Teaching Middle School ELA
Welcome to the Teaching Middle School ELA podcast, where we are dedicated to helping English Language Arts teachers create dynamic and engaging lessons for their students, while also managing the day-to-day responsibilities that come with being a Middle School ELA teacher.
As educators ourselves, we understand the challenges of finding a work-life balance that allows us to pursue our passion for teaching while also enjoying our personal lives. That's why each Tuesday, hosts Caitlin Mitchell and Jessica Cannata share practical and innovative solutions for managing your workload and staying inspired in your teaching practice.
Whether you are looking for fresh ideas to inspire your students, strategies for improving your writing instruction, or tips for managing your time more effectively, this podcast is designed to provide you with the tools you need to thrive as a Middle School ELA teacher.
Join us each week for curriculum and lesson ideas, classroom stories, and interviews with fellow educators who are experts in the field. We believe that with the right support and resources, you can create a classroom environment that encourages students to become strong and passionate learners.
If you teach reading and writing to middle schoolers and want to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices in ELA education, then this is the podcast for you! Tune in every week and let us help you make a difference in the lives of your students and in your own teaching career.
Teaching Middle School ELA
Episode 308: Literary Shuffle Activity
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In this episode, we're shaking things up with the Literary Shuffle Activity—a fun and interactive way to get students diving deeper into any story. Whether they’re on their feet or staying put, this game makes story review a blast.
You'll walk away from this episode with all the information you'll need to implement this game using any novel or short story that your students are reading. Take a listen and try it out!
Well, hello teachers, if you are looking for a fresh way to engage your students with story reviews, this episode is going to introduce you to the Literary Shuffle activity. So this is an engaging, story-based game that really puts a fresh spin on reviewing any narrative, which allows your students to dig into story details while also enjoying a bit of friendly competition. You know we love that at EB. So in this episode we're gonna cover how to set up and run the game. We're gonna offer both an active version and a seated version so that you can kind of fit it into your specific classroom setting. And this is a great activity because it's a dynamic approach to story reviews for your students. That's not just educational, but we want it to be fun too. All right, let's go ahead and dive into today's episode. Hi there, ela teachers.
Speaker 1:Caitlin here, ceo and co-founder of EB Academics, I'm so excited you're choosing to tune into the Teaching Middle School ELA podcast. Our mission here is simple to help middle school ELA teachers take back their time outside of the classroom by providing them with engaging lessons, planning frameworks and genuine support so that they can become the best version of themselves both inside and outside of the classroom. And we do this every single day inside the EB Teachers ELA portal. This is a special place we've developed uniquely for ELA teachers to access every single piece of our engaging, fun and rigorous curriculum so that they have everything they need to batch plan their lessons using our EB Teacher Digital Planner that's built right into the app. Over the years, we've watched as thousands of teachers from around the world have found success in and out of the classroom after using EB Academics programs, and we're determined to help thousands more. If you're interested in learning more, simply click the link in the podcast description and in the meantime, we look forward to serving you right here on the podcast every single week.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone and happy Halloween week. This is Tuesday right when we air these episodes, so Halloween is Thursday. Are you dressing up, megan? Do you dress up, you know?
Speaker 3:oh my gosh, I should you know. One year I went as a pig in a blanket and that was a pretty solid costume, I gotta tell you.
Speaker 2:You still have it?
Speaker 3:I do, cause it's just like a pink sweatsuit and pig ears and then a tan blanket. Do the students know what it is, or do you have to give them like it takes them a minute. They're like what is going on here. And then they're like oh, that's actually brilliant, cause there is a pig nose that goes with it, but it doesn't stay on my nose very well. But yeah, I'm obsessed with costumes like that.
Speaker 2:Like my old neighbor in San Francisco for Halloween he came out in a tuxedo and then he had an index card on, like I guess, this part of, like his upper part of the tuxedo on the pocket and it just said sorry. And I was like I don't get it, do you get it? I? It took me a while and I'm like I'm an English teacher, I should get these puns.
