Episode 285: Why You Should Ditch New Lessons at the End of the Year

On this episode of the Teaching Middle School ELA podcast, we're encouraging you to shake the pressure of finding a magical new ELA unit to finish your school year with fun and engagement. Yep, you heard us right! While engagement and rigor are just as important at the end of the school year, we are challenging the idea that you need to search for something "brand new" to make that happen inside your classroom! Perhaps hitting the "rewind" button to review activities your students already know and love could be just as interesting!

We're giving you two ideas in this episode that will not only add a little sparkle to your end-of-year lessons, but they also provide a natural way to review multiple ELA concepts at once! Your students will love showing off what they've learned and have fun while doing it!

You'll hear about:

- Using hexagonal thinking to give students the opportunity to connect various ELA skills and concepts

- Using the "sticky note" method for students to collaborate and reflect on what they've learned

Grab a pen and paper to jot down these ideas as you listen in!

BIG NEWS: The EB Teachers' ELA Portal will officially be open for enrollment this summer! If having access to ALL of the below sounds helpful to you, then we invite you to take a quick moment to add your name to our priority list today! Are you ready for:

• Hundreds of ready-to-go ELA lessons
• A robust Core ELA Curriculum that includes reading, writing, grammar, and vocabulary covering all of the ELA standards
• Innovative digital lesson planning software
• Hours of on-demand PD videos
• A community of thousands of supportive ELA teachers from around the world

Pretty incredible, right?Click the link below to add your name to the priority list today:

https://www.ebteacher.com/ebtc-priority-list

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Well, hello there, teacher. We know that the end of the year is approaching and it can be tempting to spend your time searching for like that new, exciting, awesome ELA unit that is guaranteed to engage your students through the end of the year. But today we want to challenge that thinking, giving you a few fresh takes on what you could do instead to still bring the engagement and the rigor all the way through May, but not bring in like a brand new thing that's going to be stressful for you and take you a ton of your time. You will not regret tuning into this one. It's going to be extremely helpful and you're going to walk away with something that's going to make a huge difference for you as you head into the end of the school year. All right, let's go ahead and dive into today's episode. Hi there, Caitlin here.

Speaker 1: 0:53

Our mission at EB Academics is simple Help middle school ELA teachers take back their time outside of the classroom by providing them with engaging lessons, planning frameworks and genuine support, so that you can become the best version of yourself both inside and outside of the classroom. So, if you think you might be ready to try something new, because you know you simply cannot continue the way that you have been that. I'd invite you to take a moment to check out the EB Teachers Club, the EB Writing Program or the EB Grammar Program by visiting the links in the description of the podcast. We hope to continue to support you within one of our programs in the future and in the meantime, we look forward to serving you right here on the podcast each week. All right, you guys, welcome back to another episode. We are in the home stretch of the school year. Crazy to think that another school year is almost under your guys' belts. Jessica, I know you've been homeschooling Jameson the last couple of months. How's that been going? You?

Speaker 2: 1:53

know it's good. We have our moments.

Speaker 2: 1:55

Let's be honest right there are days when we're like we are done, but I will say that is never during ELA time. You know, that's the other stuff. And side note, really quickly, yesterday we were doing the justification activity on a deserted island which, if anyone knows that one, it starts off with Megan doing a voiceover of like welcome to EB Airlines, fasten your seatbelts. And he was like wait, what is this? Like I gave him no warning and then I'm like pretending to put on my seatbelt and like give him a drink and the snack and he's just like you're weird, mom. And then, after that part was done, he was like that was so fun, she's funny. And I was talking about Megan, and so now we're knee deep in that. Oh my gosh, like we didn't do this at school. I'm like I know, buddy, that is so funny.

Speaker 3: 2:40

Can I tell you guys a funny story. So when the curriculum team asked me to record that, I think it was last spring and what was hilarious about it is my mom refers to me as like an airline lady, because sometimes I can be like very firm and like a little passive, aggressive, and she that's what they call me at home. She's like Megan, stop being the airline lady. So when you guys asked me to record that, I was like perfect.

Speaker 2: 3:01

Like I can nail that.

Speaker 1: 3:02

It was manifested for you. There you go, Megan. You got to live out your true identity.

