Bell Ringers as a Classroom Management Tool in Middle School ELA

One of my post popular blog posts I have ever written was my ELA Bell Ringers: How They Changed My Life With “That Class” blog post that I wrote during one of the toughest years I ever had as a teacher. I assume that it was popular because so many other teachers can relate to the fact that some years are just hard.

IMPLEMENTING BELL RINGERS IN MIDDLE SCHOOL ELA

While that year in sixth grade was a toughy, and the reason I switched jobs the very next year, it doesn’t mean that the following year was easy. I switched jobs to go to a 7th and 8th grade ELA position at a school across town. It was my dream job in that I had much more freedom in how I could teach the content. But I was still teaching a whole new grade level. Not to to mention my degree was in K-6 elementary so I had to learn about teaching seven class periods a day. Plus I was teaching the multiple grade levels and figuring out what worked in fifth and sixth that I could still use.

Like I said, those bell ringers pretty much helped me survived the rest of the year in sixth. I knew I needed to continue that in my seventh and eighth grade ELA classes because of how well that worked. We needed to get through a lot more specific and required content.  I knew that the bell ringers would be a perfect way to do that.

HOW MY SIXTH GRADE ELA JOB INSPIRED THE BELL RINGERS

To keep it brief, when I was hired for my 6th grade position, not only was I told I would be only teaching ELA, but I was also told there was an issue with my teaching partner situation.

By December, I was on my 7th (YES 7TH) teaching partner. I was the only consistency our 6th graders had, but I was struggling when they were coming into my room after whoever was their math and science teacher that day.

In general, my homeroom was okay, but the second class (who had a different teacher almost every week), was making me lose my EVER LOVING MIND. I’m talking literal wrestling, yelling, not getting ANY supplies… Just shear chaos. It was miserable for all of us.

CONTROLLING WHAT I COULD CONTROL WITH ELA BELL RINGERS

My homeroom came back to me at the end of the day as well… and that was also a super tough transition. I knew they needed structure, routine, expectations, etc. You know the drill… My instinct was morning work, but hello middle school. No time to do that and no time to grade.

WHY I DECIDED TO USE BELL RINGERS IN MY CLASSROOM

Bell Ringers were one of those things I had always heard about when I taught elementary, but never really needed at that time. In fifth grade we did morning work. This worked in self-contained for a couple of reasons:

1. They were ALL MINE all day long. One of the biggest adjustments for me (going from elementary to middle) had been the switching of classes… and switching classes in my previous situation was SUPER tough.
2. We formed consistent routines. If we needed to change something I could because it just affected us.
3. I had no copy limits at my first school (THE WORST). Morning work, and even some bell ringers take copies, and I just didn’t have that option at my new school.
4. I could “grade” the morning work when I had time. There were a million other things that my 5th graders cared about being graded than their morning work. My 6th graders only had me for ELA, so they knew if I wasn’t grading consistently they didn’t have to try that hard.

So, I created ELA Bell Ringers, and swear I’m not product pushing, they changed my life.

MODELING THE BELL RINGERS TO ENCOURAGE SUCCESS

I modeled the heck out of how bell ringers should look:

• When I taught 6th grade, I implemented them in December and I had to slow down to a crawl in December, but nothing else was working so I was willing.
• When I moved to seventh and eighth grade ELA, even though it is one of my worst teacher traits to want to just move on, I knew that I would want to model the bell ringers slowly and clearly at the start again.
• I still wanted the bell ringers to take no more than five minutes, but even more so I knew that I would actually need that time to do things like take attendance and get ready for the next class period. One of my biggest adjustments from self-contained to class periods, was the transitions, so I needed them to be smooth.
• I also was required to inout grades twice a week in my middle school ELA classroom, so this was an easy guaranteed grade every single week.

HOW I GRADED THE BELL RINGERS TO SAVE MY SANITY

In the picture, you can kind of see how I graded, and this was HUGE for my 6th-8th graders, and simple for me.

• I learned quickly that I had to be diligent about grading or they wouldn’t do it.
• Eventually, I didn’t even have to check. I started letting the first 3-4 students who did quality bell ringers work, grade their classmates. They would just stamp for me. It even made some of my super reluctant workers get theirs done, because even middle schoolers want to grade!
• Eventually I just bought some stamper markers (instead of initialing because you have no idea how much time that wastes) and then it was really fast!
• I’ve since added directions for students to glue into their notebooks. They are 100% editable so that teachers can adjust the directions as needed.

• With all the changes during the pandemic and digital or distance learning, I have since made these bell ringers 100% editable in Google Slides. Students simply type right into the slides each week. This would also work if you and and your students have one-to-one devices.

BELL RINGERS AS A CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT TOOL

I am honestly not looking for “real” instruction here. I don’t want you to think Bell Ringers are a waste of time, because they’re not.  But I found that when I did morning work, I WANTED them to finish the work because it was very much a review of what we were learning. That means sometimes I HAD to teach the morning work (ugh). Not my goal.

• With the Bell Ringers, they teach the kids something, but nothing requires me to “instruct,” because I need that time for attendance and such.
• The Bell Ringers were the same, but varied ha! What this means, is that they did the same format every week, but the type of Bell Ringer changed every day and the content changed every week. They didn’t get bored, but they always knew what to do. This is what a week of bell ringers looks like.

WHAT WERE THE RESULTS OF IMPLEMENTING BELL RINGERS?

ROOT OR AFFIX OF THE WEEK BELL RINGERS FOR QUICK WARM-UPS

I made these bell ringers to be the perfect fit for this very short morning time. Since their original creation, they have also become 100% digital in Google Slides.

You can get my:

•  Root and Affix of The Week Bell Ringers by clicking here or…
• You can even try them out FREE for three weeks by clicking here. 
• If you are a subscriber, these are already in your free resource library.