My ELA Class Period Schedule
I think one of the most frequently asked questions I get is about my middle school ELA class period schedule. The questions range from my daily, weekly, monthly, and year-long schedules, so I thought I would answer some of those questions here.
I don’t think there is a specific type of teacher who tends to ask this question. I think new teachers want to know because in those first years we’re all just trying to wrap our heads around things.
I think seasoned teachers are curious as to what other teachers are doing daily, weekly, monthly, and each year as we make adjustments because we need to or want to.
So I thought I would show you all here.
I think the best way to show you all is to break down my day, my week, and then show you my year-long pacing guides, along with the resources I use all year.
Reading Unit Class Period Schedule
This is what my middle school ELA class period schedule looks like depending on whether we are doing a reading or writing unit. I alternate them pretty consistently. A reading unit can take anywhere from 3-6 weeks, depending on the book, while my writing units take 2-3 weeks. My hourly schedule will look different depending on whether we are doing a reading or writing unit. And again, next year will look a little different each hour.
When we are doing a reading unit, we are usually reading one of our required curriculum novels. I read the novels out loud for about 15 minutes after we do our bell ringers. Then we do a lesson or activity, and then we read our independent reading books.
Using a workshop-style class period allows students to read and allows me to actually do small groups and individual reading conferences with students.
Writing Unit Class Period Schedule
Here is my middle school ELA class period schedule during a writing unit. For writing, I try to do a mini-lesson on what they will do, so they have close to 30 minutes to write or type. I also really try to still give them the last ten minutes to read, but most get in a groove and want to keep writing.
Like reading, I also use a workshop-style class period that allows students time to write after I have taught them a specific writing skill or lesson so they can apply it right away. Again, it also allows me to do individual writing conferences every day. Because I work so hard to give them a good chunk of time to work on their writing, I am able to conference with each student 2-3 times during each of our writing units.
I am always getting asked about my schedules and then how I would structure my class periods if I had longer or shorter class periods or if I had different block schedules. Ask and you shall receive! There are six different schedules in this file.
If you would like the free, editable version of these schedules, then CLICK HERE or on the image below to grab the download.
Books and Movies Elective Class Period Schedule
I just finished a books and movies blog post to explain it a little bit more (even though I keep it super simple), but this is my hourly schedule for books and movies.
Middle School ELA Editable Pacing Guide
I made to make as many versions as humanly possible. There are filled-in versions that you can use or type over or there are blank, editable ones for you to fill in while looking at mine as a guide. This editable pacing guide also has editable weekly pacing to help you get more detailed (pictured below).
Middle School ELA Grammar Resources
I often get asked about how I make these, and honestly, I just kind of get everything I need and make them. I get my standards and the curriculum book I am required to use (I work at a Core Knowledge school so we have required literature and non-fiction terms, vocabulary, spelling, phrases, texts, speeches, writing pieces, grammar terms, etc.).
I try to align things that fit naturally and our school also works hard to align our ELA learning with what is happening in Social Studies. I make sure that everything is taught at some point while still making it a cohesive fit into our units. I then map out what resources I have and start looking for where I need to supplement.
As you can see above in the year-long pacing guides, I teach grammar all year long whenever I can squeeze it in. I recently had been hearing and reading a lot about mentor sentences. I loved the idea of kids using their favorite books to learn grammar.
So I set out to make my Mentor Sentences for Middle School. We didn’t get through all four quarters, because I was still learning, and I also went on maternity leave for a quarter of school, but I plan to get through more of the lessons this year.
Middle School Literature Lessons
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- Ghost
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- Freak the Mighty
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- The Outsiders
Middle School Narrative Writing Instruction
Middle School Reading Units and Novel Studies
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- The Call of the Wild
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- A Long Walk to Water
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- Fever 1793
Middle School Literary Analysis
Middle School Drama Reading Unit
Middle School Nonfiction and Informational Reading Unit
At the about half way point in the school year, we have done a ton of literature and literary analysis, so I start to hid nonfiction texts hard and we go into our nonfiction units. For nonfiction, we use my Nonfiction Interactive Notebook and Reading Response Unit alongside our nonfiction novels that we use as mentor texts while we learn all our nonfiction reading concepts.
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- Brown Girl Dreaming
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- The Finest Hours
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- Chasing Lincoln’s Killer
Middle School Rhetorical Analysis Reading and Writing Unit
Next up comes my actual favorite unit to teach: Rhetoric and rhetorical analysis essays. Again, I have speeches that I am required to teach (they align beautifully with social studies). The kids have a lot of background information from their social studies teacher, so I get to spend time analyzing the rhetoric.
We learn all about rhetoric, rhetorical devices, and rhetorical appeals from my rhetorical analysis reading and writing unit. I love how we start out by learning the appeals and devices and then really diving into analyzing speeches and essays for rhetoric. I am to include all the speeches I am required to teach, “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” which is an 8th-grade required speed/essay we read.
This is probably one of the toughest units to teach in middle school, but it usually ends up being a favorite. We use my differentiated Rhetorical Analysis Reading and Writing unit.
Middle School Poetry and Verse Novel Reading Unit
After Christmas break, we go into one of my favorite units: poetry. It’s up there with Mentor Sentences for my favorite thing I have ever created.
For poetry and verse, we use my Poetry and Verse Interactive Notebook and Reading Response Unit alongside our verse novels that we use as mentor texts while we learn all our poetry concepts. We also spend a good chunk of time reading our required poems, annotating them, and writing our own. We also learn specific types of poems and practice writing those. At the end of the unit, we create poetry anthologies based on what we learned.
Just like all other literature units, I use a mentor text as a read-aloud as well as something to utilize for all my examples. I love Kwame Alexander’s books written in verse, and so do my middle schoolers. I use my The Crossover Reading Unit with my eighth graders.
My seventh graders also learn about The Dust Bowl in Social Studies, so I have created an Out of the Dust Reading Unit for our read-aloud, and I’m also working on a unit for that. Sixth grade uses House Arrest and it’s one of my favorite verse novels ever!
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- Out of the Dust
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- The Crossover
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- House Arrest
Literary Devices through Dystopian Unit
The last unit of the year for my students and I is my brand-new Dystopian Literary Devices and Literature unit. This unit digs deeper into every literature concept we’ve learned throughout the year, but has students reading texts and completing lessons about one of the most engaging reading genres. This units isn’t a necessitiy, which is why I save it for the end of the year, but it was my student’s favorite so I tried to get to it.
This unit’s mentor texts are always among some of the favorite read alouds students are exposed to each year. In eighth grade we use The Giver by Lois Lowry, in seventh grade we use The Maze Runner by James Dashner, and in sixth grade we use Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix.
My Middle School ELA Bell Ringers
Lastly, I have my books and movies class, and I just finished up a blog post about that. You can check out how I run that class by clicking here or the picture below.
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Wow. This is SO helpful.
This is so helpful! I just finished my second year but I still struggle with figuring how how to structure my day to day. I really want to incorporate some independent reading time. I like closing class period with some time for the students to read books of their own choosing! Thank you for sharing!
So incredibly helpful and enlightening! Checking out your resources and thanks for doing this blog entry!
Okay. Another question… I just read your blog post from 2016 about small groups with your 6th graders. Now that you are in 7th and 8th, do you do them twice a week or so like you did with 6th? I am teaching 6-8th ELAR and I am soooo overwhelmed in general about what to do or not do to help my kids be successful.