Speaker 3: 3:08

I can see you being a very effective yes, like yeah, please, please, stow your bag in the in the area, please. Yeah, wheels go out guys.

Speaker 1: 3:17

Wheels go out, okay. Actually I don't know, do they go in? I don't know, when you put them in the above thing, your carry on. Do the wheels go in or out? I have no idea. I've never like thought about it.

Speaker 2: 3:31

But, all that being said, we went off on a tangent. But it's the end of the year.

Speaker 1: 3:35

It's the end of the year is what we're trying to say. It's the end of the year, and maybe your brains are like ours are right now.

Speaker 3: 3:40

Oh my gosh, I love it, okay.

Speaker 1: 3:42

So, speaking of the end of the year, if you are an EB teacher, you know that we are releasing our brand new platform, the EB teachers ELA portal, that is releasing June 26th to our EB teachers. You are not an EB teachers club member and you are an EB writing program member or an EB grammar program member and you want to be a part of that. Make sure that you go check out in the Facebook group, your emails from us for all of the details. For that. And if you are not a part of our EB world at all, we are releasing our new app to the public in July and this includes our core ELA curriculum. So we've included a scope and sequence for fifth grade, sixth grade, seventh grade and eighth grade, utilizing all of the materials that you have access to, as well as a variety of supplemental activities for you to use in case you need extra support around things like justification to use with your students in your classroom. And we also have an ELA teacher video library that covers a video that has a video that covers every single skill that you could think that you need to teach as a middle school ELA teacher, where we teach you how to effectively address that skill with your students. And then, last but not least, the cherry on top, my favorite part, is our lesson planning software that our developers have been really working hard with us on over gosh. It's going to be eight months, nine months by the time it gets released, that we've been working on it and basically what it is is.

Speaker 1: 5:01

I went to them with the idea of I want to take an eight hour planning session and make it 30 seconds. Can you do that? And they were like anything is possible. I'm like great, you guys are our guys, we're going with you. And so that's what we've done. We've made lesson planning incredibly seamless, fast and easy. So even if you aren't utilizing our materials necessarily and let's say, you have your own novel unit for a specific novel that you want to incorporate into the lesson planning software it's going to be super easy for you to still use our lesson planning software even with your own materials. But as a part of the platform, you get access to our entire core ELA curriculum, which is super, super exciting. So if your name is not on the priority list for that yet, I'm going to include a link for you guys in the show notes to go add your name to that priority list. The first 100 teachers who join us when registration opens in July are going to get a 50% off special discount, as well, as the very first teacher to register is going to get $100 cash. And when you add your name to the priority list, you get a free copy of our number one Amazon bestselling book called the Empowered ELA Teacher. It's a free PDF version that gets delivered right to your inbox right away and it's great summer reading for you guys.

Speaker 1: 6:13

Very exciting things coming down the pipeline. It's been hard at work. The whole team's been working away the last couple of months and we are very, very much looking forward to getting it into the hands of teachers and in classrooms around the world. All right, you guys, it is May, testing season is over and all of a sudden it seems like every ELA teacher Facebook group has the same posts, and this is what Jessica was talking about at the beginning. Let me give you some ideas of what Jessica's been seeing. Does anyone have a fun go-to end of the year activity that I can use? Or what are some fun end of the year projects that you've done that are successful? Or I need ideas for how to end the year with my eighth graders. They are so over it. No kidding those eighth graders in May brutal. I need some end-of-the-year teacher-student exhaustion. Students not paying attention, students not listening instructions right, I need activities that I just can't deal with. Any of those things those issues.

Speaker 1: 7:06

Or do you have any ideas for engaging activities or things I can do to make it through the next few weeks? Perhaps that's you guys Different teachers, different grade levels, different parts of the country. Same requests we keep seeing is ideas for what to teach at the end of the year and we're going to argue for something different.

