Teaching Middle School ELA

Have you ever wondered how adopting a solution-focused mindset could change your teaching experience? Imagine tackling daily challenges with the belief that "everything is figureoutable." This simple yet powerful philosophy has the potential to empower you in ways you may not have considered before.

In this Monday Mindset , I share my personal journey with problem-solving and the importance of shifting from a victim mentality to a proactive, solution-oriented approach. This mindset isn't just about surviving tough situations; it's about thriving in them. I illustrate how this mindset can positively impact not just your professional life, but also your students' development, fostering an environment of collective growth and continuous reflection.

Here's to another day of intentional living!

On this episode of the Teaching Middle School ELA Podcast Megan breaks down an EB Teacher favorite that will have your students strategizing, debating, and writing with justification on a deserted island! (Don't worry, there's no plane crash involved!) Megan shares all the details of this engaging back-to-school activity in this episode, so that you can easily recreate this experience with your students! It's perfect for those first few days back in the classroom because it naturally fosters skills like justification, evidence-based thinking, and critical analysis while hooking student interests with its engaging theme, right from the start!

You'll first begin by setting the scene of a deserted island in your classroom. This can be done in a big way or in small ways, too! Your students will "buy in" to the fun simply based on your excitement as they enter the room. The core task for students to tackle in this activity is to analyze ten character bios and determine which five need to be rescued immediately and which five could survive a few more weeks on the island before the next rescue crew can make it.

Students will use justification from the character bios to support their choices and have a blast revealing their choices to their classmates! You'll have a blast, too, as you get to know your students personalities and learning levels during these first fun days back to school!

Tune in today, and rest easy knowing you have this engaging activity penciled into your back-to-school lessons! You won't regret it!

FREE RESOURCE: Curious about trying Batch Planning this summer? Simply click the link below to grab our 10 Tips to Get Started Batch Planning and take a look at how easy it can be to begin!

https://www.ebteacher.com/free-10-tips-for-Batch-Planning

Batch Planning is the ONE thing you can do now that will have the biggest impact on your entire school year!

In today's Monday Mindset episode, I'm exploring how a positive attitude can transform setbacks into comebacks. Considering Winston Churchill's wisdom on attitude, I'll share a personal story about teaching my son resilience through a football loss, and draw inspiration from Steph Curry's optimism. You'll learn how a positive outlook can enrich relationships, attract uplifting connections, and foster greater happiness and success. I'll also discuss the power of choice in shaping a fulfilling life and highlight how our motivational talks go beyond academics to develop compassionate and capable individuals. Tune in for practical insights and heartfelt reflections on building resilience and positivity.

Here's to another day of intentional living!

On this episode of The Teaching Middle School ELA Podcast, Caitlin is revealing four terms that you can begin incorporating inside your ELA classroom that will directly impact your students' test scores. Yes - this is a HUGE promise to make, and she's not shying away from keeping it. Caitlin will break down this promise with confidence because she isn't only speaking from her personal experience. As a team, we hear from ELA teachers every single year who have seen their students' test data skyrocket after using EB Resources and Strategies consistently. So when Caitlin shares a strategy like the one featured in today's episode, we know it works based on the feedback of thousands of ELA Teachers.

After listening you'll learn how incorporating the use and application of four simple terms across your writing and reading lessons will bring cohesion to student learning and boost their comprehension!

So, what are these four words?

Claim

Premise

Evidence

Justification

Tune in to learn exactly what each of these terms means and how you can easily incorporate them into virtually every ELA lesson you use. Once you develop the habit of using these terms in your instruction, you might be shocked at how quickly your students will begin using them as well!

Your students' test scores will thank you for listening in on this episode!

FREE RESOURCE: Curious about trying Batch Planning this summer? Simply click the link below to grab our 10 Tips to Get Started Batch Planning and take a look at how easy it can be to begin!

https://www.ebteacher.com/free-10-tips-for-Batch-Planning

Batch Planning is the ONE thing you can do now that will have the biggest impact on your entire school year!

