literature ideas

Solar Eclipse 2017 Lesson Ideas for Secondary English

The 2017 Solar Eclipse is coming and my county is in one of the paths were a great amount of totality will be experienced. It’s such a big deal that we’ve called off school that day for several reasons, but we are required to teach a lesson on the event before August 21, 2017. I’ve researched and glanced briefly online, but most lesson ideas that come up are either for math or science, or they are not for middle or high school level. We secondary English teachers don’t want to let the elementary teachers or science and math teachers have all the fun with the 2017 solar event of a lifetime; we “totally” want to join in with the fun, too! Therefore, I’ve brainstormed five ideas that I think are perfect to shed some “light” on the topic in your secondary English class.

1) Reading Informational Text: Find some articles that explain what happens during an eclipse. I used this article @ http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/gem-projects/hm/0304-1-08-eclipse/Types%20of%20Solar%20Eclipse.htm for the lesson I did with my dual enrollment seniors. I had them read the article and annotate. Then, in groups, they had to make a poster displaying that information. There were many skills that I was able to cover in this lesson including reading complex informational (scientific texts which scores points for ACT science); summarizing; classifying information; speaking & listening; art. Before conducting the lesson, review close reading strategies with my Close Reading and Annotating Teaching Pack.

2) Traditional Writing: Students don’t usually get “starry-eyed” about writing, but when the topics are as cool as a once-in-a-lifetime solar eclipse event, even the most reluctant writers will “shine.”

Narrative Prompt – Tell a story of what happens if the moon didn’t move out from in front of the sun, and it stayed dark forever. Teach younger students to use descriptive language when writing narratives using my interactive “Show. Don’t Tell.” sorting game.

Explanatory Prompt – Compare and contrast the different types of solar eclipses. (This would be a perfect follow up to the informational text reading activity above.)

Explanatory Prompt – Write to explain what causes a total solar eclipse to occur.

Argumentative Prompt – Your school is considering closing for Solar Eclipse Day, but some of the school board members disagree. Write to persuade them to let you have the day off. If your students need extra practice or an introduction to counterclaims, my Claims and Counterclaims Teaching Pack is sure to brighten their arguments.

3) Songs/Poetry: Students love the opportunity to listen to songs in class, and I don’t mind when we can study them as poetry. Take a look at Pink Floyd’s “Eclipse” or Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of My Heart.” These two songs in particular are rich with figurative language and a particularly appropriate dark tone. Grab my poetry analysis bundle with a variety of tools including poetry worksheets, poetry analysis task cards that are perfect for stations, and vocabulary review games. You’ll be all set to guide your students through a celestial poetry analysis.

4) Reading Science Fiction: Ray Bradbury is the first author who comes to mind when science fiction is mentioned. He expertly explored and explicated his imagination of the future and even life outside of earth in relation to and as a reflection of our own humanity. I’ll be reading his “All Summer in a Day” with my juniors for our eclipse lesson. While the characters in the story actually are waiting to see the sun, and we will be waiting to do the opposite on August 21, 2017, Margot, the main character, is literally in the dark and misses the experience entirely because of her antagonistic classmates. See my easy prep, ready-to-go lesson with other paired texts and a complete sun-themed unit. I think this lesson would also work well with younger students, too. If you are looking for a science fiction text for more advanced students, check out Isaac Asimov’s “Nightfall.” Pair it with my literary analysis task cards, and your students won’t be in the dark for long.

5) Creative Writing: Many cities across the country are planning events and celebrations to host viewing parties for the Great American Solar Eclipse. Have your students use propaganda techniques and figurative language to create posters advertising a real – or imagined – viewing party in your neck of the woods. Sneak in a little review of the types of propaganda with my complete teaching pack.

Check out NASA’s website and my own county’s website for more information! #headingtothedarkside

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Keeping Kids Tuned in at the End of the Year

It’s getting to be that time of year when things get a little crazy – a little sideways. Students – and teachers – are starting to tune out! In a middle or high school English classroom, this is an excellent time of year to start that novel you’ve been wanting to teach or to try a new project. So hopefully, these ideas will make those even more creative for you! Plus, they are all student-centered and standards-based, so the kiddos stay engaged, and your job is easy! Join me for a fun recap of some ways to keep students tuned in this time of year.

1) Make It Real – When the CCSS started to roll out and there was so much emphasis placed on nonfiction, I’ll be honest – like many other “old English teachers” – I was nervous about giving up so much class time to those texts over my beloved classic fiction texts. Now, I love finding nonfiction texts that stand alone and/or that pair with my fiction. And, honestly, the kids LOVE it when they know it’s real. Sometimes I have them go searching on their own for real information – like in my mini research project on banned books in my Fahrenheit unit. Or other times, I’ll pair the info for them and have them dig into the material in class like in my lesson on the LeRoy HS outbreak after we read Act 1 of The Crucible. Also, take a look at several bundles of hot topics informational text lessons I have ready-to-go.

