How to Enjoy the End of the School Year

It’s the end of the school year—how can you possibly get your ELA students excited about learning when summer vacation beckons?

One word: choice.

If you’ve spent any time around teens, you know the ticket to success in their learning is giving them as much choice as you can.  When they choose what they will learn and the stories they will tell, they feel empowered and engaged.  And they know that you care about their interests. 

Here are my top four choices for thriving (not just surviving) through the end of the school year. Lesson plans and guides for teaching all of these units are included for a discount in my End-of-the-Year ELA Bundle.

Independent reading and reading responses.  Getting your classes to work on independent reading and responding to that reading with informal book shares is a great option for the last few weeks of school. Students are often inundated with overly stimulating parties and flashy movies at this time of year.  A chance to quietly read a book of their choosing makes for a great break from the craziness.

Writing workshop with a choose-your-own-adventure bent.  At this point in the school year, you have likely worked through multiple writing assignments with your classes.  So this time, give them the chance to come back to their favorite genre and give it another shot—or to try something completely new!  You might have students working on research essays, poetry, narrative, or argument essays all at the same time (or poems based on research, argument essays opening with personal anecdotes, you get the idea…).  If you haven’t done writing workshop yet, you’re in for a treat! 

Contemporary poetry unit and anthology project.  Start by getting your classes to explore some well-known and some lesser-known writers from today.  Since contemporary poets deal with subject matter that really matters today, even your students who claim to hate poetry will find something to engage them.  After working through some poetry, have students create a poetry anthology to present to the class.  Getting your students to teach themselves—and each other—is a great way to take it up a level at the end of the year all while making your own job easier! 

Dystopian fiction and write-your-own dystopian story.  With its creativity and imagination, dystopian fiction is a great choice for the end of the year.  Teens love to dive into new worlds, and tapping into that natural interest helps to engage them when they would rather be planning their summer vacation video game marathons.  And by inspiring students to write their own dystopian fiction about issues that matter to them, you’ll send them off to their next year of learning feeling inspired and empowered. 

Slam poetry exploration, writing workshop, and performances.  Think you’ve gotten to know your students this year?  Well, prepare to connect with them on an even deeper level!  Teaching a slam poetry unit is great at the end of the year because students are more comfortable with you and with their classmates, and are therefore more likely to get vulnerable and real when they write their own slam poems and perform them for one another. 

As you read through these options for engaging students at the end of the year, you might notice a trend: lots and lots of workshops.  What I love about ending the school year this way is that rather than the traditional round of movies and parties, workshops allow students’ individual interests to shine.  It’s such a great feeling when you are surrounded by that happy buzz of teens working away on their own passions and projects.   

And even more importantly, workshops allow you to relate to your students on a level that you are often unable to achieve when the whole class is working together.  Just a few minutes spent in conversations and conferences makes a huge difference in those students’ progress and in your relationship with them—a great payoff at a time of year when most teachers have decided to give up and check out. 

And what better way to end the year than by connecting with your students?

Are you ready to thrive through the end of the school year (without exhausting yourself in the process)?  When you buy my End-of-the-Year Bundle, you will get all of the scaffolding and guides that you need to get students working independently on one or all of these exciting units.