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Mastering the ELA Standards in Middle School

ELA Test Prep

Review the ELA Middle School Standards…have your students learned all of them?

With the end of the year, we know it is time to review the ELA middle school standards, and really think about what you need to teach, reteach, or review as we head into the fourth quarter.

We all know that teaching is like juggling a million things at once, and every once in a while, we drop one of the things we’re trying to keep in the air.

Sometimes, those things we drop are the standards.

If we don’t have a good system in place, despite our best efforts, we may lose track of whether our students are truly hitting the mark when it comes to the ELA middle school standards.

However, if we have a good plan to review the ELA middle school standards (in an organized and purposeful fashion, of course!), we can be sure that we are on the right track!

Getting to Know the Middle School ELA Standards

The middle school ELA standards are like the GPS for our teaching journey. They map out what our students should know and be able to do by the end of each grade level.

But like a GPS, there are usually many different routes you can take to get students to know the skills outlined in the standards. This is where we, as middle school ELA teachers, get to add in our own flair and fun. 

Grab FREE Middle School ELA Standard Breakdowns Below!

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How to Review the Middle School ELA Standards in a Purposeful Way

The best way that I know to review the middle school ELA standards in a purposeful way is through a checklist.

I break down every standard into a list in an Excel document and then make a plan for when I will introduce, review, and assess each standard.

In the middle of the year, during review, I make sure that I’ve followed my plan or take note of anything I’ve missed.

This checklist can take a long time to set up, but once I have it set up, I can revisit it over and over. 

Our Standards-Based Checklists

To make it easier for our teachers to review the ELA middle school standards, we’ve created standard checklists for teachers in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade. 

These checklists have all of the standards for each grade level and a comparison chart so that you can see how the standard compares to the previous grade. 

I love the comparison charts because I can see how the standard is just a little different at each level…or not.

Click on the images below to see each checklist in more detail.

Preparing Middle School Students for standardized tests: 6th grade standards checklist
6th Grade Checklist
Preparing Middle School Students for Standardized Tests: (7th Grade Standards Checklist)
7th Grade Checklist
8th Grade Standards Checklist
8th Grade Checklist

Spotting the Gaps

As you work through the checklists, look for places where you may be introducing the standard, but you aren’t reviewing it. Or maybe you’re introducing it and reviewing it, but you are not formally assessing it.

Maybe there is a part of the standard that you’re hitting but a part that you’re not.

In this blog post, we go over how to break the standards down into learning targets and then make a plan for the year. These learning targets give us a checklist of manageable tasks that we can focus on to ensure the standard is being fully taught.

In each of our blog posts on the middle school ELA standards, we’ve broken the standard we’re discussing into learning targets. Click on the posts below to read more about the standards you feel you need to cover in more detail.

Resources and Blog Posts for Each Standard

Note: We also have a resource for each standard. In the resource, we’ve broken the standard down into learning targets and then developed lessons for each! We’ve written a blog post about each of these standards and our resources for them. Click on the links below to take a closer look at the standard your students need more work on!

Writing Standards (for Middle School)

Reading Literature

Reading Informative Texts

Language Standards

Speaking and Listening Standards

When you review the ELA Middle School Standards, it doesn’t have to be a stress-inducing ordeal. 

You just need a plan or checklist that you can follow along with and refer back to as you move through the school year. Hopefully, this blog post has provided you with plenty of both to make this process one you can ease into!

Importance of Standards in this Modern Teaching World

When we focus on the importance of standards in the modern teaching world, we are choosing to consider the foundation of our student’s educational experiences before giving any credit to the fluff and shine of modern ‘educational’ tools and resources.

With resources available at the click of a button, Amazon Prime delivering our last-minute crafting needs straight to our classrooms, and an endless supply of ‘educational’ games to choose from, the number of directions you could choose to take your classroom can be overwhelming.

In order to navigate all the options, you need to get very clear on what is most important in your classroom.

To me, teaching will always need to be like building and designing a house. Some houses are both well-built and beautiful, but some of the prettiest houses could also be hiding a terrible foundation.

Pretty doesn’t always mean better.

