What do we do with advanced students who need something more in language arts? Here are bunches of articles about how to differentiate vocabulary, word studies, spelling, and reading.
To start differentiating in Language Arts, it's often as simple as upgrading your examples. Bring in authentically interesting novels, paragraphs, sentences, phrases, and words.
Here’s the perfect constraint for March! Writing with the digits of Pi.
Instead of just memorizing what a bunch of morphemes mean, we’re looking broadly, exploring patterns, finding unexpected similarities and weird differences.
Here’s an interesting way to move students past mundane patterns in their writing. Ask for a rewrite, but without a letter (or two).
How can we move a punctuation lesson beyond mere memorization and towards interesting thinking?
My 21st century 12-year-olds absolutely died watching Abbot and Costello’s “Who’s On First” skit. And we got a great homophone activity out of it too.
Here’s how you can add some spice to an otherwise dull study of parts of speech.
I frequently receive questions like this: How do I get a student to read more challenging books? They only like “Book Series X”… I have always been a voracious reader. So, when I get this question, I think back – what led me to become a lifelong reader? Why do I love to read as […]
The first unit in our writing program was always teaching the coordinating conjunctions. It always felt goofy teaching this to 6th graders – especially a gifted magnet class. I mean… do they really not know the difference between “and” and “but”?
Use a two-dimensional scatter plot to dig into the nuances of several synonyms.
One mark of an advanced writer is their use of figurative language. An on-level writer might use figurative language correctly but will rely heavily on clichés. An advanced writer will surprise us with interesting, often more nuanced use of figurative language. And nowhere is this more apparent than with alliteration.
How do we differentiate a dull lesson like “its” vs “it’s”? I decided to push it to an extreme (and include some unexpected novelty).
A fun, abstract vocab puzzle in which students can add one letter per line, forming a pyramid of words.
Long ago, I created a lesson to help my students understand character archetypes. As I’ve revised this lesson, I’ve tried to balance the male/female ratio. For some archetypes, it’s pretty hard and I’d love your help!
Once students have a topic they’d like to research, how do we help them form more interesting questions?
We’re going to take the Academic Valentine idea from earlier, and extend it into a full blown love letter – just in time for Valentine’s Day!
Begin with a small, simple word and identify its antonym. Then, take this second word and find its antonym. Many times, you’ll find that an antonym of an antonym isn’t always related the original word.
Palindromes are one of those fun ideas that some gifted kids just latch onto. We’ll check out palindromic words, phrases, and even numbers in this article.
Many students blow past grade-level spelling and vocabulary at a young age. Unfortunately, a common technique to “challenge” them is to find harder and more obscure words for their spelling list. Instead, let’s take advantage of the built-in complexity of common words with multiple-meanings.
To add depth to character analysis, let’s look beyond a character’s traits and dig into what influenced them to have those traits.
This type of sentence has great possibilities for classroom application because of its two different interpretations. It’s a perfect tool to: demonstrate careful reading, showcase the need for editing while writing, and encourage creativity and divergent thinking.
Let’s see how we can use a classic piece of poetry to enhance a lesson on parts of speech or context clues. This provides exposure to a great work and also increases the complexity of a typical task.
Mother’s Day is coming up, and it’s the perfect chance to practice figurative language. Help your students create thoughtful cards, packed with rich similes and metaphors that relate directly to their mothers.
Don’t bore students with another dull list of spelling words. Challenge them with weekly lists of common English words and phrases borrowed from another language.
Garden Path Sentences seem to begin one way, but quickly fall apart, forcing the reader to start over and interpret words in a new way. A simple example is: “The old man the boat.”
Counting up, what’s the first number with an “a” in it?