Speaker 2:And he's like I'm a formal apology and I was like it was so clever and so easy, but it made me chuckle and I'm not that clever with my costumes.
Speaker 3:I know One year I did get super clever, so I took the same pig costume and I took the blanket off and I put Carpe Diem on the sweatshirt and it was pig Latin. Okay, that's amazing, I love this. People struggled to get that, but once I told them they're like all right, that's good, yes, oh, okay.
Speaker 2:Well, hopefully we're inspiring all you English teachers out there with some fun costume ideas. Share yours as well. We know you guys have like the best ones you use in your classrooms. I think I am probably going for like I don't know, it's like year number eight or nine as a Rockford Peach baseball player from a league of their own. Daryl, we're just going for it. Keep it simple, sidetracked about Halloween.
Speaker 2:But back to today's episode on the literary shuffle activity that we're sharing. This is actually a really fun one. So we're going to be sharing a really entertaining story review activity. You can use this with any story, short story, novel, whatever and this activity is sort of like musical chairs, but there's no battle over the last chair, cause you know that can just get a little disruptive in class, and this activity actually has a lot more thinking involved. And like last I think last episode yeah, we were, maybe it was two episodes, but we were sharing some fun interactive activities and then we shared a stationary version of it. We're going to do that here too, so that, if you're like this is just, you know, too much chaos for me, I want something easier.
Speaker 2:You don't have to be an EB teacher to use this game, because we're going to show you how to set it up with simple materials that you can create on your own. But if you are an EB teacher and you're listening to this, then why reinvent the wheel? So you can actually find a generic version of this game in the resource in the portal called Literature Games for Any Novel or Short Story, and it's edible, editable. You can use it with any story so fun. And then also within the portal. We just recently updated our Sandra Cisneros 11 short story unit. It is so cool. It's birthday party themed, so of course, we had to do like birthday party activities in it, and we include the literary shuffle as one of those games, so you can check it out there too, if you're an EB teacher. So Megan is actually going to walk you through the prep of this game and then I'll take you through the steps of it and you can play it with either small groups, you can play it with large classes, however you choose.
Speaker 3:Perfect. So first, to start with this, you're going to create the following items. First item is going to be seat tokens. These are very simply just slips of paper with a number for each student's seat. So, for example, if you have 30 students, you will create 30 tokens and you're going to number them from one to 30, then place them in a cup or a bag. Next thing you need are seat numbers. These will go on the backs of students' chairs. So say again, you have 30 students, you're going to tape a seat number to the back of each chair, in order from one to 30.
Speaker 3:Point tokens is next. So when a student answers a question correctly, they are going to pull out a point token to see how many points their team will get. So these are simply slips of paper with a number of points on each. So these are what we have for the point tokens in our resources, but you can just create any that you want. So five point tokens that say five points, five point tokens that say 10 points, one point token that says 20 points, one point token that says negative five points, one point token that says negative 10 points, one point token that says bankrupt and then one point token that says swap scores, and if a student picks that token, both teams swap their scores. So you're going to place all of these tokens in a cup or bag.
Speaker 3:Next thing you need are a set of story prompts or questions, and you can write these on a list or print them as cards that you can shuffle through. Either way is fine. Chat GPT is going to be super helpful for helping you come up with questions and prompts here, and these will just very simply be related to the story that students have just read. So, for example, here are a few prompts and questions that we have in that 11 resource that Jessica was talking about. So you're going to choose a word to describe a character of the story and explain why that word describes the character well. Next one would be name one important symbol in this story and explain what it represents. And finally, choose one word that describes the relationship between two key characters. What details in the story support this choice of word?
Speaker 3:The next thing you need to prep is, unless you have a very small class, you need to split your team or your classes into two teams. So each team will stick to their side of the classroom, so you may want to place a strip of painter's tape down the middle of the room so that students can easily kind of stick to their sides. You know, when we used to play two sides in class, it always kind of surprised me how students didn't quite get that. So that might be a really helpful thing. To have is like a piece of tape. Make sure that the numbered seats on each side is as even as possible, if you can. Next thing is to clear your board so that you can keep score on it. You could also use like your class screen if you want to type the scores on like a PowerPoint or something. It's just important that you can erase or delete if needed, because a team can lose points if they draw a negative point token, of course.