Fun doesn’t always mean better.

Yearly Curriculum Edits

It is never a teacher’s goal to make teaching boring; in fact, teachers should go out of their way to find ways to make lessons more engaging. But, if pretty and fun take precedence over focused learning and teaching to the standards, we are doing our students a huge disservice.

Each year in the spring, I encourage teachers to spend time revamping their curriculum, taking a close look at their assessments, and editing their plans for the following year to make sure that all of the standards their students are expected to know and understand are being covered and mastered. This yearly activity places importance on standards and reminds you to put the standards first at all times!

Read this blog post to learn how I plan my curriculum by breaking down the standards.

These standards checklists are a huge part of that process and have a front-row seat in my computer’s ‘recently viewed’ files.

Preparing Middle School Students for standardized tests: 6th grade standards checklist
Preparing Middle School Students for Standardized Tests: (7th Grade Standards Checklist)
8th Grade Standards Checklist

With all of the different activities to choose from, teachers can’t get distracted by the pretty exterior, flashy clipart, or quirky themes. A resource that isn’t standard-aligned does not serve your students, just as pretty tile and a rainfall showerhead only upgrade a bathroom if the plumbing is correctly hooked up and the suitable materials are used to adhere the tile. When all of the bright and shiny new resources try to distract us, we have to stay focused on what matters most… the foundation.

Standards are the foundation of education, and we need to stay laser-focused on the importance of standards throughout the year to make sure our students are getting the education they deserve.

If you’ve completed your classroom edit for the year and found that your tools regarding a specific middle school ELA standard have been lacking, check out our grade-level standards-based resources in the store.

Our goal is for each resource in these product lines to focus on introducing, breaking down, teaching, reviewing, and assessing each standard for 6th, 7th, and 8th grade ELA.

Whether you are in your 30th year of teaching or your first, keep the importance of the standards as the basis of your teaching and resource decisions. It is okay to have fun and find great, standards-based games and activities, but do your due diligence and make sure the resources you’re using actually meet the standards and meet your students where they are!

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Grab FREE Middle School ELA Standard Breakdowns Below!

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Revamping Curriculum for Next Year

We are spring cleaning in the classroom and that means revamping curriculum for next year!

Spring cleaning is a real thing. 

Every year as I start to hear the bird chirping, the squirrels race around, and the bugs start making noise again, I think about a fresh start.

I don’t know if this is just the teacher in me that believes a fresh start is really the end of the previous school year or if it is something everyone feels.

Either way, I find myself in clean-out mode right around April and May every year.

And if I’m not cleaning everything out, I’m definitely simplifying.

Spring Clean by Revamping Curriculum

Simplifying in my home life looks like taking totes to consignment stores, cleaning out that closet that has been filling with clutter over the course of the school year, and deciding if I really am going to get into ‘that’ dress this year or not.

Simplifying at school is about revamping my curriculum, getting rid of the excess waste from my plans, and eventually making room for new ideas and fresh assessments.

When I work on revamping the curriculum to prepare for the next school year, I like to turn to my trusty old spreadsheets.

Standard Breakdown Spreadsheets for the Win!!

I start by laying out all the standards and thinking through each quarter of the year and mapping out what we did, how it went, and whether it was successful in accomplishing the goals I had for the unit/assessment.

I like to use editable spreadsheets that already have the standards mapped out and the skills listed, like those that I have ready for all the K-12 standards.

However, I also like to have a set just for middle school as well.

6th Grade Standard Breakdown Spreadsheets

Preparing Middle School Students for standardized tests: 6th grade standards checklist

7th Grade Standard Breakdown Spreadsheets

Preparing Middle School Students for Standardized Tests: (7th Grade Standards Checklist)

8th Grade Standard Breakdown Spreadsheets

8th Grade Standards Checklist

These editable spreadsheets make it easy for me to make copies, move things around, and add or delete anything that needs to be ‘thrown out’ in the new year. I also frequently link my digital assessments and plans into these documents to keep everything organized and simplified as we head into the new year.

Fill in with Standards-Based Resources

As you begin your spring cleaning this year, make sure to tidy up what matters most, and in the classroom, revamping the curriculum is a good place to start.