In today's Monday Mindset episode, I discuss how important it is to conquer self-doubt and embrace a mindset where anything is possible. Inspired by the book "10X is Easier Than 2X," I explore the power of setting bold, audacious goals and reflect on how fear or external discouragement can stifle our ambitions. I'll consider personal experiences and even share a few stories that demonstrate how, with the right mindset, the sky’s the limit.

Tune in to learn how adopting a mindset of limitless potential can lead to a more fulfilling and innovative life.

Here's to another day of intentional living!

On this episode of the Teaching Middle School ELA podcast, Caitlin focuses on best practices to actually "fit it all in" when planning your ELA lessons this year. She prefaces this episode with a message about the variations in class time length we often see across middle schools. Some ELA teachers have 40-minute class periods to work around while others might find themselves with 90-minute blocks to fill. No matter what situation you find yourself in, it is important to walk into planning your ELA lessons with a positive outlook for what is possible and motivation to simply do the best you can with the time you've been given.

As you listen you'll learn key strategies to make any class length work for you and your students in a way that actually supports student growth. Drawing from research and personal experiences, Caitlin spends time walking you through exactly how embracing constraints and focusing on what you can control will actually transform your classroom experience in major ways.

Before wrapping up this episode, you'll have the opportunity to evaluate how using the ELA standards as your goal and developing a clear plan of teaching these standards with engaging resources will streamline your planning process and yield more successful learning outcomes for your students! Caitlin is breaking it all down and even giving a peek behind the scenes on how the EB Teachers' ELA Portal can support you in "fitting it all in" this school year!

You won't regret tuning in for this strategy-filled episode!

FREE RESOURCE: Curious about trying Batch Planning this summer? Simply click the link below to grab our 10 Tips to Get Started Batch Planning and take a look at how easy it can be to begin!

https://www.ebteacher.com/free-10-tips-for-Batch-Planning

Batch Planning is the ONE thing you can do now that will have the biggest impact on your entire school year!

BIG NEWS: The EB Teachers' ELA Portal will officially be open for enrollment this summer! If having access to ALL of the items below sounds helpful to you, then we invite you to take a quick moment to add your name to our priority list today! Are you ready for:

• Hundreds of ready-to-go ELA lessons
• A robust Core ELA Curriculum that includes reading, writing, grammar, and vocabulary covering all of the ELA standards
• Innovative digital lesson planning software
• Hours of on-demand PD videos
• A community of thousands of supportive ELA teachers from around the world

Pretty incredible, right? Click the link below to add your name to the priority list today:

https://www.ebteacher.com/ebtc-priority-list

In today's Monday Mindset episode, I'm asking you to consider if the key to unlocking your full potential lies just outside your comfort zone. You know...that place that feels risky and uncomfortable. Perhaps embracing risk—both personally and professionally - could be the catalyst for growth and new opportunities that you've been missing! I'll share my own experiences and encourage you to be curious about where you might be holding yourself back from stepping into the unknown. Tune in to uncover how shifting our mindset to view risk as a gateway to learning can make previously daunting tasks more manageable and redefine our baseline for what we consider challenging.

You'll learn practical strategies for building your risk tolerance, starting with smaller, calculated risks, and learn the importance of making decisions from a place of love rather than fear. This episode is a call to action to seize opportunities despite uncertainties, encouraging you to live intentionally and embrace the risks that shape you into a better version of yourself.

Here's to another day of intentional living!

On this episode of the Teaching Middle School ELA podcast, Caitlin, Jessica, and Megan have a candid conversation about the shortcomings they noticed collectively between their individual experiences earning their degrees or certifications in education. Their revelations unveil a large gap in learning happening for teachers prior to stepping into their classrooms. You'll hear that the single most impactful lesson they wish they had mastered before stepping into their first year as a classroom teacher is how to batch plan lessons rather than focusing on creating individual units in isolation.

This skill of creating a roadmap of standards for a larger span of time actually provides teachers with a guide to follow throughout the year so that their individual units or resources have intentionality and purpose that in turn guarantees actual student growth throughout the school year. Developing a long term plan (a.k.a. Batch Plans) allows teachers to avoid the cycle of jumping from boring textbook lessons to browsing endlessly online during their weekends or re-inventing entire units on their personal time.