Speaker 3:So then finally, choose some fun music to play during the game. This is sort of like musical chairs. When I used to play some games with my fourth, even eighth graders, I'd find like epic battle music on YouTube and they loved that. So just search epic battle music and they'll get really into it. Also, a day or two before the game, it's a good idea to give students a copy of the story prompts or questions so that they can review them and just think about them, and you may even want them to discuss responses in small groups and even take some notes. So this is sort of an open book game so students can refer back to their copy of the story and their notes while they play, if you think that support is going to be helpful for them.
Speaker 2:And so hopefully you can like visualize how this setup is in your classroom. You don't have to do a ton of prep. It's not like you need to put the chairs in circles or anything. You're just kind of pushing desks or chairs to the side. So you can keep it really, really simple.
Speaker 2:But I like what you said, megan, about giving students those prompts or those questions before the game so that like they don't feel like they're on the spot while they're playing and it just moves the game along faster, right, they can respond quickly. You're not like wasting time. They already have a text-based answer in their head or like a well-developed answer. So once you've placed the class in two teams, you're going to put half the class on one side and half the class on the other side of the room and you want to make sure you know backpacks are put away, there's nothing they can trip over, and students have their notes or their stories with them, and then you're going to follow these steps. So you're going to play the music to get started.
Speaker 2:I love Megan's suggestion of epic battle music. I think students will love it and the music is the cue for students to walk. Again, I said walk, not run right Among the desks in their half of the room. And you can, even if you don't want to use epic battle music. But I think give that a try, try to find some music that is appropriate for your short story. So, like in our 11 short story unit, we suggest playing happy birthday or even that song. You know I'm not going to sing it, but the it's my party and I'll Megan will sing it.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:Like how fun would that be, and they probably have not even heard that song before. If they're, you know 12. And then stop the music. When the music stops, students must sit down in the seat where they have stopped and remind students that there's a seat for everyone. So there's no need to push or shove right, they just need to find an empty seat. So if someone is in one near them, go find a different one. And then, once the music has stopped and all students have sat down, you pull out a seat token and you read the number aloud and the student in that seat will stand up. So I pull number 13 from the bag. Student in the desk that says 13 on the back stands up.
Speaker 2:And now I read that student a prompt from the story, prompts or questions that I've created and they have to answer it. Now, of course, it's okay to rephrase a tricky prompt or tell a student you know, if you need more information, like I can give it to you, or on the flip side of that, like if you need more information from them in order for it to be like a really solid answer, like you're able to help them out a little bit, right, and then if a student responds correctly, then they get to come over and pull out a point token from the container. Remember those ones? Megan went over 10 points, negative five points. Swap bankrupt all those fun ones and then you either add or subtract these points from the student's team on the board or the screen or wherever you're keeping score. Now, if the student gives a wrong answer, then what you can do is choose a student from the other team to answer and if they get it correct, just give them five points to their team score and then what you can do is place the point token back in the container after it's been pulled and this way it could be pulled again in another ground. My students love that. If someone pulled bankrupt and then I like was like, oh, I'm putting it back in. They were like, no, don't do it, but it just like keeps everyone on their toes and it's fun. And then that's the game and you can just play as many rounds as you like.
Speaker 2:So I want to share a few considerations that you may want to make while you're setting up the game. It's up to you whether you want to make sure that your two teams let's say it's the red team and the blue team take equal terms. But, like, honestly, that's the fair way to play, right, you want to give them the same amount of terms. So to do this, let's say the blue team was selected to go first. Well then, on the next round, if you pull a seat token and it's another blue team member, just put it back until you draw a seat token where someone from the red team is sitting.
