Blog Layout

Everything You Need to

Know About Bell Ringers

Bell ringers are a staple in my high school English classroom. Even my yearbook students must complete a task at the start of the period. Without fail, each day my students have an assignment to do right after the bell rings — every day! About my 2nd or 3rd year teaching, I implemented a system of top-of-the-period daily work, and I haven’t looked back since. Along the way, I learned what didn’t work and what did. Here I’m sharing everything you need to about bell ringers for class.

WHAT IS A BELL RINGER?


Also known as warm ups, bell work, do-nows, openers, entry-tickets, or jump starters, a bell ringer is the short activity that students do upon entering the classroom. They may be standards-driven, spiral review-orientated, inspirational, challenging, or even game-like. Bell ringers are more than just “something students do while you check roll;” they are the engine to the classroom train, the secret sauce to setting the tone, and the trick to calming the chaos.

BENEFITS OF USING BELL RINGERS


There are many, many reasons why you should start each period with a bell ringer. Those advantages include establishing classroom management/procedures, engaging students, helping students mentally prepare as they’ve transitioned to a different subject, implementing skill drills, and squeezing in spiral review. Of all the perks on this list, the top two reasons why I love bell ringers so much are establishing classroom management/procedures and drilling skills. I use my Ten-Minute Grammar Program each day to set the stage when students come in, and this choice allows me to cover ALL those grammar skills. We do work from “bell to bell” in my classroom, but I can’t start teaching right away because of attendance, announcements, etc. However, because my bell ringer is ready-to-go when students enter, they are working immediately. That also lets them know that a certain level of responsibility and academics is expected in my class.

WHAT TO AVOID WHEN USING BELL RINGERS


While bell ringers are the “best thing since sliced bread” for a classroom, you do need to implement them correctly in order for them to work. Three major pitfalls I’ve seen with teachers using bell ringers ineffectively are being inconsistent, selecting irrelevant/meaningless/basic/disconnected material, and never holding students accountable. Bell ringers must be used daily; otherwise students forget that’s the routine, and they take longer than intended to get started, etc. Secondly, bell ringers must be important, meaningful, and useful for students; otherwise they know it’s just busy work. Avoid selecting tasks that do not connect to your class’s goals or even your students’ learning levels. I don’t have students write in journals each day or record their feelings about a famous quote because that’s not a standard I’m trying to cover. Choose something that requires thinking and action; just reading a fact, writing a definition, or copying down a definition doesn’t require much of students. These types of tasks could be strengthened by adding a follow-up question or other requirement that increases the level of critical thinking. The third huge “no-no” when using bell ringer is not holding students accountable. Students always ask “is this for a grade?” While that question does make my eye twitch, it is relevant. We don’t want to do work that isn’t going to “count,” either. So, there must be some level of accountability. I don’t think that a completion grade or notebook check always suffices, either, and that’s another reason why I feel the bell ringer tasks really need to be standards-based. If I’m going to use class time for it, it needs to matter, and I need to measure if students are learning and growing as a result.


WHAT TO AVOID WHEN USING BELL RINGERS


For example, when my students do their ten-minute grammar exercises each it day looks something like this: On Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, they correct two sentences for errors. They do them on their own, and then we go over them and take notes (grammar rules) for the corrections on their paper. I do not collect those notes. Instead, I give a multiple choice grammar quiz on Friday where I test those skills we covered for the week. The catch? Students can use their daily notes! If they don’t take notes, they are at a disadvantage on Friday’s quiz. Does it work? You bet! EVERYBODY takes notes all week, and all I have to grade is a quick multiple choice quiz once a week. With my yearbook students, their bell ringers look a little different. They are completing different tasks daily in a notebook-style resource, but each task still relates specifically to honing their journalism/photography/grammar skills. Most days we go over their answers in class, and then I evaluate their responses more in depth at the end of the week. Ultimately, I see them producing better pictures, writing, and content in the publication of our book. The same is true for my grammar exercises — student writing and test scores improve drastically.

