Teaching Middle School ELA
Welcome to the Teaching Middle School ELA Podcast, where we help English Language Arts teachers create dynamic, engaging lessons while balancing the everyday responsibilities of teaching middle school.
I’m Caitlin Mitchell, a longtime ELA educator and curriculum creator, and I know firsthand how challenging it can be to manage grading, planning, and student needs—while still trying to have a life outside the classroom. That’s why every Tuesday and Thursday, I bring you practical strategies, curriculum inspiration, and innovative teaching ideas to help you feel confident, prepared, and energized.
Whether you're looking to revamp your writing instruction, streamline your planning process, or engage even the most reluctant readers and writers, you’ll find actionable support here. You'll also hear real classroom stories, fresh lesson ideas, and occasional interviews with other passionate educators.
If you teach reading and writing to middle schoolers and want to stay inspired and up-to-date with best practices in ELA education, you’re in the right place. Tune in every week and let’s transform your teaching—together.
Teaching Middle School ELA
Episode 436: Monday Mindset: It's All About Your Mood
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What if the only thing standing between you and a productive week is waiting until you "feel like it"? This Monday Mindset episode is a reminder that your mood doesn't get to dictate your movement. We talk about why motivation is unreliable, how action creates momentum, and share a simple challenge to help you stop procrastinating and start making progress—just five minutes at a time.
Here's to a week of living intentionally.
Welcome And Mission For Teachers
SPEAKER_00Hi there, ELA teachers. 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.
EB Teachers Portal And Planner
SPEAKER_00And 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.
Monday Mindset For Back To School
SPEAKER_00Well hello teachers, and welcome back to another Monday mindset. I want to talk about something today that I think is gonna feel very appropriately timed, especially if you're heading back to school very soon and you're already starting to feel that familiar mix of, okay, let's do this, and also like, no, I don't want summer to end. So I want to challenge this idea that you have to feel ready or motivated or energized or inspired or fill in the blank before you take action. Okay. I was listening to a Mel Robbins, I don't know, post or something recently. And I know I reference her a lot because she consistently drops these things that make my brain go, oh my gosh, that's so good. And I want to share them with you.
Do Not Let Mood Dictate Movement
SPEAKER_00And she is talking about this concept of not letting your mood dictate your movement. And the moment I heard that, I was like, oh my gosh, this is what I've been trying to tell myself for years, especially the last couple of years with everything I've had going on personally. It's hard to be like motivated or I get in these moods or whatever. And with us as teachers, you know, this plays out big time in real life, right? You know you need to start planning, or you know back to school is coming, or you know that version of you who walks in on day one with a clear plan and a mapped-out semester is gonna feel a thousand times better than the version of you who winged it, right? And didn't do anything all summer. We know all of that, right? And yet, sometimes we don't do it because you just don't feel like it, because you're tired, because it feels overwhelming, because you tell yourself, oh, I'll do it when I'm in the right headspace, or I'll do it after I finish cleaning out my closet, or cleaning out my basement, or you know what, maybe today is the day I'm gonna pick up all of the apples in my backyard, whatever it might be. And then suddenly it's the 11th hour and it's the night before school starts, and you're in full panic mode, wondering where the heck your summer went. And I say this with so much love because I've absolutely been there, especially this summer. There have been pockets of this as well, where I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm so tired, I just can't do it. But here's the thing about waiting to feel motivated or waiting to feel inspired is that it doesn't always work. Yes, 100% motivation shows up. And for me, when that comes, I'm like, all right, close everything else. We gotta harness this moment right here, right? But a lot of
Movement Creates Mood In Teaching
SPEAKER_00the times it doesn't. And I bring this back to fitness. Like, how many times have you not wanted to go to the gym? Not once, not twice, but like regularly. Chronically, there are some weeks, uh periods of weeks that you don't want to go. And yet the people who are, you know, have muscle and are really healthy and taking care of themselves, they just go, right? It's this non-negotiable. I follow this guy on Instagram who does a hundred push-ups every day, 50 pull-ups every day. And he doesn't even think about it. It's just, it is a habit now. And so there's no negotiating, right? And it's not because these people always feel like it, it's because they've stopped making the feeling a requirement to do it, right? They go, they get into it, and then 10 minutes in they're thinking, okay, I'm glad I came. Or after this guy on Instagram does his hundred pushups, he's like, all right, I'm glad I did that. Right? The mood didn't create the movement. The movement creates the mood. And your teaching life works exactly the same way, right? You don't have to feel motivated to open your planning do. You don't have to feel inspired to map out your scope and sequence. You don't have to feel calm and clear and ready or whatever before you sit down and do the work. You literally just have to start. And nine times out of 10, the act of starting is what creates the momentum, the energy, that inspiration, that feeling that you are waiting to feel before you begin. And this is one of the things that I talk about a lot inside of our community because I watch teachers just wait. They wait for the overwhelm to lift or they wait for the conditions to be like just right. But the teachers who make the biggest transformations are not the ones who feel the most ready going in. They are the ones who took action despite the feeling. Like who said, I'm gonna do this even though I'm not sure where to start? Those ones, right? And it's in the doing that they found their footing.
Five Minute Challenge And Next Guest Teaser
SPEAKER_00So here's your challenge for this week. I want you to identify one thing you've been putting off because you're waiting to feel ready, whether that's one planning task or one decision inside of the portal, as maybe you're using our EB writing program this year, one thing you've been circling without actually doing it. And I want you to just start it. Like not finish it, just start it. You got five minutes, one page, one decision, whatever it might be. Let your action create your mood because I promise you it will. All right, here's to another week of in living intentionally, of moving first and letting the feeling follow. I will see you guys tomorrow on the podcast. I have a special guest with me tomorrow, Pat, from our team. She's talking all about our bell ringers and what to do instead. All right, you guys, I will see you tomorrow on the podcast. Have a great rest of your day. Bye, everyone.