English & Language Arts Teacher BlogThis blog is for secondary English, ELA, and language arts teachers filled with lesson plans, humor, product recommendations, teaching ideas, tips, and tricks and much more! Let’s make it a great week! Helpful Stuff I think by now we have all at least heard of Carol Dweck’s fixed and growth mindset concepts. This is a fundamental building block for any subject, not just our beloved English and language arts. Before we can even begin teaching the content, it’s important to explore the students’ existing beliefs about learning (& how much they actually control in their own learning), their abilities, and how much they can improve! One thing I still remind myself of while working on my current students’ mindsets is that it’s going to be a long-term process, just like learning and growing is for all of us. We set ourselves and our students up for frustration and disappointment if we approach this with unrealistic expectations. We all grow little by little: maybe today a student tries a little harder than yesterday before giving up, maybe a student attempts a little harder to understand why they got the answer wrong, maybe they don’t try again but they at least listen to your constructive feedback; these are all measures of growth! Do not get caught up in what you think growth looks like, because it will look different for everyone. We should all just try to be at least 1% better than we were yesterday. I challenge ourselves to examine our own limiting beliefs: for example, I don’t know how many times I’ve caught myself saying I’m “not a math person”. Now, I correct myself to say I haven’t dedicated the time and effort to really develop my abilities in math but I’m sure I could if I really wanted to, just like we all can. It is incredibly valuable to both ourselves and our students to voice out loud: “Remember, teachers do not know everything and we are just as much a student as you are.” For this week, let’s just focus on catching ourselves whenever we say things that show a limited fixed mindset and correct ourselves (in front of our students, to model that we are all works in progress and humble enough to admit mistakes) and when we are alone, let’s correct it for ourselves so we really start changing our subconscious limiting beliefs.
I don’t want to dump everything about growth mindset all in one email, or even in consecutive emails, so the most helpful stuff will be coming you in intervals. As always, keep and use what is useful and disregard the rest. :) Recommendations I am re-listening to this fantastic audiobook called The Growth Mindset Coach: A Teacher's Month-by-Month Handbook for Empowering Students to Achieve and it has inspired me to really try to cultivate a culture of the growth mindset more vigorously. I know you’re probably thinking, “But Charlie, the last thing I need right now is another thing to do!” And I agree, our plates are full. Think about it this way: it’s not another thing to do, but another way of starting to think! Don’t see it as another thing served on your plate, see it as a different way of serving and looking at what is already on your plate. There doesn’t have to be any physical products or copies made or papers turned in. Just try to catch little moments where you can insert some growth mindset thinking & perspectives in your school day. The book is organized with a theme, or mantra, for each month and starts in August and ends in July, much like the school year. For example, August’s theme is “Teaching is a Practice, Not a Perfection.” Don’t get bogged down with following the calendar’s structure to a tee, but rather, look at doing just a little bit better where you can. Here is a short summary of the book to help you! A Little Inspiration We can all get better. We are all working to get better. Every day is a new opportunity to be a better, stronger, more improved you than you were in the past. Our students, and we too, are powerful works in progress so let’s not focus so much on the end product, just like in the classroom sometimes, but in the wonderful process of learning and growing to get there. Let’s not focus on the letter grade but rather on the effort made and how much individual improvement and growth was made in that beautiful life-long struggle we call learning. Please forward this to any teacher that could benefit from this message and help spread the love! You can always reply to this message or message us on Facebook here! Keep changing the world! Charlie with Shining Scholar Education P.S. Consider joining our TPT Affiliate Program for 25% commissions here! Want to join our email list? Click below! MS ELAR teachers Click here! HS ELAR teachers Click here! And check out our TPT store here! Let’s get to it again! Helpful Stuff Words have a wonderful power—so let’s use it for good! A little kindness can truly change a person’s entire day and when it is written on paper and can be displayed and touched, it is perfection! That’s why I have included our wonderful & printable Shout-outs in this post! These cool little cut-outs can work wonders for boosting morale as well as a sense of community & well-being for everyone: staff, faculty, students, and everyone else at your school! Here are some examples of the best Shout-outs I have seen throughout the years: Recommendations This nifty little desktop paper/document holder has really helped me be more productive by helping me type my handwritten notes/lesson plans much, much faster. FYI, this is an affiliate link, meaning that Amazon will toss a few pennies from each sale our way, but do not worry as it doesn’t affect how much it costs you! :) A Little Inspiration “The teacher’s task is to initiate the learning process and then get out of the way.” ― John Warren Keep changing the world! Charlie with Shining Scholar Education Want to join our email list? MS ELAR teachers Click here! HS ELAR teachers Click here! And check out our TPT store here! Let’s get this week started right! Helpful Stuff Sometimes we caught up in all the “bells and whistles” for ELAR that we can sometimes overlook one of the fundamental building blocks of teaching English: Annotation! Here are some helpful videos on teaching annotation: First, a simple introduction to help students ease into annotating the text. Now a more advanced video: Recommendations
