George Lucas Educational Foundation
Edutopia

English Language Arts

Explore and share tips, strategies, and resources for helping students develop in English language arts.

  • 11 Meaningful Writing Assignments Connected to the Pandemic

    Writing gives students an outlet to express their feelings and connect with others during this unsettling time in their lives.
    Shveta Miller

  • A Strategy for Giving Corrective Feedback to ELLs

    Using sentence frames and explicit feedback thoughtfully can provide the right balance of structure and scaffolding for English language learners.
    Shveta Miller

  • Teaching Poetry With Student Exemplars

    Poetry can feel inaccessible to teens, but using examples written by former students as mentor texts brings it within reach.
    Elizabeth Jorgensen

  • If We Want Bookworms, We Need to Get Beyond Leveled Reading

    When it comes to nurturing kids’ love of reading, research suggests variety, choice—and encouragement to stretch—can make a difference.
    Sarah Gonser

  • Reading Aloud to Middle School Students

    Hearing books read aloud benefits older students, enhancing language arts instruction and building a community of readers.
    Kasey Short

  • What Doesn’t Work: Literacy Practices We Should Abandon

    The number one concern that I hear from educators is lack of time, particularly lack of instructional time with students. Although we can't entirely solve the time problem, we can mitigate it by carefully analyzing our use of class time.
    Nell K. Duke

  • 22 YA Novels to Help Students Process the Pandemic (or Forget It for a Bit)

    A former school librarian shares recent young adult novels to boost kids’ resilience or give them some laughs. A few dystopian picks may provide a new perspective on the current situation.
    Terri Grief

  • 3 Alternatives to Reading Logs

    Teacher-tested ideas to keep reading homework from feeling like a chore.

  • A Handy Strategy for Teaching Theme

    Analyzing the themes in a literary work can be tricky for students, but a simple formula can scaffold the process.
    Zach Wright

  • Borrowing a Literacy Strategy From Band Class

    A band teacher explains how a process he uses to train budding musicians’ inner voice can be used to help struggling readers improve.
    Brian Campbell

  • 5 Ways to Support Students Who Struggle With Reading Comprehension

    These strategies can help students who are able to decode well but have difficulty understanding what they read—and they’re beneficial for all students.
    Nina Parrish

  • 50 Writing Prompts for All Grade Levels

    Sometimes students need a little push to activate their imaginations.
    Todd Finley

  • 22 Diverse Book Choices for All Grade Levels

    Suggestions from teachers who are working to offer students at every grade level book choices that represent their lives.
    Tom Berger

  • Young Adult Novels That Teach a Growth Mindset

    Use these novels to teach learning from loss and overcoming adversity to your middle schoolers and high school freshmen.
    Robert Ward

  • 4 Ways to Use Mentor Texts During the Pandemic

    Students can connect with topics that ring true to their lives while practicing techniques modeled by professional writers.
    Brittany R. Collins