Speaker 2: 7:24

Yeah, and those are like exact quotes. Like I went into all the ELA teacher Facebook groups I'm a part of and that's I just cut and pasted, and there were so many more so it blew my mind that everyone was looking for new ideas at the end of the year. So I want to talk about those shiny new lessons that all these teachers seem to be searching for right now, and these are. They seem to be like these unicorns, right the lesson that's engaging and rigorous and hits the standards and keeps my eighth graders interested, and all the things. It has to be low prep and doesn't require grading, because you know who wants to grade a stack of essays or projects in the last few weeks of the year. It has to keep your admin happy because your students are still working hard. You have to make sure your students enjoy it.

Speaker 2: 8:06

Like it's a tall order what all these teachers are asking for in these groups, and I encourage you to think, hmm, Maybe it's time to ask myself some questions and consider a new way. So that's what we're going to do. We're going to walk you through some questions right now and really sit here and reflect on them and if that's you thinking like okay, I need something bright and shiny for these last few weeks. Maybe pause for a second and really consider if you do.

Speaker 3: 8:29

Right. So the first question you might ask yourself is do I really need a new end of the year activity? And it can be tempting, of course, to feel like you can pull off all the stops those final weeks of school. I feel like you get a little wind under your sails because the end is in sight and you're like, oh, we can do something cool. But really pause for a moment and consider if what you've been doing all year has been working just fine. Maybe the real answer lies in actually revisiting what you've already covered and then just allowing students to solidify their understandings under those skills and everything that you've been working on this year.

Speaker 3: 9:03

Another question you might ask yourself is am I putting unnecessary pressure and stress on myself? If we're real, teaching is already a Herculean task, right, and trying to conjure up this perfect, never-before-seen lesson at the 11th hour might just tip you right over the edge. So take a deep breath and just remember that it's okay to keep things simple and familiar, especially when you're nearing the finish line and students are already a little crazy. Finally, think about what is the real purpose behind finding a new lesson. Is it to keep students engaged and motivated, or is it more about just checking off a box on that never-ending to-do list of teaching. Perhaps there are other ways you could achieve the same goals you're thinking about without reinventing the wheel.

Speaker 1: 9:50

Yeah. Another question to consider is am I prioritizing my own sanity and well-being? So grading a stack of essays or projects in those last few weeks of school sounds as appealing as a root canal without getting anesthesia. Let's be honest, that sounds awful and it's interesting because when I taught high school, may was mellow. We didn't do anything. Honestly, really.

Speaker 2: 10:17

Yes.

Speaker 1: 10:17

So when I came into middle school, I was like what are you guys doing? I'm like this is madness. May is like the hardest month of the whole school year, Whereas in high school it was like we're not doing anything, we're just doing some review. You guys are taking your finals and putting it through a Scantron, wrapping it up and calling it a day, and so I felt like in May I'm like, oh, like smooth sailing, Right. And so I want you to think about that. It's okay to give yourself permission to lighten the load, both for your sake and the sake of your mental health. And I also think too about our students. Like they've got a lot going on, Like May is crazy for them too. May is crazy for the parents also. So how can you really think about prioritizing just your sanity? You know, at the end of the day, your wellbeing, your mental health, matters literally more than anything else.

Speaker 2: 11:08

You just made me think of something, caitlin, when you said may you know, it's hard for the parents to every may. I swear. There's like those posts on social media about like whose bright idea was it to have spirit day at school for five days? And that's me as a mom. I'm like, seriously, I need to come up with, like Gwyn, outfits for you and your friend, and like we're dealing with baseball championships, and I'm just like, oh my God, wait till they get to high school. Nothing happens.

Speaker 1: 11:34

They're just sitting in their room studying for finals. That's all that happens in may. It's very easy, um, okay? Another question ask yourself are there alternative ways to keep students engaged without introducing something entirely new? So maybe it's time to get creative with review games or hands-on activities or collaborative projects that tap into what students have already learned, and this is exactly what we did in high school. So, after like, sometimes like those classics, those are classics for a reason, right, and that's what this episode today is all about is bringing you back a classic end of the unit, end of the term, end of the year activity, which is review. So, yes, your end of the year activity can be as simple as that review, right, but of course, we're going to put a little EB twist on it. So it's still fun. Like we don't. We don't want you to think we're just like sitting here being Scrooges and saying like don't do anything, right? That's not what we're saying. We're saying like, think about, is there a different way to achieve the intended result that you desire?

