Get more out of Exit Slips: What the research tells us

Many of us use exit slips for formative assessment. According to Robert Marzano, there are four main categories of prompts that will help you get the most out of exit slips.

These prompts accomplish the following:

• Check for understanding
• Encourage reflection
• Check the use of instructional strategies
• Request student feedback on teacher practices

We have assembled a set of FREE exit slips based on the first three prompts. While you may want to target additional feedback in your class, preparing your exit slips ahead of time can be a time-saver that will elicit solid feedback.

We have found that adding space for students to record their learning targets also encourages them to reflect on the focus of the lesson.

Source: "The Many Uses of Exit Slips" by Robert Marzano in Educational Leadership, October 2012 (Vol. 70, #2, p. 80-81).

Download our FREE exit slips here!

Gear up for Summer!

The end of the school year is so close, we can almost smell the summer barbecues! As the school year winds down (and students' focus goes out the window), it's the perfect time to try one or all of the summer activities in our End-of-Year Summer Send-off kit. Students will have fun while getting in some last-minute writing practice as they create memorable keepsakes for themselves and their classmates.

This set is full of fun end-of-the-year teaching activities, and everything features our original artwork and is included in both color and black-and-white. In the Summer Send-off postcard booklet, students write positive notes to each other and bind them in a commemorative book. In “Advice from the Pros,” students create a project for next year’s class using one of nine different topic/product choices, templates, and decorative paper final draft paper. We've also created six colorful bookmarks with literary summer quotes (these look great printed in black-and-white on colorful paper) and three treat bag topper templates that you can attach to sandwich bags and fill with goodies. As always, our products are CCSS-aligned. This product is best suited for grades 5-8 and takes one to three class periods to complete.

See more at our store!

Teacher Appreciation Day Sale!

Thank you for being a wonderful, fabulous, top-notch teacher!

On May 7-8, we're having a 20% sale on EVERYTHING to celebrate YOU! This includes our newest product, End-of-Year Summer Send-off! Before you head off to summer break, stock up on colorful, creative classroom products. Everything is CCSS-aligned and features our own original artwork!

Use PROMO CODE TAD13 for a total of 28% off!

Visit our store to check out our products!

Fun with Shakespeare Research (Seriously!)

Did you know that Shakespeare is considered to have invented more than 500 words, including amazement, flowery, and countless?*

Did you know Shakespeare's shortest play is The Comedy of Errors, with 1,787 lines? And that his longest play is Hamlet, with 4,042 lines?*

Did you know that in Shakespeare's time, all the female roles in his plays were played by men or boys?*

You probably already knew this, but researching Shakespeare can be fun! In our newest activity, students enjoy researching the time period and background of Shakespeare as they assume various roles and tasks outlined by the RAFT cards. RAFT (Role, Audience, Format, Task) is a differentiated writing strategy that helps students understand their role as writers for specific audiences (not just for their teachers!).

This CCSS-aligned product includes a poster, 10 RAFT cards with assigned roles (plus 2 blank cards), directions, handouts, checklists, and answer guides!

BONUS! We also now offer a special bundle! Now you can get all of our introductory Shakespeare products at a $3.00 discount—that includes our Shakespeare's Birthday Party Activities, Research RAFT Cards, Sonnets Lesson Plan, and Iambic Pentameter Poster!

*Source for Shakespeare facts: The Folger Shakespeare Library

"What need I fear of thee?": Teaching Shakespeare's Sonnets

Spoiler Alert: Shakespeare is not as scary as your students might think. 

Actually, we don't find him very scary at all. (Well, maybe some of his tragedies qualify as scary...)

Teaching Shakespeare shouldn't have to be intimidating either; one great method of introducing his work to your students is to start with one of his 154 sonnets. Read one of our favorites here:

    Sonnet 18

    By William Shakespeare

    Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? 

    Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

    Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

    And summer's lease hath all too short a date: 

    Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

    And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; 

    And every fair from fair sometime declines,

    By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

    But thy eternal summer shall not fade

    Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

    Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

    When in eternal lines to time thou growest: 

       So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

       So long lives this and this gives life to thee. 

