The One and Only Ivan Novel Study Activities
By MARISSA DESPINS Updated April 08, 2024 The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate is a sweet story about friendship and freedom. The engaging story pulls on the heartstrings, and students…
Reading Strategies
Reading Response Journals
By MARISSA DESPINS Updated April 09, 2024 I have been getting a lot of questions on Instagram lately about Reading Response Journals, and ways to implement them in the middle school and…
Back to School Read Aloud Favorite
By MARISSA DESPINS Updated April 09, 2024 Are you on the hunt for the perfect back to school read aloud? I have you covered! Do Unto Otters: A Book about Manners by…
Blog · Elementary · English
Teaching Inferring with Bad Day at River Bend
By MARISSA DESPINS Updated Feb 20, 2024 Teaching Inferring Welcome to the latest post in my series on ELA mini lessons. With these posts I hope to provide you with easy to…
Blog · Elementary · English · Middle School
Close Reading Strategies: Tips and Tricks
By MARISSA DESPINS Updated April 04, 2024 Welcome back friends! After talking all about Text Mapping in my last mini lesson focused post, I thought I should spend some time talking about…
Blog · Elementary · English · Middle School · Science · Social Studies
Text Mapping – reading Comprehension
By MARISSA DESPINS Updated Dec 8, 2023 Text Mapping is an excellent strategy to help students understand challenging text. Through this hands-on approach, students learn to mark up text while practicing key…