r/ELATeachers

Tomorrow I have a second interview for a high school ELA job that I have coveted for several years. I am a twenty-year teacher, and I would be changing to a district that has a more stable administration, educates my own children, and might yield a more positive second half to my career.

The new district has a strategic plan that emphasizes rigor within the "International Baccalaureate design-cycle framework" and addresses educational equity. Their interview confirmation email reads:

"We are absolutely thrilled to invite you back to participate in the Second Round of Interviews**!** This next step will allow us to dive deeper into your vision as an educator, specifically regarding instructional design, student-centered learning practices, and classroom environment."

What questions might I expect?

Hi!

Starting this fall, I’ll be teaching English I or II ad a first year teacher. I started off this semester as a sub and am ending the semester as a fourth grade ELA teacher so it will be quite the jump but one I am VERY ready for.

I’m starting to think about my classroom library and what books I’d like to have in it. Obviously some of the classics, but I also want things that kids will find interesting and want to read. What suggestions to you have/what books have worked well for you?

As a note: I am in Texas where books are quite a hot-button topic so keep that in mind when making suggestions 🙃

In all of your years teaching, what would you say has been your most "innovative" or engaging lesson(s) or unit (s) that you're proud of? Trying to get some great ideas from the smartest people ever- my fellow teachers!

Teaching honors ELA for the first time in years. We have a new curriculum but I’ve only taught it to remedial. It’s also a canned curriculum we’ve been asked to jazz up ( every lesson is identical: read, answer in text questions, answer mc, write a paragraph). Any ideas on how to level up lessons to honors? Strategies that work and make it engaging and rigorous?

Hi everybody, my AP just asked me if I have any interest in teaching AP Lang and in all honesty I’m not too interested (more of a Lit gal), but before I’ve totally made up my mind, I wanted to ask those of you who’ve taught it how you felt about the class. What did your curriculum look like? What are the benefits/downfalls? Am I better off sticking with gen ed English 12? TIA!!

Based in NYC if that makes any difference

I'm looking to add a few more literary games into my classroom next year. The ones I use are great for getting students' brains working a bit (and having a bit of competition) before the main lesson. We do word squares, synonym puzzles, Scattergories, word ladders, etc. Does anyone have others they would recommend for students grades 9-12?

View Poll

Any recommendations for classroom novels that would center around AI? I currently teach 10th grade.

Hey everyone,

Our students are vastly different today than any in the training videos our programs show us. Do you have any book suggestions for classroom management that would help in today’s classroom? Faith informed would be amazing, but anything generalized amongst content areas geared toward the middle/high school age is what I’m looking for. Thanks!

Good morning,

I will be teaching English II Pre-AP for a 2nd time this upcoming year. I followed College Boards provided readings and excerpts, but I’m looking to switch them out. I’m wondering if anyone could let me know what they use for readings throughout the year that you know is good and has been successful in your classroom.

For example: I’m hoping to switch out Tom Sawyer excerpts for Animal Farm to teach persuasion.

Thank y’all so much in advance!

My students are begging to watch the series to compare it to the novel, but I have 2 children at home and rarely ever show movies. I would like opinions first before I commit to viewing it.

So…if you have watched the series, is it (or much of it) appropriate for a 10th grade class? Would it be interesting to compare? I can’t find much online since it is so new. If I get good feedback here, I’ll give it a view and show some scenes.

Teaching English on Preply and trying to grow. Would love to hear your honest journey!

I’m having students analyze a painting and one of the questions on their assessment is “what mood or feeling does the painting create. Which visual details help create this mood?”

A student answered “heroic and adventurous.” Maybe I’m overthinking it but would those words be considered mood words to you? I get what the student is saying but to me, mood words describe feelings, not traits/characteristics.

Something I've been noticing more this year and it's starting to feel like a real pattern. The gap between what students say out loud and what ends up on the screen is wide. In class discussion they'll give these nuanced, well-reasoned responses. Then I ask them to write the same thing down in a timed assessment and what comes back is four short sentences with no development.