If you find that you have a hole in your curriculum where you are not quite hitting the standards the way you need to be, consider grabbing one of our standards-based mini-lessons to provide some focused instruction on each skill you need to attack. 

Enjoy the spring, find some time to get outside, and enjoy all the sights and sounds of the world waking up!

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Grab FREE Middle School ELA Standard Breakdowns Below!

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Auditing your Curriculum Assessments while they’re Fresh

Set yourself up for success by auditing your curriculum assessments while they’re still fresh!

We did it!! 

We have made it through yet another year of teaching, and we think we did pretty well this year.

How are you feeling?

Now that the planning is done and all the lessons and skills have been introduced to students, it is time to start the end-of-the-year to-do list.

You know the one. That to-do list where you review your plans and assessments from this last year or semester, audit them and then decide what needs to go.

It is like our own little Marie Kondo cleaning regimen. 

Does this lesson serve its purpose? Yes.

Does it bring me joy? Nope. 

Then “Thank you for doing what you did, but you gotta go!”

Okay, so maybe it’s not just like that, but it may be.

To be completely honest, many of the items on our end-of-year to-do list can probably wait until next fall, but some of them really can’t.

One task you need to complete sooner rather than later is an Assessment Audit because auditing your curriculum assessments while they’re fresh can be a good way to figure out how efficient your planning was last year and what kinds of things you need to reconsider for next year.

As you begin auditing your assessments, consider these questions.

  • What standards/skills was this assessment supposed to assess?
  • What standards/skills did this assessment actually assess?
  • Are there any standards that can be blocked into this assessment?  (Learn more about how we plan assessments and block standards in this blog post.)
  • If the assessment failed to adequately assess a specific standard, where did it go wrong? 
  • Is there a way to set up the assessment to do the job it was supposed to do?
  • If that standard/skill is not assessed here, is there another assessment that can take its place?

Make a list of all of your assessments, and then put these questions on a sheet and answer each one honestly. You can even create a quick Google form with the questions so that your answers are all nicely laid out in a spreadsheet when you’re all done.

No matter how you do it, these questions need to be asked and answered for you to really know if the assessments you had students complete this year were really all that and a bag of chips or if they were simply a bag that was supposed to hold chips but was actually messy… how is that for a metaphor.

Cleaning your room and checking the viability of your markers is one thing, but cleaning up your assessments and lessons and making your teaching more purposeful and efficient is invaluable as you plan for the next school year.

Have a wonderful end of the year!

Happy auditing!

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Grab FREE Middle School ELA Standard Breakdowns Below!

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What Makes for a Great, Educational ELA Escape Room?

Educational ELA escape rooms are the ones that focus on content and skills as much as they do locks and keys.

Escape rooms have built up a lot of hype over the course of the last decade or so, and their educational use has exploded.

We see people designing escape rooms left and right and claiming that they are intended for educational use.

This begs the question…How are escape rooms educational?

There will, of course, always be that group of people who say that games and problem-solving opportunities of all types are educational in their own right, and that may be true. However, there is a time and place for escape rooms, and not all ELA escape rooms help students actually learn content.

So what makes for a good educational ELA escape room?

The Non-Example

Members of The Sparkly Notebook were once a part of an in-person escape room where we were given a packet of materials and a lockbox and were instructed to try to escape by getting to the information inside the box.

This escape room was fun and frustrating and required our group to work together, but in the grand scheme of the escape room, we could not actually provide any information about the content we had looked at or any of the data we shifted through as we searched for the codes.

What went wrong?

The fact of the matter is that the information itself was not tied to the codes. The code was found within the content, but it was not dependent on knowing it. Once we figured out the code, the content didn’t matter.

In one particular scenario, the code was created by the first letters of the capitalized words in the document. Once we noticed the capitalized letters, we didn’t read any of the content. We noticed that the words were capitalized right away, and we quickly guessed the code by skimming through the document and highlighting just the capitalized words.

Sign Up for a FREE plot structure digital escape room!