2) Make It Personal – We all know that secondary students can be ah hem… self-centered. So anytime they get to talk about themselves, there’s pretty good buy-in. My seniors just completed my Generational Interview project as part of their reading tasks for the last section of my Fahrenheit unit. They – and their grandparents – really enjoyed the projects and the kids learned so much about their families and themselves. This was an out-of-class assignment, but they did share in class. Now that’s an easy prep! Another way to make it personal and keep kids tuned in is with poetry that speaks to them. In my treating senioritis poetry pack, I’ve selected several poems that draw on students’ personal experiences and the follow up activities ask students to reflect on their past, present, and future.

3) Make It Interactive – I have to admit that I’d never used puppets in the classroom before with high school students, but now that I have, I can’t stop. I also have to admit that it was partly my students’ idea to conduct the first puppet show. When my seniors read The Canterbury Tales, I had made little cards with the characters on them. I wanted each student to read and research about that character to share with the class. One student was holding up her card and thought she was being funny when she said, “We should do this as a puppet show.” I said, “Actually, that’s a great idea. Yes, we should.” That night I glued Popsicle sticks on the cards and borrowed a puppet curtain my mom had made for my nieces. Voila! The next day we had a puppet show! After that, I let my emoji addiction get a little more out of control, and I made emoji puppets for accountable talk, review, point of view, and more! See my Facebook post about them!

Escape games are super hot right now, too, and you can find them in just about any subject and grade level. The end of the year is the perfect time to give one a try for review or just for fun. I’ve made full-length games for some favorite stories I teach, and I recently started to make mini escape games that last 30 minutes!

All of my games are designed so that you can use a physical lock box that you buy premade or make yourself or digitally with Google. I love using the physical lock box for students, and I’ve created a quick video tutorial just in case you’ve wanted to try it, but have been a little apprehensive about it.

4) Make It Project-Based – Projects don’t have to be a lot of work for you. Nor should they be a lot of work to prep. One year I wanted something new and fun for Earth Day, so I rummaged through my junk drawers at the house and had student create uses for the various items. The skills we covered? Propaganda, Info-Text Analysis; Speaking and Listening, Presenting. That project is for sale here! This time of year, my yearbook students also work on projects to keep them busy until the books come back. They would be excellent for a yearbook class, business, art, or technology class. I’ve also successfully done short research projects, and I have a ton of those available as well on a variety of topics.

5) Make It a Movie Day – Let’s be real for a minute. We can’t always show a movie, but if we are talking about getting tuned in, well, we can’t ignore the obvious. If you missed my post about how to incorporate media effectively, click here to go check that out. I will say that my seniors are going to be watching The Hunger Games next week. Why in the world, right? It was their idea – and it wasn’t because they just wanted to watch it randomly. In fact, they’ve been asking me all along our 451 unit if there’s a sequel to Bradbury’s magnum opus. (Can we pause to just say how awesome it is that they want to read MORE 451?!?!?) Then one day, it dawned on a student that there was quite a bit of intertextuality between 451 and THG. I had noticed the parallels before because I love THG! He made a pretty good case for it, so I thought this would be a fun way to end the unit. They’ll have to write something showing those parallels, of course. Plus, I’ve got you covered for tons of movies with ready-made, standards-based movies guides. All you need to do is get the DVD and press play!

Here’s to a great rest of the year! Share your ideas for ending the year strong below!

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Updated 2019

School photo created by freepic.diller – www.freepik.com

Benefits of Using Task Cards at the Secondary Level

Using task cards at the secondary level can be hugely successful. Interestingly, I was using “task cards” in my class before I knew they were called that – and way before they looked so cute! If I needed to guide a particular group on a topic or break up the assignment, I would often just grab some colored index cards and a sharpie and beginning assigning the tasks, differentiating, or reviewing! Now with the wonderful world of technology 🙂 and access to tons of programs, task cards can come in any form or fashion. Here are 5 ways and reasons to use the task cards strategy at the middle and high school level.

#1) Differentiation and Scaffolding: Task cards offer teachers and students many benefits. Teachers need easy, but effective ways to meet the needs of all students who come to the table with all different ability levels. Task cards can easily be used to tailor instruction and reinforcement to those needs.

–You choose who gets which card, and that can be done without the students’ knowledge of that choice. All of my response to text task cards are written in two levels and are clearly labeled in the file. Pictured below are two examples from my poetry and speech task cards. If you head over to my TeachersPayTeachers store, you’ll be able to get a couple of these free in the preview file.

– One directive per card helps students focus.

