ELA Best Practices

A Resource of Constructivist Teaching Strategies to
Promote Active Student Learning

The strategies that follow are loosely categorized under the heading that generally fits their skill area; however, as the merged columns indicate, there is often overlap and crossover.  Helping our students to see the integration of these skills is an essential learning.  Critical thinking is integrated in all of the categories.

Click on the underlined keywords for more resources related to
each teaching strategy.

Reading

Outcomes

Writing
Outcomes

Tools for

Reading,
Writing,

& Thinking

Language
Resource
Guide

Rubrics

Curriculum
Mapping

Themes & Essential
Questions

ELA
Home Page

Reading

Writing

Speaking & Listening

Anticipation Guide:
A pre-reading activity that provides students with a series of statements with which they can choose to agree or disagree; they focus on the big ideas or themes of a text.

Learning Log:
As a daily metacognitive tool, learning logs can take many forms; but generally students recount what they have learned in the areas of both content and process; a daily log of what was learned.

Thoughts for Thinkers:
Aphoristic quotes taken from larger works and used to start or stimulate a discussion or as the topic for a focused free write.  As great strategy to begin or end a class discussion.

Sociograms: 
Students create a visual representation of the relationships among character.  The central character in a work is placed at the center of a page and all the other characters are placed around him/her; spatial relationships, size, shape, color, etc. are all used to represent their relationship to one another.

Interactive Notebook:
A notebook where each pair of facing pages is set up so that one page is the class notes on content, process, activities, etc, and the facing page is to be used for the student’s individual interaction with the learning experience (e.g., drawings, words, mind maps, responses, reactions. etc.).

Student Starts the Class:
Formulate ways to have a student start the class each day; it may be that he/she: brings in a thematically linked quote and runs a 5-10 minute discussion, recaps the learning from the day before, introduces and defines a new word from the reading, identifies a passage from the reading that was particularly memorable or interesting.

Annotating a Text:
Using any one of the acronyms provided or a chosen focus, students annotate the text as a preparation for dialogue with other students in small, then large groups

Readers' Bookmarks:
These are small slips of blank paper that can be tucked into a book and used for writing responses to literature.  Information on the bookmarks can include what is important, favorite part, personal connections, questions posed, predictions made, etc.

Jigsaw:
Students are assigned to to groups to discuss and become experts on a topic; then the groups are "jigsawed" so that each newly configured group has one expert from each of the base groups

Collaborative Annotation:
After students complete their own annotation of a text, in groups of 3-5, students pass their annotated copy to the person on the right.  Each person then focuses, and makes additions to the original reader’s commentary.  The next time the paper passes the new reader adds commentary to both of the previous work.  Thus, each person in the group has 2-4 people build and expand on his/her work.

Transactional Reading Journal:
A powerful way to engage students in a reading experience and get them to construct their own meaning.  A set number of required entries are to be completed that respond to the beginning, middle, and end of the text.  The teacher and/or students can generate options such as:  any element of writer’s craft, personal connections, a letter to the author, character, another literary character, a piece of art the work inspires, etc.

Individual / Partner/Small Group Seminars:
These seminars are more formal and focused than large group seminars.  A text or portion of a text is chosen and the student(s) analyze the text based on the models and guided practice from class.  The students then create a thesis that needs to be supported by evidence from the text and sets the seminar up in an outline form.  Partners and group members discuss the texts, but each of the individuals is responsible for submitting and presenting their poem or section of a novel.  

Socratic Seminars:
These whole class dialogues explore ideas, values, and issues drawn from readings or works of are chosen for their richness.  Leaders help participants to make sense of a text and of their own thinking by asking questions about reasoning, evidence, connections, examples and other aspects of sound thinking.  A good seminar is more devoted to making meaning that to mastering information.  Participants are actively engaged in rigorous critical thought.  They must involve a relatively short text, piece of art, etc. and after the seminar are often followed by periods of reflection that may be written or spoken.

Literature Circles:
“Literature Circles are small, peer-led discussion groups whose members have chosen to read the same poem, essay, short story, article, or book” (Daniels, 2002).  Literature circles promote dialogic interaction among students and empower to take an active and self-directed role in their reading.

The Most Important Word: 
(Padak, 1992)
“Readers select what they believe to be the most important word in the text they have read.  Readers must be able to explain the reasons why they think this particular word is the most important.  Students then meet in groups to share their answers.  After each member has shared, some students may want to change their choice.  Groups may discuss until they reach consensus. (word in stanza, etc)

Focused Free Writing:
(Porter, 2002)
Focused free writing works the same way as free writing except that students start with a specific topic.  While writing, they may digress and interrupt their writing, but eventually, they should attempt to return to the topic.  Focused free writes should be brief (five to ten minutes) and can serve as a great warm-up to small-group or class discussion.

Exhibitions:
Exhibitions are presentations that can be done by individuals, partners, and/or small groups.  They are generally presentations that are broader in scope; a student demonstrates his/her overall understanding of the unit’s  enduring understandings and essential questions.

Poetry as an Entry Point:
Instead of jumping into a major text, using thematically-linked poems to introduce the themes or essential questions is a powerful and compact start.  To promote the synthesis of ideas, students can then make connections between the poem and other thematically related texts.

Written Conversations:
(Harste, Short, and Burke 1988)
Partners using this strategy “talk” about literature by carrying on a conversation with each other in writing.  After reading a portion of the text, readers address their response to their partner.  The two then exchange their notes and respond to each other’s writing.  They should try to make meaning of the piece through questions, comments, discussions of likes, dislikes, personal connections, etc.  The written conversations can serve as an excellent precursor to paired, small-group, and class discussion

Reciprocal Reading:
Students take turns reading aloud to each other, stopping at several points to ask questions, clarify, make predictions, discuss writer’s craft, etc.

The Writer’s Antithesis:
Students take a passage from the text they are reading and rewrite the passage reversing one or more of the writer’s choices: the tone, characterization, writer’s voice, point of view, setting, etc.

Reciprocal Teaching:
Students use four comprehension strategies—predicting, question generating, clarifying, and summarizing to help their peers construct meaning from the text.

5 Star Quote:
While reading a text of any length, students choose a “5 star quote:” one that jumped off the page for personal reasons, one that epitomizes the book, one that captures the essence of the writer’s voice, etc.  This is used to begin a small or large group discussion, free write, etc.

Voice Lessons:
(Dean, 1999)
Using the model set up by Nancy Dean in her book, Voice Lessons, select passages from the text being read and use them to showcase elements of writer's craft (e.g., use the selection to conduct a mini-lesson on diction, tone, syntax, etc.).

Inquiry Board:
Create a space somewhere in your classroom where students can post unanswered questions that come up.  They may be in response to a variety of topics, texts, writers, etc.  A student can grab a question and research and answer it to stimulate a piece of writing or discussion.

Author’s Circle: (Harste, Short, and Burke, 1988)
Students read their pieces of writing aloud to the other authors in the circle, which could mean the whole class or a group of 3-4 students.  Listeners respond aloud by discussing what they hear in the writing, with special attention to what they find effective.  They can also comment on the meaning of the piece and raise questions about parts where they feel the text is unclear or needs more explanation.  The writer may revise and return to the circle several times before submitting a final draft.