This episode entitled “Blissful Dissatisfaction” from the Ed Mylett Show podcast is powerful. In this episode, Ed distinguishes between satisfaction and happiness, and he brilliantly makes the case that it is possible to be dissatisfied while being happy at the same time. This is that fabled land of loving yourself and accepting who you are and where you are right now while simultaneously striving for improvement. Too many of us go-getters and “overachievers” (a word I don’t like because it implies that achieving what is ‘normal’ is healthy and anything ‘over’ that is not) do not relish the small victories along the way to bigger goals because we fear that it would make us lose that hunger & drive that helped us get there in the first place. I can honestly say I have been guilty of this in the past and I am glad that I have grown into a better way of looking at this because where I was in the past was just an endless cycle of not enjoying beautiful moments and not savoring sweet victories because I thought it would cost me success in the future. Check it out and let us know what you think! A Little Inspiration “Remember that Happiness is a way of travel not a destination” -author unknown PS: Join Our Affiliate Program! Do you enjoy helping secondary ELAR teachers via your blog, YouTube channel, website, Instagram, or other online presence? Consider joining our affiliate program and earn 25% commissions while serving your audience! Click here for more info! Keep changing the world! Charlie with Shining Scholar Education P.S. Consider joining our TPT Affiliate Program for 25% commissions here! MS ELAR teachers Click here! HS ELAR teachers Click here! And check out our TPT store here! Hello, Fellow Superheroes!
We’re back again this week to get in a good headspace so we can serve our students, our families, while taking care of ourselves, too. But First, A Chuckle! One of the funniest memories I have in my teaching career with a student named J who was struggling with figuring out how to spell a word and from what I remember, it didn’t not resemble the correct spelling of the word in the slightest. In classic teacher fashion I quickly suggested that she use a dictionary and pointed to my classroom bookshelf. (I still proudly have my collection of hardcover, unabridged dictionaries because they have been a lifesaver when the wifi goes out!) And without missing a beat, J said, “But, Sir! How am I supposed to look it up if I don’t know how to spell it in the first place!” I almost fell out of my chair laughing. She kinda had me, lol. Do you have any hilarious stories from your teaching career? Please reply to this email and we may feature it in future emails! I hope that remembering these funny and memorable moments helps us realize that a bad day, week, heck, even a bad school year, doesn’t necessarily mean we chose the wrong profession! Helpful Stuff In the spirit of getting better little by little every single day, here is a continuation of the “little tweaks” list from the last email; small changes that I have made to increase my overall productivity and reduce my stress level.
This week’s recommendation is The Mel Robbins Podcast! This show is another morning favorite of mine to get ready for the day ahead. Fair warning though, she and her guests can drop the F-bomb every now and then, but it’s done in a way to motivate you to get up and take action. She is very real, relatable, and vulnerable in her episodes commenting on personal struggles she’s had with alcoholism, her marriage, her anxiety, and specific traumas from her past that affect her today. It is a very real and raw podcast while at the same time being truly inspiring and uplifting. She is also the author of The Five Second Rule (linked here with an Amazon affiliate link for which we might get a tiny percentage of the sale price :-)) in which she recommends counting down from five like a rocket and launching yourself to the next thing you need to do. This little hack has gotten her to do amazing things in her career, among them being this podcast, and people all over the world have been able to hack their productivity and motivation by counting down from five, myself included! A Little Inspiration Let’s remember that the only person who we should try to be better than is our past self. Consider that others‘ journeys are not ours to travel, we’re not all going to the same destinations, and that’s OK. We are individuals with our own different strengths, weaknesses, and goals, and that’s OK, too. As teachers we sometimes carry so much on our shoulders that sometimes we need a reminder that we are truly doing our best to grow and improve on who we were before. This is our reminder! Remember, I’m just an email away and you can reply directly to this email! Keep changing the world! Charlie with Shining Scholar Education P.S. Consider joining our TPT Affiliate Program for 25% commissions here! Want to join our email list? MS ELAR teachers Click here! HS ELAR teachers Click here! And check out our TPT store here! |
Archives
February 2026
Categories |
RSS Feed