When teachers avoid the cycle of planning day-to-day, they'll also avoid burnout! You'll walk away with new insights on the benefits of avoiding burnout; including keeping great teachers in the classroom supporting students for years to come! You don't want to miss this episode!

FREE RESOURCE: Curious about trying Batch Planning this summer? Simply click the link below to grab our 10 Tips to Get Started Batch Planning and take a look at how easy it can be to begin!

https://www.ebteacher.com/free-10-tips-for-Batch-Planning

Batch Planning is the ONE thing you can do now that will have the biggest impact on your entire school year!

BIG NEWS: The EB Teachers' ELA Portal will officially be open for enrollment this summer! If having access to ALL of the items below sounds helpful to you, then we invite you to take a quick moment to add your name to our priority list today! Are you ready for:

• Hundreds of ready-to-go ELA lessons
• A robust Core ELA Curriculum that includes reading, writing, grammar, and vocabulary covering all of the ELA standards
• Innovative digital lesson planning software
• Hours of on-demand PD videos
• A community of thousands of supportive ELA teachers from around the world

Pretty incredible, right? Click the link below to add your name to the priority list today:

https://www.ebteacher.com/ebtc-priority-list

In this Monday Mindset, we're diving into the power of just getting started. This concept might seem simple, but so many of us refrain from taking our first steps out of fear of not being perfect. I want to challenge you to consider the idea that DOING something imperfectly is better and more helpful than NOT doing anything at all.

Let's explore the power of embracing imperfection and making progress forward, even in small ways.

Here's to another week of intentional living!

Throughout this summer podcast series, we've taken a deep dive into the EB Batch Planning Approach as well as the 3 types of framework every single ELA unit should include being both rigorous and engaging. If you need a quick refresher, be sure to pop back a few episodes to catch up!

In this episode, we break down the third and final type of framework we call "BEYOND" framework. It's within these lessons that students get authentic opportunities to apply their knowledge and challenge themselves! You'll be tempted to think of these lessons as assessments, but we discuss engaging ways you can turn these lessons into more than just a pen-and-paper assessment. At the end of the day, a quality beyond framework is really a chance for your students to showcase what they've learned in various ways.

We also encourage you to ask "Chat GPT" for a list of fun assessment ideas on the days that you feel overwhelmed or stuck looking for fresh ideas. AI is not going away, and it's going to be a great tool for us as educators to utilize in the years to come.

To wrap up this episode, Caitlin and Jessica, take a moment to share how incredibly easy and accessible the EB Teachers' ELA Portal makes utilizing the Into, Through, Beyond framework in each of your ELA Lessons. From providing next-level ELA units to accessing scope and sequences built into the platform, you'll find your planning process will take far less time and your instructional quality will skyrocket! (Not to mention, your students will actually have fun while they're learning! Win-win!)

Tune in today and walk away fully prepared to use this framework with your own ELA lessons!

FREE RESOURCE: Curious about trying Batch Planning this summer? Simply click the link below to grab our 10 Tips to Get Started Batch Planning and take a look at how easy it can be to begin!

https://www.ebteacher.com/free-10-tips-for-Batch-Planning

Batch Planning is the ONE thing you can do now that will have the biggest impact on your entire school year!

BIG NEWS: The EB Teachers' ELA Portal will officially be open for enrollment this summer! If having access to ALL of the items below sounds helpful to you, then we invite you to take a quick moment to add your name to our priority list today! Are you ready for:

• Hundreds of ready-to-go ELA lessons
• A robust Core ELA Curriculum that includes reading, writing, grammar, and vocabulary covering all of the ELA standards
• Innovative digital lesson planning software
• Hours of on-demand PD videos
• A community of thousands of supportive ELA teachers from around the world

Pretty incredible, right? Click the link below to add your name to the priority list today:

https://www.ebteacher.com/ebtc-priority-list