 


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


 

Content-Driven, Educational ELA Escape Rooms

ELA escape rooms (or any escape room for that matter) that separate the content from the code do not serve students in the same way that educational ELA escape rooms depend on the content to figure out the code.

For example, in this ELA Test Prep Escape Room, students have to be able to read a passage (very similar to the type of passage that they encounter in ELA standardized tests) and answer questions. Their answers to those questions create the code.

Educational ELA Escape Room Example: ELA Test Prep Escape Room

In this situation, the code is directly tied to the content. Students HAVE to do the task to escape the room. 

To find the answer to the second ‘lock,’ students have to make predictions about a character’s choices based on their actions within the reading and then use the symbols next to those predictions to change the symbols into letters which in turn are the key to unlock the next ‘door.’

Each of these specific task examples requires students to not only think critically, problem-solve, and possibly work with a group but also require the students to read the information closely enough to answer questions about it, analyze it, and make predictions.

When you are looking for educational escape rooms, really look through what you want students to work on, and make sure the escape room is challenging them both with content and with the ‘locks’ themselves. 

A good educational escape room is focused on classroom content, and learning that presents students with a mental challenge and focuses on the skills that your students specifically need to practice.

As you begin to “Plan Your Curriculum Like a Boss,” consider how the activities you’re adding support the learning and standards within your classroom, and find some great, educational ELA escape rooms that align with your goals.

If you’re interested and you want to see a full list of our Educational ELA Escape Rooms, click here!

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Practice Test-Taking Strategies with Paired Passages

Read about high-interest topics while you practice test-taking strategies with paired passages.

We love when students love reading, but we’ve found that our students don’t love reading when they have to read about topics they struggle to connect with.

Shocker, right?!? (Yep. That was sarcasm!)

Although students may need to know that the Stamp Act took place, a non-fiction passage about the Stamp Act is not something they will probably get really excited to read.

When you are practicing test-taking strategies related to reading, find highly engaging passages for students to work with. Testing is not really exciting, but when we are practicing test-taking strategies with paired passages, there are no rules that say you have to pick passages that are just as dull as a typical standardized test passage.

Why read about the Stamp Act when you can practice test-taking strategies with paired passages about social media, TikTok, video games, sports, and so much more?

What’s Included in a Paired Passage

Before we talk about test-taking strategies, let’s talk about what these paired passages look like.

Each paired passage set includes passages that are focused on a common topic, and each passage includes a set of reading comprehension questions to test a student’s knowledge.

You can also create your own questions to go along with a passage or ask students to use the paired passages to support their writing practice. 

We love paired passages so much; in fact, we’ve come up with a whole bunch of different ways to use them. You can read about the ways we like to reuse our paired passages in this post!

Paired Passages also challenge students to think about the text in a different way. In this post, we’ve talked about how paired passages can prepare students for testing situations.

Practice Test-Taking Strategies with Paired Passages

There are a variety of test-taking strategies out there, and these paired passages allow you to put your students in a test-like situation so they can practice several of those strategies.

Maybe you are practicing taking timed tests. If you know that students are typically given 60 minutes on their reading tests, and the reading test includes six passages, then you can give your students 10 minutes to complete one of the passages. 

Maybe you are working on narrowing down answer choices. Use the questions that come with the paired passages to practice figuring out which answers can be thrown out and which ones need to be seriously considered.

Maybe you are teaching your students how to quickly annotate a passage to help them be more successful in a testing situation. Use one of these paired passages to demonstrate how you might do that.

For more test-taking tips, check out this blog post!

The paired passages we have in the store are very similar to the passages that students may encounter during testing situations, making them great for you to use as you practice test-taking strategies.

Take a closer look at all the different paired passage topics we have available here!

Testing doesn’t have to be scary, and you can do a lot to prepare your students when you practice test-taking strategies with paired passages! 

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Preparing Middle School Students for Standardized Tests: Checklists

Preparing middle school students for standardized tests can seem like an overwhelming task, but when you plan and review with specific standards in mind using these checklists, you can put your mind at ease, knowing that you have not left any standard behind.

Standardized tests are used throughout the United States to check whether students are meeting core competencies and mastering standards.

Most teachers would agree that standardized tests are not the best way of showing student skills.

Unfortunately, it is part of the game that we have to play as educators.

Since it is a necessary evil, and probably will be for a while, we need to know how we can prepare middle school students for standardized tests without too much ‘teaching to the test.’  

This is something we’ve considered a lot over the last couple of years, and we here at The Sparkly Notebook have several resources that can be really helpful for middle school teachers who find themselves in these situations.

Measuring Student Mastery of Standards

When push comes to shove, standardized tests are not a mystery. 

We know what the test will measure and what students are expected to know (i.e., the standards). So, we highly suggest using that information (along with some helpful checklists) to gauge whether or not your students are ready to go.  

Standard Checklists for Documenting Proficiencies

Throughout the school year, using standard checklists to keep track of your students’ strengths and weaknesses can be very helpful.

If you’ve never used a standards checklist before, no worries! 

We have standards checklists available for each middle school grade level.

6th Grade Standards Checklist

Preparing Middle School Students for standardized tests: 6th grade standards checklist

7th Grade Standards Checklist

Preparing Middle School Students for Standardized Tests: (7th Grade Standards Checklist)

8th Grade Standards Checklist

8th Grade Standards Checklist

These checklists breakdown the key terms used for each standard, planning sheets for identifying when each standard will be taught (or how it will be taught) during each unit, comparison charts for identifying how the standard compares to previous years (or following years), and a sheet for planning how you will spiral standards throughout the school year.

To learn more about how we work toward helping our students master the standards, take a moment to look through this post!

Using checklists like these should not start at testing time. In fact, many Sparkly Notebook followers use these standard checklists to plan their entire year; however, if it is getting close to testing time and you have not been using these checklists, don’t worry. All is not lost. 

Start by printing or downloading the checklist. 

Next, review each standard, putting a ‘1’ next to the standards you feel your students do well and a ‘2’ next to the standards you know your students have practiced, but they could also be standards you know your students could use more work. Finally, put a ‘3’ next to the standards you are not sure you covered at all.

Prioritize your learning to the ‘2s’ and ‘3s’ on your list using standards-focused activities and lessons.

Supplementing with Standard-Focused Resources

If you are getting closer to testing season, and there is a standard that your students are really struggling with, bring in a unit or lesson that specifically focuses on mastering that standard.

The Sparkly Notebook has created a whole line of resources specifically built around each standard.

And they are game changers!!

If you find yourself in a position where your students just don’t seem to be getting a concept, but you don’t have a good focused lesson to support that concept, then you can just jump into the store and grab the exact resource you need to give your students exactly the standard they need to focus on.

Click here to take a closer look at the 8th Grade Resources.

Click here to take a closer look at the 7th Grade Resources.

Preparing middle school students for standardized tests can feel like a task that won’t end, but don’t worry! We’ve got your back! It truly is just three steps.

Step 1: Start with the checklists.

Step 2: Prioritize the standards you still need to focus on.

Step 3: Grab the resources you need to support that learning.

It is simple as that!

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Grab FREE Middle School ELA Standard Breakdowns Below!

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Preparing your Middle School Students for their Standardized Tests [ELA]

Here are our top 3 tips for preparing your middle school students for their standardized ELA tests.

Although most teachers are not fond of yearly standardized tests, we acknowledge that, as of right now, they are a part of the educational system in the United States. So we are doing our best to make sure our students are ready to rock those tests!

Preparing your middle school students for their standardized tests can seem like a daunting feat. However, really good test prep comes down to accomplishing 3 specific goals.

  • Relieving Stress: Many students will be very overwhelmed and uncertain about taking standardized tests. So…one part of preparing your middle school students for their standardized tests must be telling them what to expect.
  • Giving Tools: If you have any test-creator secrets, this is the time to share them. Any helpful hacks or tools should be a part of your pre-test planning.
  • Planning to Win: Your students can’t ‘win’ at testing time if they are not adequately prepared. Just as athletes train, practice, and learn new skills, your students must have the proper training if they are going to ‘win’ the test. That means they need explicit instructions on skills and concepts related to the standards.
Pin Image - three students working on a test together. Text states "Test Prep with Paired Passages - Middle School ELA"

Let’s go into each of these 3 goals a little deeper, shall we?

#1 | Know the Test

You need to make decisions about test prep season through the lens of the test itself. 

Spend some time getting to know the test your students will take.

  • Is it online or is it paper/pencil?
  • Can they use a note sheet?
  • Can they write on it? Highlight it?
  • Is it all multiple-choice?
  • How long are the reading passages?
  • What kinds of questions are typically asked?
  • How many questions are there?
  • Is it timed?
  • What happens to the questions that remain unanswered after the time is up?

If you know the answers to these questions, you can help your students manage some of their test stress. Preparing your middle school students for standardized tests means talking to them about each of these pieces of information. Give them all the information you have about the tests and tips on what to do during specific testing situations.

For example, If you know that every question that is unanswered after time is up is counted wrong, then encourage students to guess on the questions they aren’t sure about, and make sure every question has an answer.

If you know the test includes a lot of passages, tell your students how to appropriately manage time during those types of questions.

Helpful Hack: If your tests use a lot of passage-based reading questions, then you’ll want to spend some extra time working with and answering questions based on passages. These paired passages are a fantastic resource when preparing for these tests!!

To learn a few additional tips and tricks for using paired passages for test prep, check out this post!

Knowing the test is one of the best ways to support your students.

Note: Make sure you follow all testing laws and guidelines for your test. Do not give students any questions from the actual test they will take. Always check with the upper powers about what is acceptable and use practice tests and testing websites to learn information when possible.

#2 | Think Like a Test Writer

If you have any knowledge about what goes into writing or creating tests, share them with your students. Talk about your time in “Teacher School” and what they taught you about creating a test for students.

One test-creator inside tip we like to share with our students is that of the 4 questions on a multiple-choice test, usually, two are clearly wrong, one is the right answer, and one is the distractor.

If you can minimally narrow down the answers to the distractor and the answer, you now have a 50/50 shot. You also know that one of the answers was specifically designed to make you think twice, so you can review the information provided specifically about those two answers to make an educated guess if needed.

If you have any other great “Test Creator” hacks, we’d love to hear about them, but your students NEED to hear them, so start giving away those industry secrets!

#3 | Standard-Focused Activities

This one may seem obvious, but it is important to say.

Make sure you are covering the standards regularly as part of your classroom instruction.

Standardized tests are not intended to surprise students or confuse them. They are simply supposed to test their understanding and application of the standards.

If you are using the standards to guide your instruction, and you have managed to cover all the standards well, then your students will be ready for the test.

The spring semester is a great time of the year to revisit all the standards. You can get in some quick assessments. Then see what you need to touch on more to have the biggest impact. 

Grab FREE Middle School ELA Standard Breakdowns Below!

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If you find your students are lacking on a specific standard, find a resource like one of the standards-focused resources below to explicitly work on that content before testing time rolls around.

Click for the 7th-grade bundle.

Click for the 8th-grade resources.

In addition to these standards-focused resources, we also have a great ELA Test Prep Digital Escape Room that will allow students test-like practice in a fun, escape room atmosphere. This is a fun activity to cycle into your test prep work.

Preparing your middle school students for standardized tests-ELA Test Prep Escape Room

Wrapping Up

Preparing your middle school students for standardized tests is a big part of the spring semester. However, don’t let it overwhelm your class time!

Talk to your students about testing, but make sure to pump them up rather than stress them out. 

Remind them over and over that they are in fact ready for this! They have all the skills to conquer the test! Your confidence will give them confidence!

Happy Testing!

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New Ways to Use Paired Passages

If you are looking for more ways to use paired passages with your students, try out some of these new ideas!

We have a bunch of paired passages in the store on a whole slew of high-interest topics, but once you have them, what else can you do with them? That is exactly what we’re talking about today.

We aren’t just going to talk about paired passages or their benefits. We’re providing 5 NEW ways to use them with your students!

What are paired passages?

Paired passages are a set of 2 writing passages that are similar in topic or theme.

These passages can be used by teachers for a variety of purposes.

We here at The Sparkly Notebook have always encouraged the use of paired passages for reading comprehension practice. In fact, each of the paired passages in our store includes reading comprehension activities.

In this paired passage set about playing team sports, students are asked to use the passages to…

  • Practice using context clues to define unknown words
  • Answer evidence-based questions
  • And write an argument based on the reading

These paired passages are specifically created to be no/low prep and easy for teachers to use.

Benefits of playing sports paired passages
Paired Passage Product Image

Paired Passages for Test Prep

Before we get into 5 new ways to use paired passages, let’s talk about one tried and true way we use paired passages with students.

Test Prep

We wrote all about using paired passages for test prep in this post.

Paired passages often mimic the style and feel of a reading test passage. That makes them great for practicing test-like situations. They are not, however, as boring as some other test prep options. As you get into test prep season, don’t forget to pull out some high-interest paired passages (like the ones below) to use as practice.

5 New Ways to Use Paired Passages

Each of the ideas on this list serves a different purpose. Choose the option that serves your students where they’re at. A few of the ideas will require a little bit of prep, so don’t wait until the last minute to decide which paired passage to try!

#1 | Sentence Slips

Cut up the paired passages into sentences or paragraphs, and challenge students to put them back together. This activity gives students practice in thinking through how effective writing is organized. Note: This activity may require reformatting the passage or typing out the sentences line by line, but it won’t take too long.

Option: To make this activity a little harder, mix the sentences from both passages together. Students will have to sort them first, and then organize them.

#2 | Scavenger Hunt

Put together a list of ‘Examples to Find’ for your students. On your list, you’ll ask students to find specific examples in the paired passage texts. 

Here are some examples of what you might put on their list.

  • An example of a compound sentence.
  • 3 examples of adverbs being used
  • An example of a fact
  • An example of an opinion
  • 3 examples of figurative language
  • Identify at least 2 different stakeholders for this issue
  • The main idea of the passages

Your scavenger hunt list can be adapted to whatever your students have been working on recently, and you can use the same passages over and over again.

Pro Tip: If you want to save on printing, place the passages in sheet protectors and give students dry-erase markers to identify the items on the list.

#3 | Practice Citing

Challenge students to write an argument on this topic using these paired passages as two of their sources. If source information is not provided in the paired passage, make some up for the purpose of practicing this skill.

#4 | Facts First

Before presenting students with the paired passage activity, put the facts on index cards. Encourage students to sort the cards to try to figure out how the facts might be arranged into two passages. This activity encourages students to think about why choosing the RIGHT facts to support an argument is helpful. As they get older and write longer essays, being able to choose facts well will be very important.

Organizational Idea: Take the time to put the facts on cardstock and then laminate them. They will last for years.

#5 | Research Starters

Use the paragraphs of the paired passages to assign research topics to students. 

Cut out the paragraphs and hand them out. Encourage students to read the passage, and then research their particular part of the argument in more detail. 

When they are done, students will bring at least 3 facts back to the group that supports the point made in the paragraph they were assigned.

Paired passages are super powerful in the classroom, and hopefully, when you add in a few of these new ways for using paired passages, they’ll be even more beneficial.

If you are excited to try out some of these new ideas, simply grab one of the paired passage resources below, and get started!

High-Interest Paired Passages

Try out some of the ideas in this post on one of the high-interest, engaging paired passage sets below. 

Now, pick one and go!

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What about “Reading Information” standards?

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Each of these standards takes time to plan, organize, and teach…which is why you get paid the big bucks! Ha! I know…teacher joke!

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Just like any craft, there is always a way to do it better, which is why we spend so much time year after year trying to figure out a better way…an easier way to get it all done.

*Shout out to all of my friends who teach multiple subjects. I have a friend who teaches three subjects in middle school due to the teacher shortage. I can’t imagine trying to teach all the standards for two different subjects…let alone three.

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Teaching and assessing the ELA standards do not have to take up all of your time!

Curriculum planning should be a part of your job, but not all of it! Remember to look for help when you need it! I am happy to answer any questions about standard breakdown…as it is my specialty. So, if you are struggling at all, reach out!

I am happy to help!

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