George Lucas Educational Foundation
Edutopia

English Language Arts

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

  • 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

  • 3 Alternatives to Reading Logs

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

  • 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

  • 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

  • Connecting Math and Science to Reading and Writing

    Educators in K-12 classrooms are exploring unique ways to bridge the gap between math, science, and literacy.
    Sarah Gonser

  • 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

  • 3 Hands-on Learning Activities for English Class

    Simple art activities can spark deep thinking about literature in middle and high school English language arts classes.
    Jori Krulder

  • An Engaging Word Game Helps Students Grasp Implicit Bias

    A simple fill-in-the-blank exercise helped students understand the power of words and the way they might convey unspoken beliefs.
    Laura Lee

  • 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

  • The Reading Wars: Choice vs. Canon

    English teachers are wrestling with how to navigate the increasingly contentious terrain between student choice and assigning the classics.
    Holly Korbey

  • How a Literacy-First Program Revived a School

    A Title I school in the Bronx is dramatically improving student outcomes—one book at a time.
    Carly Berwick