George Lucas Educational Foundation
Edutopia

English Language Arts

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

  • Leveraging Peer Power To Improve Writing

    Conferencing is crucial for young writers, but there’s only one teacher. Here’s how to model peer conferences to help kids improve their writing skills.
    Laura Lee

  • A Fun, Experiential Approach to Strengthen Reading and Writing Skills

    Hands-on learning experiences help young learners build their vocabulary while boosting their literacy skills.
    Laura Lee

  • 3 Ways to Make Better Use of Reading Science

    Teaching reading is hard. But there are fundamental things we know about how kids learn to read—the key is to remain nuanced in their application.
    Sarah Gonser

  • 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

  • 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

  • Developing a Love of Reading in Students

    Exposing new readers to a variety of genres can help them find the books they love. Plus, reading comprehension strategies to deepen their engagement.
    Kathryn Starke

  • 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

  • 50 Writing Prompts for All Grade Levels

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

  • How to Lead Students to Engage in Higher Order Thinking

    Asking students a series of essential questions at the start of a course signals that deep engagement is a requirement.
    Karen Harris

  • 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

  • Assessing Literacy Skills With One-on-One Conferencing

    Brief, frequent chats with students help teachers assess their reading and writing skills while building strong relationships.
    Kyleen Gray

  • Tapping Students’ Interests to Develop Literary Analysis Skills

    Passion blogging is a low-stakes chance for students to analyze texts of their choosing before they move on to complex literary texts.
    Allison Berryhill

  • Maintaining Students’ Motivation for Learning as the Year Goes On

    Neuroscience can suggest ways to keep students working toward their learning goals after their initial excitement wears off.
    Judy Willis