At first I thought it was a writing fluency issue and started doing more scaffolded writing practice. But then I started paying attention during the typing itself and it's clearly something else. Kids who struggle to type are visibly stressed during any timed written task. They're spending most of their attention just getting words onto the page, and there's nothing left for actually thinking about what they're saying.

I'm not a typing teacher and I don't have time to be. But I'm starting to wonder if pushing this to the tech coordinator and calling it someone else's problem is actually hurting my students' ELA performance. Has anyone found a way to make this a shared conversation across departments rather than a siloed tech issue?

I saw a couple of this guy's reels, was taken by his style and depth, and, cunningly, I forgot to save the reels.

It looks like he's teaching literature in middle school or high school. He's Black, middle-aged, and I seem to remember that he wears glasses. His lectures were vibrant and thoughtful. He was explaining literature in a way that made it seem like it was the most important thing in the world, and he was making powerful connections between what the students read and their own lives.

I know that that is not much to go on, but if you can point me in the right direction, I'd appreciate it. Even if you don't know the guy I'm referring to, you might turn me on to someone else who's just as good.

Thanks in advance!

Hi! Has anyone got any interesting applications for using thinglink in the class? I've seen some great examples of it being used with Shakespeare to visualise settings and allow deeper exploration. Wondering how else people have used it?

I'm trying to plan a 'digital gallery' project where students investigate the portrayal of certain stereotypes in social media and create a TL scenario which leads viewers through their thoughts, critiques and reflections. Wondering if anyone has done anything similar to this. Or not similar at all! An interested in any and all ideas.

Hi everyone!

Just looking for some additional advice outside of my select realm of people. I have recently graduated college with a 7-12 cert in ELA and I’m moving out of state to TN.

I got offered a job that I think I will excel at teaching 7th grade ELA, but all of my experience from practicums and student teaching has been with high school. Luckily, I was with 9th-10th graders the entire time, so I’m not expecting it to be that much of a jump. If anything, I know where they NEED to be by the time they move up to the HS level.

I’m nervous because it is still a jump and I have no experience with middle schoolers directly besides my time being one myself (lol).

**before any rude comments, I can do anything for 9 months even if I hate teaching middle schoolers (which I don’t foresee happening, but you never know)!

How do you plan your lessons?
How should I start the year?
Big rules/routines?
Any and all 7th grade teaching advice is welcome!!

Hey everyone, I’m looking for some advice from you all on how to structure library visits for 5th to 8th grade students. Right now, at my school, it is left largely up to the teachers to decide when and how to visit the library. In my school, there are two libraries: an elementary library with tons of things like Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and other great middle grade books and a high school library with books with more adult themes and manga. I find that my library visits are largely unsuccessful for several reasons:

1.) Behavior Management— when I take students to the library it is often just me in there with the students as the librarian has several other tasks at the school, including co-teaching a number of elementary school classes. So the burden of helping students check out books, help students find books, and to manage the chaos of a different environment falls pretty decisively on me. Also, if we take a biweekly trip to the library, there are some students that will need to go to the library quickly, others that don’t know how to use the library at all, and others that are just excited to goof around in a place that is not their classroom.

2.) Time— I find it hard to justify the loss of instructional time when we go to the library. I go to the library with the intention of spending 20 minutes there 10 minutes in the elementary and 10 minutes in the high school. With transitions, it tends to be more like 25 to 30 minutes. My issue is not with the transitions (I know they can be tighter but I haven’t been heavily incentivized to spend time on our library visits) so much as it is with the loss of instructional time. When only about 25% of my students are actually checking out books and even fewer are actually reading them, why would I spend so much time on a library trip?

I’m looking for ideas from you all on how your school handles your library and how our system can be improved so that students actually read more, the activity is genuinely enriching, and doesn’t create a logistical nightmare.

I recently compared several popular detectors after seeing students talk about false positives online and the inconsistency between tools surprised me more than anything else.

Some completely disagreed on the same writing sample.

It made me wonder how much confidence educators actually place in these scores today versus using them only as supporting signals.

Are most of you still using detectors regularly or moving more toward revision history / in class writing approaches instead?