Speaker 2: 12:39

So before we share that twist on review, I want you to imagine the scene. So you go into your classroom next week or whatever day, and you announce to your class that for the rest of the year you're hitting the rewind button. They don't have to learn anything new. There aren't any more tests or essays or huge projects to turn in Now. Just imagine telling them that there's going to be this collective sigh of relief probably yours included. You don't need to plan and prep and print and copy and grade Nope. You also get to enjoy a pause on delivering new information to your students and instead let them soak in all that they've learned this year.

Speaker 2: 13:19

Allocating time for students to soak in what they've learned allows their knowledge to solidify. It prevents information overload. It gives your students brain space to process. It helps them better understand and connect all the different concepts they've learned. It boosts their confidence. They get to show off what they know and when students can start applying what they've learned throughout the year, it enhances their problem-solving skills and real-world adaptability. And if your principal is wondering like why your lesson plan book just says review for the last two or three weeks, share your reasoning and then rest easy knowing that review is probably the best thing you can do for your students and for yourself at the end of the year.

Speaker 3: 14:01

Yes. So our encouragement to everyone is to raise the white flag Time to surrender. Surrender to this idea that you need shiny new lessons and instead embrace the idea of just allowing students to show what they know with review activities at the end of the year. But here's our EB twist that Caitlin mentioned. We've got two ideas to share with you. So see which one of these resonates the most with you and perhaps give it a try in these last few weeks of school. And remember, keep it simple, knowing it's perfectly fine to just let it be easy in terms of prep for you. It will still be absolutely effective and fun for your students. So I think Caitlin's going to share these ideas with you.

Speaker 1: 14:37

Yeah, I'll take the first one and then, jess, you want to do the second one? I do want to. Megan said a phrase that is one of my favorite phrases in the entire world that I'm sure just kind of flew under the radar there. That I invite all of you to like write on a post-it note and put on your computer is let it be easy, just let it be easy. As humans Like, we tend to just overcomplicate things and make things more difficult than they need to be. If we just live by that kind of what's the word I'm like aphorism. Basically Right, let it be easy. It just makes life ironically so much easier.

Speaker 2: 15:09

Right, it's so hard. I say it all the time to my husband, right Cause it's one of my favorite phrases too, and he's always like you always want to press the easy button. I'm like. And what's wrong with that? Nothing like nothing.

Speaker 1: 15:22

Let's press that easy button Right Like why, what, what? So that's a way we could go down a rabbit hole right Totally.

Speaker 1: 15:27

That's a whole other interesting conversation around, like why do we feel in need or to be hard? What? Why we feel in need or to be hard, what? Why? What is that? What's underneath that? Do we feel like this need to feel accomplished, that we did something hard to prove to others that we like who cares, and that's not like? No, honestly, this is brutal. This is brutal. Honestly, no one cares. No, they don't like. People really only care about themselves. Like, let's be honest, people are very self-centric and when you realize that most people don't actually care about anything that you're doing, it makes life so freeing, it is just the best. So, anyways, two side notes let it be easy and nobody cares, but like, in the most positive, loving, kind way possible. Okay, all right. So idea number one love this one.

Speaker 1: 16:13

We actually talked about this back at our informational text experience that we did in April. We do that every year. If you missed it, join us next year when we do it. But this is hexagonal thinking, or hexagonal thinking, whatever, however you choose to pronounce it. So hexagonal thinking review.

Speaker 1: 16:28

This takes minimal prep, so you can simply Google hexagon template and print out an option that has multiple hexagons on one page, so make a bunch of copies of this, probably close to like a hundred different copies of this Then what you want to do is you want to have your class brainstorm any topic, skill, novel, short story, character, literary element, literally any ELA concept that you covered throughout your school year together. You can then list them on the board or have students, like type a student, type them up as they are shared out loud, and then you want to share that document with the class or keep it up on your whiteboard. So it's up to you, like how many you want to have, how many words you want to have, what you want to put a cap on? Is it 50, whatever? So then, once you've done that, you're gonna place students into groups and have them place one ELA concept on each hexagon. So they're taking all of those words and putting them on a hexagon one word per hexagon.

Speaker 1: 17:26

Then students will cut out the hexagons and start placing them on the floor or on a poster board and you're gonna instruct students to start making connections between the different hexagons, sharing their opinions and reasoning about why various hexagons should be placed near each other. And, of course, you can require students to provide evidence and justification for their reasoning and each hexagon can connect up to six other hexagons. So you can envision this, hopefully, in your brain of what this looks like, and what's cool about this is students can continually rearrange the hexagons until they're satisfied with their web connections. So, essentially, students are reviewing, they're discussing, they're making connections between all of the things that they have learned in your class throughout that entire school year. So they are showing you what they know as you walk around, as you listen in on their discussions.

Speaker 1: 18:20

Maybe you're even participating by asking them questions about their placement of various hexagons Super cool. You want to make sure that, when all of the groups still have finished making their webs, that you give your students a chance to just walk around, see how each other group interpreted the same sets of words or phrases, because people are gonna come up with totally different ideas. And then, finally, you can round out this activity with a class discussion about what students have learned this year, how everything ties together. You might even wanna ask them like what is your one big takeaway from eighth grade ELA this year? And that might be an interesting conversation that comes from this, after they've had a chance to look at all of the different things that you guys have covered as a class.

Speaker 2: 19:03

What came to my mind with that is going back to, like, the craziness of May. I feel like it was always when principals did their formal observations too, and I'm like this would have been a great one to do as an observation. Again, pressure is off you. They're like holy cow. Look at all your students learn this year. They're doing high level analysis, like they're engaged, all the things. So maybe try this If you have an observation in May, like I always did. All right.

Speaker 2: 19:29

Next idea, the next review idea is a show what you know game. So it's similar to the hexagonal thinking activity in the sense that you're going to come up with a list of different skills or topics that you've covered in your class throughout the year. So you're thinking things like theme characterization, evidence-based writing, maybe it's the title of a particular novel or short story, anything like that. And then you're going to create groups of three to four students in each group and you're going to give them a stack of post-its or sticky notes and ideally each group has a different color post-it and then you're going to write the first topic on the board from your list and give each group two to three minutes to discuss that topic and write down on their post-it anything they know about that topic or that skill, like they want to squeeze it all in on one post-it. So, for example, if the word is theme, that you've written on the board each group could write down. You know a definition for theme. They could write how to write a thematic statement. They might write a theme from a particular story they've read that year. They might do a combination of all of those things, whatever it is.

Speaker 2: 20:39

And then when time is up, a student from each group comes forward. They kind of slap it on their board under that topic and then you quickly read through the answers out loud in front of everyone and determine which group best demonstrated their knowledge of the topic. And then they get a point for that round. And you keep repeating this with different skills until one group reaches four points. Or you know time is up, whatever you decide, and it doesn't even have to be four points. You could change that if you wanted.

Speaker 2: 21:07

And I like this activity because students have to be really concise with expressing what they've learned in order to fit it onto one sticky note, and they really have to determine, like, what is the best way for us to express what we've learned. Maybe the definition isn't the best way. Maybe we need to apply it to something that we've learned and that's going to get us the point. So it's super easy to do and you can play it for multiple days. You could do this for an entire class period, absolutely. Or you could say all right, we're going to do two rounds every day for the next two weeks of the school year and I'm just going to keep an ongoing tally of the points, or you could compete against different class periods if you wanted to do it that way. So again, super low prep, just like the hexagonal thinking activity, and it helps students again solidify their learning, review all that they've learned, and it keeps it so easy for you, so engaging for them. I almost feel like it's just better to just review.

Speaker 1: 22:03

Yeah, it is All right. So there you have it Two super easy activities to pencil in as review at the end of the school year so you can ditch all the new lesson plans you keep seeing on social media. Just relax, have fun with your students. Give them the opportunity to take some time to reflect really on everything that you guys have covered together throughout the school year. Okay, next week we are going to talk about three must-dos to close out this school year and prepare for next year. As crazy as that seems to even think about next year, it's really helpful to set yourself up for success. These are great ideas that we're going to share with you guys next week on the podcast. All right, you guys, thanks so much for joining us and we'll see you guys next week. Have a good week everyone.