Wrapping Up the School Year in English Language Arts

The end of the school year can feel like the last days of a favorite television show’s season, with the cast bidding farewell and a new group promised in the new season. Yet even with the feelings of past days behind us, we can still try new things and enrich ourselves. Teaching is a highly creative profession, and the ability to try new ideas is an opportunity for reflection and refreshing our practices.

Supplement Learning in a New Way

After teaching with curriculum maps to achieve specific learning standards, teachers are likely looking for areas where students need additional support to increase their understanding—or maybe even skills that can be reinforced or previewed for the coming school year. We can identify these target areas and make the end of the year an especially purposeful time with our students.

To round out the days, students have a viable chance to practice concepts and skills that need both review and enrichment. First, let’s consider the rearview mirror on the year’s content. As students prepare for course exams and standardized tests at the end of the school year, it might seem daunting to review everything, but why not target the most essential areas where students have experienced the most difficulty?

Try teaching something new or teaching in a new way. For me, this challenge has included strategies like a topical Scattergories-like game and concept bingo.

In traditional Scattergories, players have a topic and a letter, and generate as many words or phrases connected to the topic that start with the chosen letter as possible. With a few letter tiles and some well-chosen categories, you can implement this as a team-based game approach that can lead to a fun review routine. Some categories can even be added now and then to connect with student interests or shared humor and cultural moments that the class experienced throughout the year. Students can pull tiles and then work in groups to generate unique words and phrases related to the top five or 10 target areas of content. I usually start the game with two-minute rounds and sometimes speed them up to increase the challenge and fun.

Concept bingo is another manageable way to have students listen for and explore key concepts, including vocabulary and searches for elements of author style. This approach was inspired by “Kingo”—a bingo game that my students played after reading some of Stephen King’s stories. You can make a simple table with a few terms, a text, or an activity for students to discover and apply the terms, and you have the necessary ingredients for a review game. As an English teacher, sometimes I take favorite authors or passages and ask students to identify elements.

Ask Students What They’d Like to Learn

In the last weeks of school, ask students what they’d like more of. Recently, my students reported that they wanted to read true crime inspired by their interest in podcasts from this genre. I had never taught author style, including diction and tone, with Truman Capote, so we tried a short fiction piece that felt appropriate for the student audience—“A Lamp in a Window.” Not only was I able to pull in a type of text that my students were already interested in, but also I was able to explore different concepts using this text.

In one class, we spent focused time on looking at the literary elements that Capote used, including his juxtaposition of ideas and repetition of concepts to build toward the end of the piece. During a composition-centered lesson, we looked at the way the author used transitions and specific examples to support and convey his ideas. Using the same source, I was able to fashion two directions based on student needs.

The caveat with this approach is that students will be honest with you, sometimes including any criticism they might want to offer. In my years of using this strategy, less positive and productive comments have been scant. I often give students the chance to be anonymous in their responses and have them jot ideas on a sticky note. For me, the risk of having a strong opinion is worth the reward of inviting student voice.

It can also be really cool when a student is reflective enough to recognize their need to review a concept or skill that you already had in mind for them. I’ve seen that this kind of activity offers a strong possibility for students to build stronger connections to their learning—it’s more collaborative because they’re directly involved.

I never compel or force students to generate a suggestion if they don’t have one, and I also never feel as though I must do exactly what they write on the notes. As the arbitrator and co-constructor of the classroom culture, I approach suggestions and ideas with the “what is best for my students” lens in mind.

I Just Wish There Were Time For…

Do you ever find yourself saying this? I know I have, and I’ve also heard colleagues lament this. The end of the year is a fast and furious time of making the most of our days alongside the stream of events that come with school life.

Maybe it’s time to link a topic with one that is part of the curriculum that has eluded the schedule. Or it might be time to practice that new artistic or project-based approach your colleague has been talking to you about, centered around a key skill that is fruitful for extension or a fresh look. These additional opportunities can include a deep dive on an author or topic that has been of interest to students, and they have also served as a space for trying additional types of composing in my classroom. Creative approaches using film, comics, and discussion-based work have all been extensions I’ve tried in this space of the school year and later included throughout the semester in my methods and offerings.