Speaker 2:Or if that's like awkward and seems like too much work, just prepare two containers. You know one with the blue team set, maybe they're all the even numbers, one for the red team, maybe they're all the odd numbers, whatever. Keep it simple and then you just alternate containers with each round. Another consideration is you might want to have support in place for students who need it. I mentioned this earlier. Like, as long as you're giving students the questions beforehand, they're able to prep a little bit. But there's still going to be some students who stand up and they're a little nervous to share their answer. And this is where, like, you could do something like phone a friend on who wants to be a millionaire. Do you remember watching that show, megan?
Speaker 3:Oh, all the time, loved Regis Philbin, philbin.
Speaker 2:Reg, we just filled in. Yeah, that was such a fun show so you could allow a student to call on one team member if they need help with an answer and to avoid getting the same helper being called on like over and over, you can just make a rule that the same helper cannot be called on twice in one game and this option adds more participation, since players who not chosen no, they might still be asked to like jump in and have to, you know, be that friend on the phone and this. I'm just thinking of that show now. And Megan, I don't know if you remember this episode, this is from like way back when I had to Google this 1999. Cause I saw it recently. It just like popped up in my scroll. There was this guy on who wants to be a millionaire and he used no lifelines. Do you remember? It was always like ask the audience and I think it was like 50, 50, 50.
Speaker 2:So this guy makes it to the million dollar question and he's just like flying through. So Regis, I guess, asks the question and the guy's like I want to use a lifeline, I want to phone my friend, I'm going to call my dad, and he calls his dad and his dad picks up and he's like dad, I actually don't need this lifeline, I don't need your help, but I just want to let you know I want a million dollars. I know the answer to the question.
Speaker 3:I feel like I remember that because it was such a big news story. Yeah, it was like the cutest thing.
Speaker 2:So if you have no idea what I'm talking about you're listening go Google it. It's just really sweet. It was like a question about the presidents. I don't remember exactly what it was, but it's very interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now back to the game, actually. But one last consideration is I mean, think about it, right, it's true, some students are not going to get called on, right, their seat number is not going to get called during the game, but you want to remind them. Hey, you could still be that phone, a friend person or the other team could get the answer wrong and it comes back to you and I might call on you. So you want to be prepared with your answers. So it means that students really should listen carefully to all those prompts, all those responses. And if you're still like, yeah, that's still not going to help some students, you might want to actually tell them. Okay, well, you're going to need to write down your responses anyway to these questions and I'm going to collect those because I want to see what your thoughts are and I want to, you know, make sure you are actively participating, even if it's not out loud.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's always good to have that kind of backup strategy to make sure they're engaged for sure.
Speaker 3:Yes, so this is super fun, but sometimes we do just need a simpler, more stationary activity and that is totally okay. So if you like this game idea but want students to remain seated, you can still use, still number each seat or desk with seat numbers, but just place the numbers on top of the tables or desks where students can see them while sitting, so you will leave out the music movement component of this, so students remain seated, and then you will just simply draw numbers at random to call on students and follow the rest of the steps of the activity. And whichever version of this game you choose, we love a good exit ticket, of course, at the end of a lesson to just really wrap up students' learning. So you can create a simple one with questions like which story prompt from the game do you think was the most difficult, why Another one might be, which story prompt from the game do you think was the easiest and why? And then, finally, what is one story prompt that your teacher could add for next time?
Speaker 2:Great questions for a reflection. I love it. So this game is super fun. It helps students dig into the details of a story they read and then, with two versions to pick from, there really isn't any excuse not to at least give this a try. So we encourage everyone listening to think of the next book you're reading with your students or the next short story that you could use along with this literary shuffle activity. So enjoy, have fun with your students and happy Halloween. Everyone. Enjoy the rest of your week. Hope it's not like too chaotic in your middle school classroom. And for you, megan, with the little little ones, I'm sure you'll have so much fun with them.
Speaker 3:Yes, and we have. We have that Friday, we have Friday off, so it'll be great. It'll be great, it'll be super fun.
Speaker 2:We're going to do some fun Halloween stuff, so enjoy. All right, everyone. Thanks for joining us. Bye everybody.