You have to know how to prepare for the unexpected in middle school ELA. In this post, we’re giving you four helpful resources to have on hand to help when things get messy in middle school ELA.
If you’re new to teaching middle school ELA, there’s something no one tells you enough:
There’s no such thing as a “normal” week.
Between surprise assemblies, sudden schedule changes, weather days, and half your class being out sick when the flu hits your building, things rarely go according to plan.
The secret to surviving (and even thriving!) through all the chaos?
Having some versatile, low-prep tools in your back pocket that you can use anytime, anywhere.
Here are four middle school ELA lifesavers you’ll want ready to go before the school year starts because when you teach middle school ELA the unexpected will happen, and you’ll be so glad you’re prepared.
1 | Digital Escape Rooms for Pre-Break Energy
The day before a break is not the day to introduce something new or try to run a full lesson. Students are excited, energy is high, and focus is limited.
Your Solution: Digital Escape Rooms
They’re fun, challenging, and sneakily standards-aligned—making them perfect for those weird days before (or right after) a holiday.
Students can work on them by themselves, or they can be in pairs or groups, which means they get to collaborate and problem-solve, and you get to keep the learning going without pulling your hair out.
Here are a few favorites:
- Halloween Digital Escape Room (Figurative Language)
- Test Prep Escape Room
- Back to School Digital Escape Room
- Summer Digital Escape Room
Pro tip: Have 1–2 escape rooms saved and ready for unexpected sub days, reward days, or weird-schedule afternoons.
Want a deeper look into how to use our Digital Escape Rooms in your middle school ELA classroom? Check out some of these blog posts!
2| Sub Plans That Don’t Require a Degree to Understand
You will need a sub at some point. And often, it won’t be planned.
Having a couple of prepped, print-and-go sub plans ready to roll can be a total sanity-saver. Keep it simple with activities that:
- Reinforce ELA skills students have already practiced
- Don’t require technology (just in case!)
- Can be done independently without teacher support
We love using paired passages for this. They can be printed, used for reading and writing practice, and even double as emergency lesson fillers when you’re out.
Check out this blog post about emergency sub-planning. In that blog post, we focus specifically on sub planning and what that looks like in middle school ELA.
3. Paired Passages for Literally Everything
These are your new best friend in middle school ELA.
Paired passages are incredibly versatile—you can use them for:
- Bell ringers
- Exit slips
- Group discussion prompts
- Quick assessments
- Intervention work
- Emergency plans
The key is choosing topics students actually care about. Some favorites include:
They’re short, engaging, and packed with opportunities to teach skills like comparing texts, analyzing claims, or identifying the author’s purpose.
Basically, they do a lot of heavy lifting in a short amount of time and can be “paired” with a lot of other activities and projects to practice a variety of different skills.
4. Digital Sorting Activities to Reinforce Skills (and Buy You a Minute)
Need to spiral review a standard?
Want a 10-minute activity while you handle makeup work or grade a quiz?
Want students to practice applying a skill instead of just hearing about it again?
Digital sorts are your answer.
They’re quick, interactive, and easy to assign in Google Classroom. Plus, they’re great for reinforcing tricky middle school ELA skills like figurative language, sentence types, or context clues—without the pressure of a quiz.
You can use them as:
- A warm-up
- A review station
- A fast-finisher task
- A refresher after a break
We even love turning them into relay races to bring energy into the room while still focusing on key standards.
Here are a few digital sorting activities that we have available in The Sparkly Notebook store!
Prepare for the Unexpected in Middle School ELA
No matter how great your lesson plans are, the unpredictable is part of teaching—especially in middle school. But when you’ve got these four tools in your toolbox, you’re ready to keep your ELA classroom calm, creative, and learning-focused—even when the schedule gets weird.
So go ahead, stock up now—your future self (and your students) will thank you.
Happy Planning New Teacher Friend!
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