 
Our CCSS-aligned Sonnets Lesson Plan includes activities, a poster, and instructions, and it uses "Sonnet 18" as a starting point. From there, students learn about the structure, form, and meaning of this sonnet. They stomp and shout the syllables of iambic pentameter, and then they practice using extended metaphors, rhythm, and argumentation. Step-by-step plans take five or six days, and students will emerge unscathed, having analyzed a sonnet and written one of their own!



We agree that Old English may sometimes prove challenging, but the words quatrain, couplet, and volta should be part of any young poet's vocabulary. Check out our store for more details.

Celebrate Shakespeare's Birthday (on any day)!

William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564, and he died on the same day in 1616. We think that if Shakespeare were here to celebrate his 449th birthday, he would absolutely love the party we cooked up in his honor.

Our Shakespeare's Birthday Party set features a colorful poster and 32 task cards featuring fun trivia and lines from Shakespeare's plays. It also includes a "modernize Shakespeare" activity, where students update a line drawing of Shakespeare by cutting, gluing, drawing, and otherwise transforming to bring his image into the 21st century. (Middle school students have a ton of fun equipping Shakespeare with Kindles, iPods, and Kanye glasses.) The party is a great way to kick off a Shakespeare unit or to introduce him to apprehensive students!

The set also includes 12 printable cupcake wrapper templates (both in color and in black-and-white). The wraps feature our own original artwork of a coy little Shakespearean cat and dog donning their Elizabethan best, and quotes from Shakespeare plays. Some of the quotes we included are these:

"If music be the food of love, play on." (Twelfth Night)
"Prepare for mirth, for mirth becomes a feast." (Pericles, Prince of Tyre)
"Honey, and milk, and sugar; there is three." (Love's Labours Lost)

Look at how adorable the cupcakes turned out! The wraps in the picture below were printed in black-and-white on colored paper.

And these were printed in color. If you happen to own a fancy pair of scissors (like the ones that can cut in zigzags or waves), they would probably add an excellent touch.

Yum! Educational and delicious! Olive the cat was quite fond of them too.



You can download four of the cupcake templates for free here!

April is National Poetry Month!

March comes in like a lion and out like a... poet? Maybe we don't have that quite right, but we do know one thing: we couldn't be more excited about this year's National Poetry Month!

As advocates of writing and reading, we encourage you to check out the Academy of American Poets website this month for some great ideas to bring poetry into your classroom. If you teach grades 7-10, take a look at these free lesson plans that are aligned to common core. And while you're at it, sign up for a gorgeous free poster (while supplies last) to hang at your school.

We plan on celebrating this month with a nod to a true master of verse: William Shakespeare. Stay tuned for featured products, facts, and freebies that center around the Great Bard!

But for now, we'll leave you with a poem to celebrate the season. Enjoy William Wordsworth's famous ballad, "Lines Written in Early Spring" (1798):

    Lines Written in Early Spring

    by William Wordsworth

    I heard a thousand blended notes,

    While in a grove I sate reclined,

    In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts

    Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

    To her fair works did nature link

    The human soul that through me ran;

    And much it grieved my heart to think

    What man has made of man.

    Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,

    The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;

    And 'tis my faith that every flower

    Enjoys the air it breathes.

    The birds around me hopped and played:

    Their thoughts I cannot measure:——

    But the least motion which they made,

    It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

    The budding twigs spread out their fan,

    To catch the breezy air;

    And I must think, do all I can,

    That there was pleasure there.

    If this belief from heaven be sent,

    If such be Nature's holy plan,

    Have I not reason to lament

    What man has made of man?

Type. Print. Post: Customize learning targets for your classroom

Learning targets are great, but they can also quickly become unwieldy. Our originally designed fillable PDF learning targets help make the process of filling out, saving, posting, and managing your targets a breeze. You can type (or hand write, if the spirit moves you) in the spaces provided, save as often as you like, and file your targets for when you need them most.

Check it out! The set comes in varying sizes and colors, 16 pages total. Your learning targets will be exceptionally organized and oh-so-coordinated. There are four different colors and patterns using the templates you see here.

And here's one idea for hanging them in your classroom! The picture below shows file folders taped together and the learning targets displayed inside of plastic sleeves: