End of Semester Ideas for ELA

Dec 1

There are so many considerations at play when wrapping up the end of a semester in your English Langauge Arts class. Whether you’re ending the semester before a break, ending the semester with awkward time after a break, or ending the course altogether, we have to balance the extra tasks on our shoulders at this time of year (contacting parents, finalizing the gradebook, dealing with students who are DONE, etc.) as well as the academic side of things. Oh, and if you’re trying to enjoy some holiday festivities and/or pack for your first vacation in a long time, you’ve also got to figure out how to be a PERSON right now, too.

So, I reached out to some teacher friends of mine to bring you our BEST tips for the end of the semester in ELA. Here are the suggestions that will help you keep everything straight, organized, and most importantly, meaningful for both you and your students.

END THE SEMESTER WITH A PLAN FOR NEXT SEMESTER

You heard me. And I know this sounds like WAY too much to do, but please believe me when I say that your restfulness over the break will exponentially increase when your first 1-5 days for your return are handled. So, as you plan your end of the year to-do list, carve out a few hours to plan, decide, print, and schedule everything you need for AT LEAST the first two days when you return. Here are a few things to get you started:

Reestablish (if mid-year) or establish (if start of year) classroom culture and energy with a fun get to know you activity
Use poetry as a vehicle for students to reflect on their past and set goals for the future
Establish or revisit expectations for group work using marshmallows and toothpicks
Introduce a bell work routine that will help create a calm, organized start of class for the rest of the semester to come

Once your planning is done and you’ve committed to the plan, finish up the semester, close your laptop and TAKE YOUR BREAK knowing that you’re already good to go upon your return. Go ahead…take that sigh of relief!

AUTHENTIC WRITING ASSESSMENTS

“Ms. Barbour, thank you so much for not giving us a boring final exam before Winter Break!”

Krista Barbour from @whimsyandrigor hears this every year from her middle school students and that’s why she knows her decision to ditch the final exam was the right one for everyone.

So, what does she do instead? An authentic assessment embedded in a piece of writing students are already engaged with! In this YouTube video, Krista goes over what kinds of topics can be assessed (apostrophes, commas in a list, paragraph breaks, etc), how to first incorporate formative assessments for feedback, and then how to seamlessly assess their application of the skill in their creative or analytical writing. Krista (and her students!) love this strategy because it is 100% authentic. NO in-a-vacuum quizzes. NO can-you-memorize-these-rules tests. The students learn a skill, practice with a teacher, apply it to a piece of writing they actually care about, and are assessed in their practical use of the skill. It’s seriously a winner and BONUS! there are no stacks of exams to take home and grade over our much-deserved Winter Break!

For Krista’s students, the semester always ends with the culmination of their novel-writing project. Like, legit 10,000+ word novels that students wrote in 30 days. Talk about authentic writing! If you are curious about how this project works, how Krista survives, and how the students thrive during these 30 days, check out this blog post or peruse all the resources right here!

OK-teachers YOU got this! And even if you barely make it across the finish line in December, you still did it! Now, grab a good book, some delicious treats, and relax. No one deserves it more than you. Plus, you cleverly ended the semester with nothing to grade! Go you!

A LITERARY QUOTE BOOK

The end of the semester can be a whirlwind because often students end in different places or are sometimes missing various assignments. Samantha from Samantha in Secondary combats this by assigning a high-interest, self-paced project so students can review concepts learned in class while still doing something creative and engaging.

A literary quote book is a great way to see what stuck with students in an authentic way. Students peruse all of the texts covered in the assigned time period (for instance, a semester alone or even the entire year) and find relevant quotes that stuck out to them. They illustrate the quote either digitally (using stock photos with text overlay) or on paper with their own imagined illustrations to compile a small book. Then, students connect each quote to a broader theme and explain the connection. This process easily combines creativity with an extra layer of rigor. Have students share their final creations to see how their chosen quotes compare to others. This creates an opportunity for rich discussion about the text without much effort on your part!

You can grab this no-prep project here (with rubric and examples created for you) or come up with your own vision for this project. You will love seeing what your students create!

Betsy, from Spark Creativity, will never forget the end of her first term in teaching. She assigned a differentiated project with six different options and six different rubrics. She had four classes of projects to grade, final percentage tallies to figure out, and individualized grade report comments to write for every student. Plus, she was the varsity head coach of a sport at the time, and seemed to spend every afternoon stuck in traffic on the California freeways with my team. Then her computer crashed.

DON’T COLLECT A PROJECT ON THE LAST DAY

Ahhhh…. The memories. So today she’s sharing a simple trick she learned the hard way. By all means, finish the term with an awesome creative project. A poetry slam, a class play, a literary food truck, an escape room project, a student podcast project. But make it due at least a week before the term actually ends!

During the last week, try to avoid collecting more major work to grade. Use that week for a short stand-alone unit you’ve been wanting to find time for. Perhaps choice reading, listening and responding to podcasts, viewing powerful Ted talks, diving into a life skills unit, or something else you’ve been dreaming about. Check in with kids about missing work, shore up your plans for the next term, and get your grading and averages done without adding more and more to your list.

REFLECT ON THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

The end of the semester is always an exciting time but can also be pretty stress-inducing as well. When the dust has settled and she’s feeling somewhat calm, Molly from The Littlest Teacher likes to take some time out and reflect on what went well, what didn’t, and what she’d like to implement for next semester.

Sure, this reflection can be done during your prep when the new semester or year starts, but Molly has found that her reflection is more thorough and honest when everything is fresh on her mind.

You’ll want to prepare a list of probing questions to guide your reflection session. Ask yourself things such as, “What do I want to do more of next semester? Less of?” “What was the most successful lesson I taught this semester? What made it effective? How can I duplicate this lesson with next semester’s material?” “What was the hardest day this semester? What made it so hard?” “What areas do I want to simplify going forward?”

Find a quiet place and time where you feel focused and clear. Grab your list of questions, favorite pens, and favorite drink. Plan to actually write out your answers, not just think over them. As we English teachers know, there is value in journaling. Also have your master to-do list ready, so you can add to it all your exciting plans.

Molly created a free goal-setting workbook just for teachers that will guide your reflection and self-evaluation and help you set some clear goals for your best semester ever. Be sure to grab it to create a blueprint that’s unique to you and your ELA classroom.

Amanda Cardenas