Language Arts Education Articles for Teachers - Page 8

  It's difficult to ignore the building level of excitement in your classroom as the holiday season approaches. Rather than ignoring the anticipation, or trying to squelch it, take advantage of learners’ engagement by having class discussions that center around Thanksgiving. Sharing Family Trad...

Magic is surrounded with an air of surprise, mystery and wonder. Simple tricks to complex illusions leave us pondering questions, such as how does that work, and how is it possible. It is that natural ability of magic to inspire the imagination and hook the audience, which makes it a tremendous t...

For some of my sixth grade students, point of view can be tricky to identify and define. In isolation, students understand the difference between each point of view and can quickly recite the definition to each. However, my students tend to struggle with identifying the point of view in their rea...

Social networking is undeniably a large part of students’ lives. Having been able to integrate and connect that aspect of their lives to language arts class has helped me to improve student engagement, enhance student interest in assignments, and spurred project completion. It has also served as ...

Process drama is a way for students to learn through interaction. They engage in a variety of activites, like posing in a tableau to portray a scene in a book, or sitting in the 'hot seat' answering questions about a particular story. This method results in a series of interactions between studen...

We all know that connecting curriculum to real life applications is one of the best ways for students to internalize and utilize skills and concepts delivered via classroom instruction. As a sixth grade language arts teacher, I am always on the lookout for new ways to connect learning to the 'rea...

Libraries and bookstores have been my favorite places since I was young. I love books, and as each school year begins, I look to new discoveries and old favorites for ideas, inspiration and entertainment. I’ve used a wide variety of titles to start the year off strong. After identifying the boo...

As a child, I used to love looking through my mom’s cookbooks, fantasizing about the types of meals I could make. I can still remember a picture of small round cookies with frosting in various shades of pink. Oh, how I wanted to taste those cookies. I still feel a thrill when I look through cookb...

Recently, I have been looking for ways to make writing assignments more interesting. When I searched for ideas, I came across several lessons that involved the use of publishing websites. I was curious, so I visited one of them called Storybird. It is a website that allows registered members to c...

Shakespeare! Oh, how we teachers love wooing our students with the witty prose and complex language whispered between Romeo and Juliet. We delight in casting the leads and watching as our students stumble through a language that means absolutely nothing to them. I personally love Shakespeare for ...

Because teachers need to know how to identify and adjust lessons to accommodate a variety of learning styles, teacher education programs usually offer at least one class in which they discuss the need for effectively educating kinesthetic learners. In some cases, prospective teachers may even be ...

You might be surprised to find that the movie “Avatar,” the novel Animal Farm, and the song “Born in the USA” all have something in common. Each of these works is an example of art used to make social commentary. But what is social commentary? As the term suggests, it is a comment on society, and...

Students love to talk about their family pets. Their dogs, cats, or parakeets can be a source of wonderful stories, and can provide a way for students to talk about their lives outside of class. While having students talk about their family pets can be a way to create bonding in the classroom, it...

While it’s easy to assign students the task of reading in class or at home, you can never be sure that they will do it. Just telling students that reading is required doesn’t always work. You might have trouble getting students to read in class, and parents might complain that reading homewor...

While this might not be true for everyone, I find that one of the most challenging aspects in teaching is consistently meeting each individual student’s needs. Although this seems like something simple and obvious to do, for me it means being able to provide challenges for each student at every a...