Jennifer Findley

On this post, I will share my favorite read alouds for teaching the types of figurative language (similes, metaphors, hyperbole, and personification) and then my favorite read alouds that use figurative language naturally and authentically as part of the story. While I use the above read alouds to introduce and teach the specific types of figurative language required by my standards, I also use read alouds that authentically use figurative language in them. The more you discuss the meaning behind the phrase and how it helps make the writing more effective/engaging, the more the students will begin to use figurative language in their own writing. I prefer to teach figurative language during my narrative writing unit and then have a few writing lessons explicitly modeling and inviting students to use figurative language in their own writing.

On this post, I will share some of my students’ favorite persuasive writing prompts with a free download of a printable list and task card version of the writing prompts. The list below (available as a free download at the end of this post) contains a variety of engaging persuasive writing prompts and topics that students will enjoy researching, debating, and writing about. * Use the list format as a teacher-guide when choosing engaging persuasive writing topics for your students. Allow the students to choose a topic (or assign a topic) with two clear sides to debate, have them research facts and information to support both sides of the debate, then have them choose the one to write about, bringing in facts from their research to support their opinion or claim.

On this post, I will share some of my new favorite book recommendation templates that get students excited to recommend books and read recommendations. This will demonstrate how to properly fill out the form and offer some good book recommendations that your students will want to read. * Use these forms in conjunction with book talks to get students even more excited about sharing, recommending, and reading books. Click here to read how a blog post full of strategies and tips for getting students interested and excited to read.

On this post, I will share some free reading exit slips, how I use them, and what I use next to continue assessing my students. These particular reading exit slips offered free on this post specifically assess the students ability to define and write about a reading skill/standard. These reading exit slips are the ones I use after introducing and practicing a skill to see if my students are ready to apply the skill or if they still need to improve their understanding of the skill. These specific reading exit slips come with texts and text-dependent questions that require the students to apply their knowledge of the skills.