As I teach language arts, I always share my *general* outline of a complete language arts curriculum. You can see more below, too.
But! I know that many teachers have their own ELA curriculum and only want a few additions to their full year ELA lesson plans. In that case, I’ve highlighted monthly language arts activities below.
Many of the posts below contain free ELA downloads and specialized activities like grammar coloring pages and monthly bell ringers. Even middle school and high school language arts classes enjoy celebrating holidays and seasons.
Click for the month you’d like to see:
These April language arts activities are perfect for secondary ELA classes. Add spring activities for middle school language arts to your English curriculum. Encourage reading, continue writing, & perform speeches with spring ELA lessons." width="300" height="199" />
Language arts winter activities provide structure & fun for middle school language arts classes. Language arts December activities engage middle school English classes with coloring grammar worksheets, middle school writing activities, & media literarcy. Here are ten December lesson plans that will provide structure and get everyone through the busy winter season." width="300" height="199" />
I have taught grades 6-12, and the most effective way for me to meet standards, engage students, and complete various activities is to layer material.
What does layering ELA content look like? Well, I might teach a grammar lesson on clauses while reading literature. I’ll find sentences from the literature, and we will identify the clauses, but then we will investigate the punctuation, the effect of the clauses, and perhaps the parallelism. We don’t have a “speech unit” and then a “grammar unit.” Instead, we notice (and love!) the overlap within language arts.
Of course, if you need full year ELA lesson plans, you probably want something substantial, a pacing guide.
Here are freshmen materials:
Here are plans for creative writing:
Here are plans for American literature:
Here are plans for grammar:
