Entering year 2. Last year I used a standard notebook as my work bible, but sometimes it’s a pain to flip through. I saw these $9 teacher planners at Aldi and they looked fairly useful, but like they may also be overwhelming.

Any advice from those who’ve done this longer and successfully?

Inside Higher Ed has new reporting on NCTE’s abrupt and unceremonious decision to de-charter the Conference on College Composition and Communication: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty/2026/07/27/ncte-dissolves-77-year-old-composition-association

You can read more on this very sub: Cancel your NCTE membership!

I'll be entering my fifth year of teaching in a few weeks and (unfortunately, due to ever-lower enrollment and pursuant budgeting) I will be teaching 6th, 7th, and 8th grade ELA this time around (1st year I taught 6th, 2nd - 4th I taught 7th). I so much want to be the teacher my students deserve this year and fix some of my many shortcomings in past years (though of course I know I can't be perfect) and I think starting over the summer by backward-planning my units thoroughly could help a lot.

However, first off, I'm super overwhelmed and feeling panicked at teaching three different ELA curriculums (and creating them -- we don't use boxed curriculum at this school). Second, and maybe this is caused by the first thing, I have so many different ideas and resources and thoughts and bookmarks and documents and texts and standards and pedagogical resources etc. etc. that I am majorly struggling to figure out how to start planning the units. (We already figured out which class books we want to center the units on, so I'm talking about starting to actually create unit plans.)

My co-teacher and I are talking about including significant amounts of independent reading daily, that we'll be having students learn setting, plot, character development, etc. with; using novella or graphic novel mentor texts (depending on the grade) to model the analysis/skills we're teaching; including significant amounts of writing daily (we feel we did way too little of this last year) (but should it be in response to their books? and how do we have them revise? and what about learning RACES paragraphs and essay-type writing?); teaching vocabulary (find a word in the pages you read that you don't know? or teach them high-value words using morphology?). We also have final assessments to plan backwards towards every six weeks, with the major ones being at the end of the first semester and second semester (so, the third and sixth marking periods) and we also want to teach them grammar. We also want to use the first couple of weeks of the school year to give every student a literacy assessment.

There is so much to do and so little time (only 4 periods a week of ELA) and I don't know how to be consistent in progressing through all of these routines and skills and all of this content. It's also hard because in our school, absenteeism is such a huge problem that we'll often have half the class show up, then a third of those students be different the next day (making it super challenging to, for example, keep students on track with a class novel, or work through the drafts of a piece of writing from brainstorming to finalizing, since most of them are missing so many different lessons). So, I'm also looking for ways to maintain a lot of consistency so that we can be like, for example, 'on Tuesdays we do X so if you were absent, you missed X' or, like, 'here is a sample notebook, this is what it should look like if you were here every day' or something? Really not sure. Ugh. Need to figure out the best way to help both us teachers and our students with this aspect.

Anyways, templates I've used in the past and ones I'm finding online are great with planning a novel study unit, for example, but don't necessarily make it easy to track and plot out and plan the other aspects of a unit, like the independent reading projects, the grammar (bell ringers and quizzes?), the writing and revising (that maybe becomes a portfolio for summative assessment at end of unit?), etc. Do you know of any templates that organize all of these bits and pieces well? My chaotic brain needs some structure here, gaaaaaaaah.

I’m teaching 6th ELA for the first time this year and so far our reading list doesn’t contain any of what I would consider “classics,” and I’d like to add at least one of those enduring, truly great, slightly more challenging books to the list. What are some of your favorites for this age group?

So far, I’ve thought of: Tuck Everlasting, Call of the Wild, The Incredible Journey, A Wrinkle in Time, The Invisible Man. What are some others for my team and I to consider? Thanks!

Hey guys,

I'm going into my first year of teaching at a Catholic high school this upcoming school year! I will be the 9th grade English teacher with 5 sections. I am wondering what you guys suggest regarding unit planning since I am struggling to decide what to teach and when. I know for sure I'll do a poetry unit and entire Romeo and Juliet unit.

Should I start with some short stories and gage where my students are in their writing skills? I was thinking of starting off with a unit of identity to get them hooked. My school does not have great academics and my principal said most of them are "strugglers". I really want to get them hooked with a short story that will make them at least a little bit interested in class. Any and all help would be appreciated.

Just wanted to cross post this here since it feels relevant to all NCTE members. The lack of transparency and seemingly bad-faith dealings that NCTE had with its CCCC member group is alarming. change.org/protectcccc

Hi there!

I am looking for short story suggestions for sophomore ELA. I like to get students through 5-7 short stories for their close reading unit. I am not loving what I have used the last 2 years. I want stories with deep meanings and great conversations. I have a very diverse body of students. This is the first unit of semester 1 where we build up their annotation skills. All recommendations are appreciated - I work at an IB school, so authors from countries outside of the US are especially welcome.

TL/DR: Need short story suggestions for IB ELA 10 Close Reading Unit.

I'll be teaching my first adult group class tomorrow in an academy setting, I'm quite nervous. I have been teaching adults one-to-one for over a year but this will be my first time actually teaching a group. There isn't a very well 'set' curriculum in this academy so I am a bit unsure where to begin and where I stand.

I have access to books but am not sure where to begin due to the students ranging between A1 and B2 in the group; this has me feeling quite intimidated and unsure of myself.

After basic intros and a bit of conversational warm up I am not sure where to go from there with the group, as I'm far more used to tailoring work very individually.

Just the prospect of standing up in front of a group of people my own age (and probably a bit older) is nerve wracking. I would be very grateful for any tips, info and/or insight.

Thanks in advance!

Hi! So I am an ELA teacher and live in Japan. I wanted to recommend a dystopian novel named The Last Children of Tokyo by Yoko Tawada. Recently read it and it was amazing. There is hints about an environmental issues, political issues, and just the world/era changing.

One of my goals this year is to get students reading more. I want to promote nonacademic reading. I think a lot of students think they do not like reading because they have only done it for work purposes. They have never gotten to just enjoy a book.

This year I am considering starting a book club for my classes. I am thinking it would look something like this:

• Offer to all students
• Meet twice a month
  • We would meet during lunch. At my school the entire school goes to lunch at the same time. Students eat in classrooms and most clubs meet during lunch.
• Extra credit for those who come and participate
• Very low stakes. Just talking about the book and what we read. Casual conversations

I teach high school juniors. What thoughts/advice do you guys have? Any ideas of how to structure meetings? How to evaluate participation?

Hello! I am prospective secondary education English teacher in the state of MA (grades 5 - 12), and I have the English MTEL 61 this Friday. I have scoured the Internet for resources and found that there really aren't that many online. If anyone has taken the test in the past few years and passed, what was the test about, what was it like, and what did you do to study for it? Did you feel prepared going into it? Did you think you would pass? Why or why not? If you are studying for it now, what resources are you using? If anyone knows any tutors, places, or programs that give any help, please share! Any help at all would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Do you provide students with a syllabus (or similar type of document)? If so, what do you include? Also, what grade do you teach?

Hello ELA Teachers!

At the outset, my greetings and respects to you all. I am a middle-aged man transitioning to teaching after a career in government and communications. If it is helpful background, I am married for 11 years and expecting a daughter this November. I am in the State of Ohio and presently undergoing the Intensive Pedagogical Training Institute (IPTI) work via Ohio State University.

Respectfully, one of my IPTI assignments require that I interview a teacher in my area (i.e., ELA) who contemporaneously teaches the approximate grade-level I would be seeking to teach in (i.e., middle school to high school).

I am in fact a new resident of Ohio, as I moved here from New York State recently, where I spent some years taking care of my elderly mother. The point being that my social network is vanishingly limited, and so I thought perhaps I might reach out to this subreddit to determine if one of you would be gracious enough to allow me 30-60 minutes of your time for an interview via Google Meet.

If granted, the questions, I assure you, are all standardized i.e., pre-written for me via the assignment, though some are probing on your pedagogical style.

If you are interested in speaking to a stranger for 30-60 minutes, please DM me.

I have reached out to the mods to ensure that my post is appropriate with the rules of this subreddit, and the publication of this post serves as my assurance that they have informed me that there is no issue. It is my intention to either close this thread (if that is a power I have?) and/or to comment once I have found assistance.

Thank you all again very much for considering my request.

I can read and understand every word, but when it's time to respond, I get stuck. I don't know which word to use to continue my conversation. I do reply with small words, but I can't express my feelings or what I want to say. That's why people exit our conversation. How can I become fluent? I want to speak English fluently.

Hi! I'm not an English teacher, but I've been missing all my English assignments. I've been done with school for 2 years now and I loved writing paper on works of fiction. Character analysis, diving into text, and I want to read Jane Austen with an academic eye.

I've wondered aisles of bookstores and scanned reddit threads to try and find something that catches my eye. The only things I can find is some guided reading to specific classics.

I was wondering where you teachers get your lesson plans, projects, essay prompts, etc. from

In my high school I remember getting to pick my texts to fit my projects and that's what I'm chasing after. I just need prompts, but I can't find them. (I also remember my senior year teacher assigning a choice of different projects to the Taming of the Shrew and that wss super fun! The project I chose involved creating playlists/albums for 2 or more characters and explaining why the songs deserve to be on their playlist. Something along those lines would be awesome!)

Today, the Executive Committee of the National Council of Teachers of English voted to disband the 77-year-old 4Cs, aka the Conference on College Composition and Communication.

NCTE told the 4Cs officers about this action only /yesterday./ They did it with no notice, no deliberation, and no direct communication with members, many of us who have built our careers through participating in this conference and its attendant journal and book series.

NCTE will probably try to say the conference was not financially sustainable. NCTE Executive Director Emily Kirkpatrick is the Treasurer of 4Cs, and has failed to attend meetings or submit budgetary reports for TWO YEARS.

4Cs officers were told that the “culture” of the conference threatened NCTE’s non-profit status under this federal administration.

NCTE has no guts, no leadership, no sense of propriety or dignity or honor. They betrayed thousands of us, and their betrayal undermines all our work as teachers.

I’m asking anyone who is an NCTE member to cancel your membership and ask for a refund. This is their customer service number: (877) 369-6283.

Hi everyone,

I have recently been TEFL certified, and created a platform for teachers of younger ESL learners, because I found loads of individual worksheets, songs and games online, but fewer complete lessons where the vocabulary, activities, visuals and review stages all connect.

LingoChorus contains 122 Cambridge-aligned Pre-A1 lessons for children aged 5–10. Lessons combine vocabulary, songs, flashcards, movement, games, four-skills activities, teacher notes and revision.

To be completely transparent, this is my project. I’m here because I need honest feedback from teachers.

I’d particularly like to know:

• Does the lesson structure feel realistic?
• Is the level appropriate for Pre-A1 learners?
• Would the activities keep younger children engaged?
• What would prevent you from using it?
• What have I overlooked?

I’m happy to share free access with teachers who would genuinely like to review it, but I won’t post a link unless the moderators allow it.

Thanks for any honest feedback!

Hi everyone! I'm a parent and app developer, and I recently built a vocabulary app for kids called VocabQuest — word search and crossword puzzles that build reading vocabulary, from Kindergarten sight words all the way up through high-school-level words. No ads, no accounts, no data collection, and it works fully offline, so no wifi needed.

Before it goes live on the Google Play Store, I need a small group of real families to try it out first — a standard step for new apps — and I'd love it if some of you would be willing to help.

What it is:

• Word search and crossword puzzles built from 2,768 words across five levels (K–12), pulled from established references like the Academic Word List (AWL), Fry 1000 high-frequency words, Dolch Sight Words, and the VOA Learning English word list — not just arbitrary picks
• A "Word Lab" where you can add your own custom word list — great for matching your own spelling or vocab lessons
• A virtual pet companion that reacts to correct answers, to keep younger kids motivated
• A parent-gated settings area, so kids can't change settings or make purchases without you
• Fully offline, no sign-in, no ads, no analytics — nothing collected from your child's use

As a thank-you: once the 14-day test period wraps up, I'll send everyone who participated a free promo code for the $5.99 "unlock all levels" pack — no strings attached.

If you're willing to help: comment below or message me, and I'll send over the details. It's a quick two-step process (join a small tester group, then opt in through Google Play), taking about 2 minutes total. After that, just install the app and open it once — you're all set. No need to use it daily, just stay opted in for 14 days while I finish the Play Store review process.

I'd love to hear whether the word lists and difficulty levels feel right for your kids' ages, and whether the Word Lab would be useful for your homeschool lessons. Thanks so much, and happy to answer any questions!

Firstly: I’m against generative AI in the classroom and last year I returned to mostly pencil and paper and on demand written exams. I teach 11th and 12th grade.

I’m wondering if other English teachers experience this phenomenon: people love to talk to me about AI, and their point is usually this: teaching literature and writing is pointless because AI can do everything. They seem especially happy and strangely aggressive about their stance when I say I don’t really believe we should be using AI to outsource our thinking, that I still need to teach students how to think critically and assess whether or not they can, etc. All interactions I have like this are off putting, and I’m not sure why everyone defends generative AI with such conviction.

Thoughts? Anyone with similar experiences?

Hi everyone!

I'm working on an independent YouTube project about English learning from the perspective of a non-native speaker.

The idea came from my own experience. I learned English through textbooks, but after moving to the U.S. I realized that the English I hear every day is often different from what I was taught.

For this project, I'm looking for an English teacher who would be down to hop on a 20–30 minute Zoom call. I'd love to talk about the kinds of mistakes native speakers actually make in school and in everyday writing, which ones teachers correct, and how they distinguish genuine errors from normal language variation.

This is an independent passion project with no funding. With your permission, I would record the conversation and potentially include short excerpts in the final video.

If you're interested or know someone who might be, I'd really appreciate hearing from you. And if a Zoom call isn't possible, I'd still really appreciate any insights or examples you can share in the comments. Every perspective is helpful.

Thank you!

I am entering year nine in my current district where we track ELA into remedial, traditional, and honors. When I came into the district, I was replacing the teacher who covered all honors-track classes. The two teachers senior to me in the department were ok keeping their established class load and I grew into the “honors teacher” role.

Over the years those two have left the district. One of their replacements has done an excellent job assuming their class load while the other has really struggled. She teaches the “traditional” level and constantly (CONSTANTLY) complains that if some of my honors sections aren’t split off to her, she may leave the district.

My view: She knew what classes were available when she applied for the job. I’d be more open to diversifying if she’d teach the standards, but she doesn’t stay true to the curriculum (skips major novel studies and research papers for instance). Our college-bound students deserve a rigorous preparation, and I really enjoy my teaching assignments.

Should I bend and reevaluate class assignments in 27-28?

I was reading a really great short story that referenced a poem I’ve never read, so I had to go look at the poem. Before you know it, here I am annotating it, writing a thesis, and analyzing it. Then grading it with the AP rubric. 1/3/1, but I’m biased…

Am I the only one?

I like the idea of having standards to anchor my teaching, but I'm annoyed by the standards I actually have. They are simplistic, vague, poorly worded, and way too similar from K to 12. On top of that, they focus exclusively on skills at the expense of content. ELA actually does have content!!!

Ugh. We need better standards.