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 439: Monday Mindset: You Are Valuable
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We start August with a Monday Mindset that pulls the focus back where it belongs, on you as a human being with limited energy. We walk through a simple but uncomfortable question: who got the best of you last year, and who got the scraps? From there, we reframe energy as a finite resource and talk about why “self care” is not the point. The point is protecting what refills you, so you can be more patient, more creative, and more present in the classroom and at home.
You will leave with a clear next step: identify one or two non negotiables for this school year, write them down, and put them on your calendar first. If you love strong systems, engaging lessons, and smart planning frameworks, this mindset shift is the foundation that makes those tools sustainable and helps prevent teacher burnout before it starts.
If this message hits home, subscribe, share it with a teacher friend, and leave a review so more ELA teachers can start the year with boundaries that last.
Welcome And Mission For ELA 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.
Inside The EB Teachers ELA Portal
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.
August Reset Before School Starts
SPEAKER_00Well, hello, teachers, and welcome back to another Monday Mindset. And welcome to August. Because if you are listening to this in real time, back to school is either already here or it is right around the corner. And I want to start this month with something that I think you need to hear before anything else. You know, we're gonna be talking about planning, we're gonna be talking about curriculum, we're gonna be talking about systems and any of that, all of that stuff. But the most important thing is that I want to talk to you about you.
Who Got The Best Of You
SPEAKER_00Not you as a teacher, but you as a person. Because I think somewhere between all of the things that we have to do as teachers, emails, parent conferences, essays to grade, a lot of us have stopped treating ourselves and our energy like we matter. And I don't even think we realize that we've done it. And here's what I mean think about how you spent last school year and answer the questions honestly as I bring them up. Who got the best of you? Maybe your students did. Maybe your admin did, they got the the yes version of you. Maybe the parents who emailed at 9 p.m. and you responded. Your family then and friends then, and you then got what was left over after all of that. You especially got the scraps of all of that, right? You skipped workouts, maybe. You ate lunch standing at your desk, you spent Sunday nights laying awake, dreading Monday, you know, all of the things that we put aside to take care of other people, because that's what we do as teachers. And somehow in the middle of all of that giving, the message to yourself got reinforced over and over and over again that everybody else's needs come first. And yours maybe subconsciously were communicated to you that your needs can wait.
Energy As A Finite Resource
SPEAKER_00And I really want to challenge that this school year. Not with like a self-care checklist, not with a, you know, go get your nails done and like get a take a bubble bath, but with like something real. And I think one of the most significant shifts that I've made in my life after my injury and everything that I've been through, that I want you to maybe adopt into your life is I really think about who and where I spend my energy. I think of my energy like a resource. It is a finite resource. And because my energy is a finite resource, I have to create non-negotiables with myself in order to protect that energy, in order to protect that resource. And I mean that like in a very concrete, put it on the calendar type of way. And for me, in my life, I've decided that the gym, my workouts go on my calendar first. And everything else in my life gets built around that. And I know some of you might be thinking, well, that's just not reasonable. I have kids, I have a 45-minute commute, I have a co-teacher who doesn't pull their weight. Whatever it is, I hear you. I'm not saying that it's easy at all. I'm saying that whatever those non-negotiables are for you, they're necessary. And that means that you might disappoint some other people. And that's okay. And I think when you become okay with that and taking care of yourself and putting your needs first, there's a level of peace that is hard to come by anywhere else.
Non Negotiables And Healthy Boundaries
SPEAKER_00And here's what I know from kind of living this reality for quite a while is that when I protect the things that fill me up, that are my things, that are Caitlin things, going to the gym, going on a walk, you know, reading a book before bat, whatever those things are that belong to just me, I actually become a different person for everyone around me. I'm more patient, I'm more present, I'm more creative, I'm more grounded. And the people in my life, they get a better version of me. And so do I. And I don't think that that's selfish at all. I think that that is the work. And I want you to really sit with this because we've all heard the airplane analogy, right? We've all heard put your own oxygen mask on first before helping others. We've heard it so many times that it's lost its power, quite frankly. It's become redundant and noise in the background. And so I think that it's important to maybe just hear it differently through the lens of like not conceptually understanding it, but actually integrating it into your life because you can for a while run on fumes. Teachers are remarkably good at this. I've watched many teachers do it. I have done it myself. But eventually something breaks your health, your relationships, your love for the job that you worked so hard to build, whatever it might be.
Calendar Your Commitments To Yourself
SPEAKER_00And I want you to just know that you are valuable. Not because of what you produce for your students, not because of what you do for your school, not because of what you do for anything else, but you are valuable simply because you are a human being who deserves to be cared for. And the most important person responsible for that care is you. So here's what I want you to do before this school year gets fully underway and crazy. I want you to identify one or two things, just one or two things, that are going to be your non-negotiables this year. They are things that belong to you, things that make you you, that refill you, that keep you in the game not just through September, but through May. And I want you to write them down. I want you to actually calendar them into your calendar. And I want you to treat them with the same seriousness that you treat your job and you treat your lesson plans and you treat taking care of everyone else. And when the school year gets busy, because it will, I want you to come back to this moment, come back to this episode, come back to the commitment that you made for yourself right here, right now, before the school year got away from you. Because you deserve to still be standing, thriving at the end of this school year, not surviving and just barely hanging on until summer break.
You Matter Most This School Year
SPEAKER_00So, this is a school year where you matter too. And in fact, you matter most. And I want you to hold on to that because you are valuable. All right, you guys, I will see you tomorrow on the podcast and back here next Monday for another Monday mindset. Here's to another great week of living intentionally.