–If students or groups of students are working through a set of cards, they set their own pacing. Here different groups of students are analyzing poetry, but one group only has one card, while the other group has two cards.

–Some cards can have suggested answers or clues, while others are more open-ended.

–Some students or groups can be assigned one or more depending on their needs.

– Task cards just by their nature provide individualized instruction and scaffolding because they allow for effective chunking of material. For example, when I teach writing, we use task cards to guide analysis of model papers during the pre-writing process and task cards to provide directives for revision and editing during the phases of the writing process.

#2) Discussion & Collaboration: Classroom discussion is very important for classroom culture but also for understanding. I believe students need to read about it, talk about it, and then write about it. Task cards provide a direct focus for talk topics where needed.

–Students can see cards first to prepare individually before small or whole group discussion.

–Guides whole group discussion. Take a look at these fun Emoji Accountable Talk Stem Puppets They offer a accountable talk stems for students to respond to or use during discussions.

– Can require students to produce a larger product together. For example, if you want students to write a paragraph, give each group a task to complete a certain section of the paragraph. When they put their work together, they have a complete product.

– Can even be used with large class sizes. See how I make it work:

#3) Games and Review

–Play traditional games (board games, card games, beach ball toss, etc.) with task cards for your subject. Below students are reviewing ELA vocabulary using vocabulary cards from my 100 words every high school English student should know pack in order to move their pieces around a game board I whipped up for fun. Give each group a set of task cards, and in order to take a turn, each student had to answer a question on one of the cards. The rest of the group had to agree with the answer before they could move on. Groups or students could also have a recording sheet that they turn in or use as a study guide.

#4) Gallery Walks, Scavenger Hunts, Quests. and Stations: Lessons that involve movement can sometimes be overwhelming to create and produce, but for Kinesthetic students especially, movement enhances learning. Pretty much any student, though, enjoys the opportunity to move around during class. Task cards make these types of activities much more attainable because they are easier to create and/or manage.

–Cards are posted around the room/hall for a gallery walk. Never tried a gallery walk? Want some fresh tips? Click over to take a look at this FREE video tutorial where I explain how to set up and manage gallery walks.

–Assign students certain numbers to complete or do them all.

–Set time limits.

–Students record answers on sheets.

– Use them in stations or centers. Here’s a quick video where I explain how I developed impromptu centers using my poetry task cards in station rotations. Get the FREE poetry recording sheet here.

– Add QR codes for a self-checking function or to add a quick video tutorial.

#5) Going green with task cards The trend is certainly moving toward more technology in the classroom that is student-centered. Task cards offer so many opportunities for teachers to convey both lesson content, practice, and assessment because they are so flexible.

•1:1 schools

•via Google Slides or Google Classroom in the lab, group device, or on their own devices. All of my response to text task cards are now available in Google Slides format. You can get them here.

•Nearpod student led or in homework mode.

•Classflow with student response systems or on their own devices

•Kahoot for whole class review and gaming. I love putting my Real-World Grammar Fails Task Cards in Kahoot to use at bell ringers or fun test-prep review! They come in large pdf and large jpeg mode for easy uploading in this format, so there’s no extra work for you. See more about my experience with Kahoot at this post!

•Single iPad used via Apple TV to share task card work. Below students were correcting sentences with some grammar task cards. In order to share with the class, I used the mirror feature on my iPad with my Apple TV, so the entire class could see the original sentence from the task card as each group explained the corrections that needed to be made.

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Updated Sep. 2018

When Frozen Meets The Hunger Games

I am anxiously awaiting November 21, 2014…. You know why…
That’s right – the release of Mockingjay Part 1!! It can’t get here soon enough, and while I am
waiting, a constant reel of the books plays over and over in my head. So, it’s no surprise that when my family and I
went on a little day trip a couple of weekends ago to take my two nieces see the Frozen Disney on Ice show that I just happened to notice a few connections.

The result? A set of 5 fun memes for “What if
Frozen met The Hunger Games”!

If you are covering The Hunger Games in your classes or are planning a little refresher while you are waiting on the arrival of the latest HG installment with your classes, head on over to my TPT store for some movie viewing packs and interactive ELA skills review games for these stories that you can’t find anywhere else!

I got so in the spirit of creating these memes for fun here that I’m now planning a little literature-based meme project for my classes with the text we are currently reading this week. I hope you’ll stay tuned for some samples of their creativity (and a freebie) with some ways you can use memes for students to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of various texts!!

Solar Eclipse 2017 Lesson Ideas for Secondary English

Keeping Kids Tuned in at the End of the Year

School photo created by freepic.diller – www.freepik.com

Benefits of Using Task Cards at the Secondary Level

Updated Sep. 2018

When Frozen Meets The Hunger Games

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