 to 6 question quizzes on Friday, and go over the answers immediately.  I spend time discussing why one answer is correct over the others, and then students take time to chart their scores and make notes on strengths and weaknesses.  It’s a 10 minute time commitment, and students often report increased scores on ACT after having worked through the daily starters and weekly quizzes. Click here to read another post about how I track data.

5) Old-fashioned Homework:  One way to get more grammar practice in is to assign homework, but it needs to be homework that requires application.  Grammar homework (worksheets) typically has right or wrong concrete answers, thus making it very easy for students to cheat.  Instead of assigning worksheets, have students write 10 sentences or a paragraph demonstrating their understanding of sentence structure, subject verb agreement, or parts of speech, etc.  This way you can be certain their work is original as it will be easy to spot “shared work.”  Coming fall 2019, I will also have digital quizzes/worksheets students can do for more practice, and they are perfect for homework. 

I know there are camps of people who suggest that teaching grammar “in isolation” doesn’t work, but I am here to say that it really can.  When done well, teaching students the grammar rules, having them practice the rules correctly each day, and holding them accountable with assessment and in their daily assignments is the ticket. In that case, to me, it really isn’t teaching grammar in isolation.  It’s teaching students fundamentals, explaining the whys and hows, and modeling when and where to use what they’ve learned.  You wouldn’t teach an automechanic how to work on a car’s engine without first teaching him or her what each tool does and the correct process of dissembling and reassembling.   The same is true for teaching students grammar.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen students’ test scores go up by 3,4,5,6,7,8 points.  As a writing teacher as well, after students have worked through this grammar program with me, students CAN apply the fundamentals to their own writing because they understand the why rather than having to just rely on what they’ve memorized or managed to figure out from the guesswork of “exploration-type” teaching.   I wouldn’t be sharing this if I didn’t KNOW that this method worked – from my own experience, from students who have seen better scores on tests and writing, and from parents who see how much their students have learned and are able to do.

If you are ready to try a 10-minute grammar program, take a look at my complete grammar program with daily grammar proofreading sentences, the video links I use, rules, worksheets, weekly quizzes, and explanations and answers.  It’s a one stop shop for grammar instruction.

Grammar MEGA Bundle, Ten-Minute Daily ACT Prep, FULL YEAR Curriculum

Love this content? Join a group!  There are already tons of ideas, freebies, and fabulous teachers in my new groups, and joining is simple.  Just click over to the following links, answer a few questions, and voila! Thanks again for following along my classroom stories and small-business journey, and I really do hope you to see you over in my new “backyards” where we can chat and share all things English and Yearbook.

Filed Under: ACT prep, back to school, daily grammar program, grammar ideas, grammar lessons, grammar prep, grammar quizzes, teaching grammar, Uncategorized 11 Comments

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  • Lord of the Flies Unit Plan
  • Teaching Poetry BUNDLE, Analysis and Assessment, Printable and Digital Get set to teach poetry with this bundle of creative and rigorous tools for teaching, analyzing, and assessing poetry. I pull out the games for bell ringers, fillers, or brain breaks, and the worksheets and task cards are perfect for analyzing a paired poem when I'm teaching a larger unit!
  • Movie Analysis Worksheets, Printable and Digital, Distance Learning These 10, no-prep movie analysis and comprehension worksheets in printable and digital format are an excellent modern and engaging activity to have students take ownership of their learning and dig deeper and closely read a film as a text. Make the most out of your movie-viewing experience with these standards-based options for analysis and accountability. end of year teaching ideas, education, lesson plans, last days of school
  • Teaching Poetry BUNDLE, Analysis and Assessment, Printable and Digital Get set to teach poetry with this bundle of creative and rigorous tools for teaching, analyzing, and assessing poetry. I pull out the games for bell ringers, fillers, or brain breaks, and the worksheets and task cards are perfect for analyzing a paired poem when I'm teaching a larger unit!
  • Teaching Poetry BUNDLE, Analysis and Assessment, Printable and Digital Get set to teach poetry with this bundle of creative and rigorous tools for teaching, analyzing, and assessing poetry. I pull out the games for bell ringers, fillers, or brain breaks, and the worksheets and task cards are perfect for analyzing a paired poem when I'm teaching a larger unit!
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Julie's Classroom Stories

3 months ago

Julie's Classroom Stories
NEW on the Blog:: How to host successful classroom discussions in your middle and high school English classrooms!! juliefaulknersblog.com/how-to-host-successful-classroom-discussions/ ⁠#teachingenglish #juliesclassroomstories #classroomsuccessstories #iteachenglish #highschoolenglishteacher #teachinghighschool #highschoolteacher ... See MoreSee Less

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Julie's Classroom Stories

3 months ago

Julie's Classroom Stories
Right?!? But at least it’s Friday. #tgif #fridayfunny ... See MoreSee Less

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Julie's Classroom Stories

3 months ago

Julie's Classroom Stories
Interested in a research-based vocabulary review game? My students love playing the fly-swatter game, so when I ran across this study, I was pretty intrigued. digilib.iain-palangkaraya.ac.id/2105/1/Shella%20Aprilia%201501121028.pdf ... See MoreSee Less

digilib.iain-palangkaraya.ac.id

digilib.iain-palangkaraya.ac.id

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Julie's Classroom Stories

3 months ago

Julie's Classroom Stories
Hope you've had a great Valentine's Day! ... See MoreSee Less

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Julie's Classroom Stories updated their profile picture.

3 months ago

Julie's Classroom Stories
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