Advanced Composition

Close Reading Rounds

March 22, 2019

Purpose: Post-reading debrief Time: approximately 50 minutes Level: adaptable to multiple levels. I used it in an advanced class one level below freshman composition. In...

Acceleration / Activity Ideas / Advanced Composition / Critical Thinking / Group Activity / Reading / Vocabulary

Close Reading Knowledge Building

February 13, 2019

All of our students bring with them unique thoughts, ideas, and perspectives. When we give them opportunities to share, together they can grow their understanding of a topic. Check out this idea for a...

Acceleration / Activity Ideas / Advanced Composition / California Community Colleges / Discussion / Reading / Talking Chart / Teacher Tips

Schema Jigsaw Grid

January 18, 2019

Set students up to be successful with a challenging reading with this pre-reading activity. They’ll get some great speaking practice in the process. ...

Acceleration / Activity Ideas / Advanced Composition / Grammar / Group Activity / Teacher Tips

Error Correction Telephone

November 30, 2018

Image of someone holding a can with a string for the telephone game.

Here’s another way you can structure error correction to liven up your class and put the fun in grammar....

Acceleration / Activity Ideas / Advanced Composition / California Community Colleges / Class Routines

Quote Search Posters

November 21, 2018

Use this post-reading poster activity to help students dig into readings and prepare for a synthesis essay. ...

Acceleration / Activity Ideas / Advanced Composition / California Community Colleges / Conference Highlights / Reading

Close Reading Folders

November 19, 2018

Get your students to work together to unpack and better understand key passages from a text you’re working on in class with this close reading group activity. ...

Acceleration / Advanced Composition / Classroom Ideas / Lessons and Handouts / Slides

A Lesson on Topic Sentences

September 9, 2018

If you teach a class where writing is a focus, then you’ll most likely be covering topic sentences at some point. This post has a slide presentation that can help you introduce and your students learn...

Acceleration / Advanced Composition / Grammar / Learner Resources / Lessons and Handouts / Verbs

Common Errors: Examples and Handout

September 6, 2018

Learning to self-correct is an important skill language learners must develop. Check out this list of common errors I’ve been collecting. Share it with your students to help them review the mistakes...

Advanced Composition / California Community Colleges / Grammar / Group Activity / Reading / simple past tense / Verbs / Writing

Writing, Grammar, and Punctuation Tie the Knot at RACE-2-WRITE

August 21, 2018

Have you been looking for a great way to help your students practice writing? Learn about the game Race-2-Write that will get your students writing while at the same time helping them become more aware...

Acceleration / Activity Ideas / Advanced Composition / Classroom Ideas / Graphic Organizers / Group Activity / Lessons and Handouts / Technology / Video

Collaborative Knowledge Base with Google Sheets

August 10, 2018

Yesterday at my college’s convocation, we did a group discussion activity that had us using Google Sheets as a place to collaborate and create a knowledge base that everyone now has access to. I’ve...

Acceleration / Activity Ideas / Advanced Composition / Classroom Ideas / Group Activity / Reading / Teacher Tips

Annotating Together: An Activity for Building Reading Strategies

July 13, 2018

Do you have students who are hesitant to write on a text? Use this classroom activity to help emphasize the importance of annotating while reading and help students build a repertoire of annotation strategies....

Acceleration / Advanced Composition / California Community Colleges / Discussion Game / Lessons and Handouts / Student Packets

Language and Identity Unit

June 20, 2018

This unit is based around the theme of Language and Identity. There are two readings that are the basis of the essay at the end of the unit. ...

Acceleration / Advanced Composition / California Community Colleges / Classroom Ideas / Conference Highlights / Writing

A Dinner Party: Creative Analysis Activity

June 19, 2018

Help your students build analysis of multiple sources with this engaging activity that uses art to help students draw connections between multiple readings. ...

Acceleration / Advanced Composition / California Community Colleges / Classroom Ideas / Conference Highlights / Education

The Accelerated Instructional Cycle

June 15, 2018

The accelerated instructional cycle is a way to approach an integrated reading and writing course to help students gain a deep understanding of texts and work to write complex and rich writing assignments....

Acceleration / Activity Ideas / Advanced Composition / California Community Colleges / Classroom Ideas / Conference Highlights / Discussion / Group Activity / Reading / Writing

5 Collaborative Class Routines

June 12, 2018

Are you looking for some engaging ways to get your ESL students to work collaboratively? Check out these five ways to get students working and talking together....

Acceleration / Activity Ideas / Advanced Composition / Classroom Ideas / Conference Highlights / Graphic Organizers / Reading

Creative Reading Responses

May 22, 2018

Engage your class with these great idea for using various genres as reading responses. ...

Acceleration / Advanced Composition / Classroom Ideas / Conference Highlights / Writing

Three Strategies to Improve Student Writing

May 14, 2018

Learn about three valuable writing tools you can use to help students improve their writing and overall reflection and metacognition skills. ...

Advanced Composition / Classroom Ideas / Group Activity / Writing

Redesigning Peer Review

May 11, 2018

Do you have conflict or struggle with peer reviews in your course? Check out this post to learn two new strategies that can be adapted to any writing assignment to help prevent disputes and people pleasing. Writing...

Acceleration / Advanced Composition / Grammar / Lessons and Handouts / Teacher Tips

Just-In-Time Syntax Booster

May 5, 2018

Add this just-in-time syntax routine to your class to help improve your students' English sentence structure. ...