A few other things that can sidetrack your bell ringer game are failing to help students be organized and mistaking the bell ringer for the “set” to your lesson. Especially if you are working with younger students or students with IEPs, it would be very helpful to have students create a notebook or folder just for the bell ringer activities. Take it one step further and have a place in your room for them to store it. Lastly, I don’t consider the bell ringer as part of my core lesson. Having students “Tweet” something from yesterday’s lesson, recalling a fact on a sticky note, reflecting on their understanding of this week’s skill, etc., is really more of a lesson set or lesson activator than it is a bell ringer. For me, the bell ringer and lesson set activities are not related – apples and oranges. Even when I have only 45-minute periods, I still used a separate bell ringer each day.


TIPS FOR HOW-TO USE BELL RINGERS EFFECTIVELY


  • Step 1: Evaluate which skills/goals you want to meet with your bell ringer time.
  • Step 2: Design/Select tasks that students can attempt on their own and that can be done in a short amount of time.
  • Step 3: Decide how you will evaluate student learning and/or hold them accountable for their work. Consider tasks that are easy to check daily or weekly. Instant feedback is always preferred.
  • Step 4: Plan to have the bell ringer on the board while classes change, so it is ready when students enter.
  • Step 5: Initially, model the procedure, proper responses, and expectations. Give students students several days to practice the procedure before letting them swim on their own.
  • Step 6: After a few weeks, evaluate the procedure and results from a teacher standpoint. If you find something isn’t working, change it! You know your classroom and students best!


Nature's Symphony

Breathtaking colors of our planet
Button

Faces of Humanity

Portraits of people from around the globe
Button

Love this content?

Sign up for my email newsletter with more tips, ideas, success stories, and freebies!


Mastering Academic Feedback on Writing

Mastering Academic Feedback on Writing: Strategies for Teachers and Students

By Julie Faulkner • January 2, 2025
Providing effective academic feedback on writing is one of the most impactful ways educators can support student growth. Research and experience consistently show that timely, meaningful feedback clarifies expectations and helps students develop critical skills for success in writing and beyond. Whether you’re following evaluation rubrics like TEAM or preparing students for AP Language standards or EOC writing tests, creating a system for giving and receiving feedback is essential. In this post, I’ll summarize five key strategies to make academic feedback a game-changer in your classroom.
Student-Centered Teaching Strategies: Engage Your Class Without the Stress

Student-Centered Teaching Strategies: Engage Your Class Without the Stress

By Julie Faulkner • November 27, 2024
There are those times when "teachering" just isn’t optimal. What do I mean by that? "Teachering," as defined by me, involves delivering new material, expecting students to produce immediate results, or spending the entire class in direct instruction when students are already overloaded or overstimulated. These times include—but are not limited to—the days before a break, the holiday season, the week of a full moon, half days, or even the day after Halloween. During these moments, the best approach is to shift the focus away from you and onto your students. Let them lead, apply what they’ve already learned, reflect on their progress, and take ownership of their work. This hands-off teaching strategy creates a structured yet low-stress classroom environment where students stay calm, focused, and productive.
Insights from a Student Teacher of High School English

Insights from a Student Teacher of High School English

July 25, 2024
It’s a unique situation for both parties of a student-teaching experience: on the one hand from the point of view of the student teacher, you are entering someone else’s classroom and you may be teaching solo for the first time, and on the other hand, you may be the classroom teacher who is welcoming someone else into your classroom to take the lead. To say the least, this is a tricky space to navigate. That’s why I thought it would be interesting to speak directly to a student teacher – to hear her thoughts and experiences. Whether you are a cooperating/mentoring teacher of a student teacher or you are a student teacher heading into the classroom, this interview with a student teacher of high school English (Miss M), who just completed her placement, is very enlightening.
Everything You Need to Know About How to Sell the Yearbook

Everything You Need to Know About How to Sell the Yearbook

July 25, 2024
You’ve worked hard for half a year or longer to create this beautiful time capsule — the yearbook. You’ve sold advertisements, taken pictures, written headlines and captions, and included as many students as possible. BUT — what if no one sees what you and your staffers have created? That may be a little hyperbolic, but it is super important to have a strategy in place not just for creating the yearbook but for selling it as well. Here’s everything you need to know about how to sell the yearbook!
Make Your Yearbook More Diverse & Inlcusive with These Easy Tips

Make Your Yearbook More Diverse & Inlcusive with These Easy Tips

July 25, 2024
Our yearbook staff’s motto is “Everybody’s Story. Everybody’s Book.” That means everyone! Not just the seniors, the athletes, the staffers and their friends, certain cliques – everybody. Why does that matter? For one, if we are creating a book for people to purchase, they need to be reflected in it; or they won’t purchase it. But the bigger, more important reason is simply that we are telling the story of a year, and without every person represented, considered, and included in the yearbook design, we haven’t done our job: We haven’t told the true story of the year at all if we let bias or favoritism creep in or if we get lazy with coverage and choices. The yearbook must be an accurate time capsule with reflections of each person’s interests, styles, talents, abilities, and backgrounds. Therefore, you can make your yearbook more diverse and inclusive with these easy steps! Tips for your yearbook pages and beyond.
Planning the First Week of Yearbook Class

Planning the First Week of Yearbook Class

July 25, 2024
You’ve just been assigned the yearbook, or last year didn’t go so well, and you want your first days plans to be solid, effective, and fun! Does this sound like you? I’ve been there. The first week of school is a whirlwind, but in yearbook class, the first week back to school is even more topsy turvy, to say the least. You might have looked through my Tips for New Advisers post or How to Have a Picture-Perfect Start to the Year posts for adviser-facing suggestions, and you feel good-to-go from that side of things. However, now it’s time to decide what to do when students are walking through the door — AKA planning the first week of yearbook class! When I think about what to do the first week of school in my yearbook class, I try to think of it like one my English classes in some ways, and in other ways, it is completely different! In this blog post, I’ll share my student-facing plans for the first week of yearbook class.
What the COVID-19 Pandemic Did Not Change About My Classroom

What the COVID-19 Pandemic Did Not Change About My Classroom

July 25, 2024
The 2020-2021 school year was the year of the unexpected, the year of changes, the year of disappointments, the year of frustrations, and certainly the year of loss. It goes down in my book as the hardest year of my teaching career — that includes the first year I taught in middle school, the first year I was a lead in an inclusion classroom, the year I taught while building a house, the first year I was the new yearbook adviser, and the year I taught while having multiple surgeries for some serious medical issues. And let’s not forget that I actually contracted COVID-19 THE. FIRST. DAY. BACK of teacher in-service. However, I didn’t quit. I did survive, and I’m going back. That said, I am choosing to look at the positive — shall we say, “COVID Positive” — Bad pun. Anyway, despite all change that occurred this year — schedules, classrooms, assignments, students, and more, there were a few things that I’m thankful that the COVID-19 pandemic did not change about my classroom.
5 Ways to Use Class Time After the Yearbook is Complete

5 Ways to Use Class Time After the Yearbook is Complete

July 25, 2024
The yearbook is complete, submitted, done. Now what? You have several months of school left, and you aren’t sure how to keep your students on task for the remaining days. Does this sound familiar? With spring delivery or even summer delivery books where students take yearbook/journalism as a class, it’s often difficult — and even daunting — to come up with creative and constructive ways to use that time. As we all know, doing nothing is not an option! In this blog post, I’ll share 5 ways to use class time after the yearbook is complete.
How to Re-Purpose Lesson Plans & Materials for Digital Classrooms

How to Re-Purpose Lesson Plans & Materials for Digital Classrooms

July 25, 2024
Whether you are teaching via full remote learning, on a hybrid schedule, or blending your in-person classes with virtual classrooms, you’ll need your lesson plans and materials ready for digital classrooms. The good news is — you can re-purpose lesson plans and materials for digital classrooms without reinventing the wheel or making all new activities, worksheets, files, etc. In this blog post, I hope to share some hacks you can use to easily convert, edit, and share what you have from your traditional classroom right into your digital classroom.
How to Select & Use Paired Texts for Teaching Reading

How to Select & Use Paired Texts for Teaching Reading

July 25, 2024
In my previous post on the Benefits of Using Paired Texts to Teach Reading, I discuss the advantages of this brain-based teaching method. It’s no secret that offering ways for students to making connections — text to text, text to self, and text to world — is an opportunity to exercise higher order thinking skills. Teaching shouldn’t happen in a vacuum, even though sometimes it does as we stress to move units along the conveyor belt, more acceptably known as pacing guides. Often and unfortunately, we teach one skill and move quickly onto the next. Confession: I don’t teach that way. Everything must build and connect from unit to unit, text to text, and skill to skill. That’s why paring texts is so important, and in this final post in the series, I want to share the practical, actionable ways that I select and use paired texts for teaching reading.
More Posts
Share by: