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42 Engaging English Activities For High School

December 27, 2023 //  by  Jill Webb

Are you an English teacher looking for learning games and activities to help enliven your English language arts teaching? We know that sometimes teenage students can easily lose interest. So, don’t be a boring teacher—bring a few unique ideas into your lessons to keep them invested! Below is a list of fun and creative activities for high school students. It includes a variety of English language learning experiences—from poetry to writing and more! If you’re ready to engage your students while helping them increase their language skills, read on!

1. Paint Chip Poetry

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This is a fun activity that’s easy to understand and set up. This game will challenge your students to use paint names to create beautiful pieces of poetry. A mix of paint chips, poetry prompts, and “variation cards” to keep things interesting makes for a unique way for your kids to experiment with words and poetry. It’s also great to add to your classroom party game stash!

Learn More: Amazon

2. Figurative Language Challenge

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You already know that nothing beats repetition when it comes to helping your high schoolers grasp new concepts—but coming up with new ways to practice concepts can be time-consuming! This bundle includes simple challenges to get your students practicing different types of figurative language; it includes metaphors, similes, alliteration, and more. Editable worksheets and slides review the concepts for your learners—then, they task them with developing their own examples. These activities are great for inclusion classes because they work in stations.

Learn More: Teachers Pay Teachers

3. Six-Word Memoirs

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This writing activity sounds simple but is deceptively challenging: writing six-word memoirs. Explain to your students that briefer writing demands greater attention to each word. Then, reinforce this lesson by having them each write their own memoir—in only six words! This activity is an innovative writing challenge, a hands-on introduction to memoirs, and a surefire way to get to know your teens and help them connect with each other. Plus, you can display their final creations along with corresponding images of their choosing. 

Learn More: Six-Word Memoirs

4. The Break-Up Letter

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Need a clever and relatable creative writing exercise ? Try this letter-writing activity with a hilarious twist. Rather than write a typical letter, your students will be asked to write a break-up letter! These printable prompts are a perfect way to get your teens thinking about how well they explain themselves in their writing.

Learn More: Presto Plans

5. Pop Sonnets

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Here’s a fun way to fill some extra time with your teens—while also reinforcing their understanding of Shakespearean language. This clever book is full of familiar pop songs—rewritten the way Shakespeare might have penned them! “Translating” lyrics they already know will help your high schoolers practice and better grasp the language in Shakespeare’s plays.

6. Listening Skills

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We all know it’s important to teach young kids how to listen; it can be easy to forget that your high schoolers still need guidance and practice to be good listeners! Be sure to emphasize this essential school and life skill with your teens—this blog post gives some concrete, tangible ways to teach and encourage active listening skills. Challenge your students to honestly complete a self-assessment of their own listening skills. Then, use these exercises to work together to improve their scores!

Learn More: The Secondary English Coffee Shop

7. Reading Bingo

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A lot of the activities on this list are about class and group work—but there’s no getting around the value of good old-fashioned independent reading. Gamify your teens’ reading by distributing Bingo cards. Then, offer a prize for the first student to read all the books on the card or in a certain pattern! All you need to do is edit the cards to match your readers’ level and let the competition begin!

Learn More: Spark Creativity

8. Poetry Slam

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Poetry can get a bad rap in high school—help your students get more engaged by making sure they know it’s not all love poems and sonnets! A poetry slam is an ideal way to expose your teens to a new medium. Inviting your high schoolers to perform their works for the class helps build their confidence and gives them a voice. You’ll be surprised when you see the smooth-talking skills of your kids!

Learn More: Teacher of Vision

9. Truth or Dare Grammar

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If you need an easy lesson plan to review grammar, look no further. This fun game for your teenage learners will help get them invested in grammatical skills! You—and your kids—already know how to play truth or dare. This editable version is grammar-themed and school-appropriate. It’s a perfect activity to pull out at the end of the day when you still want to reinforce your kids’ learning.

10. Book Spine Poems

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Have you heard of book spine poetry? It’s exactly what it sounds like; your students can arrange the text they find on book spines to craft surprisingly insightful poems! All you really need is a collection of books, but these simple worksheets will help your kids organize their work without having to carry around a stack of books. If you don’t have enough books on hand for everyone, never fear—turn this into an online game and allow them to “hunt” for titles online!

11. Soccer Ball Questions

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You don’t need to be in the hot seat with questioning skills when teaching a lesson! Make one of these Socratic soccer balls—just add question prompts to a regular soccer ball. When it’s time to get your teens to practice their Socratic questioning skills, all you need to do is have them roll the ball and pose a question based on the first prompt they see.

Learn More: Building Bo o k Love

12. Black-Out Poetry

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Here’s another great activity for your lower-intermediate learners—this black-out activity will challenge your students to use a page of a book to create a poem by blacking out specific words. Surprisingly, the rigid constraints are a creative way to help your teens who may struggle to find inspiration or with writer’s block. If you have early finishers, ask them to find fun images to pair with their fresh poem.

Learn More: Arapahoe Libraries

13. Review Game

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A quiz challenge is a great way to review all the material for key lessons. In this fun game your learners will play a “Let’s Make a Deal” game—based on the popular game show. You’ll act as the game show host and make deals with the teams. This downloadable resource includes editable elements so you can customize the game and prizes for your own classroom.

Learn More: The Hungry Teacher Blog

14. Balderdash

activities for high school english teacher

Balderdash is a class board game for a reason. This small-group game will get your high schoolers laughing as they try to trick each other with made-up definitions for uncommon words. It’s a fun, unexpected way to teach new vocabulary while getting your students thinking critically and creatively! You can use a regular version of the game or just create your own using online resources.

Learn More: Boardgame Geek

16. NYT Crossword

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A classic—and much beloved—game in the US is the New York Times daily crossword! Did you know there’s also a student version? Printing off one of the puzzles is a great, no-prep language exercise for your more advanced English classes.

Learn More: The New York Times

17. Inklewriter

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Inklewriter is an innovative tool that can be used to get your students working individually on their creative writing. The free app makes use of interactive writing—sort of like a classic Choose-Your-Own-Adventure story made high-tech. The prompts and questions will guide your teens while still challenging them to flex their creative muscles as they create their own unique stories. 

Learn More: Inkle Writer

18. Book Raffle

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A book raffle tradition will help to get your lower-level class invested in reading—especially if your students don’t have many of their own books. All you’ll be doing is inviting your kids to compete for the chance to read specific books; creating excitement around a fundamental language activity in the process—independent reading! To get started, simply select a few books—they can be new or ones already in your class—and introduce them all to your learners. Then, your readers can enter their names in draws to win reading rights to their favorites. Once you have a few book raffles under your belt, feel free to modify the process to make it work for you and your teens!

Learn More: Brown Bag Teacher

19. Writing Prompts

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Writing prompts are a classic classroom tool to jumpstart creative writing. Provide your students with this list of enticing prompts that are sure to help them produce literary genius. To get them started, you can let them pick their own from the list or assign them at random. Either way, you’ll have a low-prep way to get great results from your high school writers. 

Learn More: Small World

20. Vocab-Zee

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This language-themed twist on the classic game of Yahtzee is a great rainy-day activity or sub plan for your class. Put your students in groups and provide them with copies of the game instructions. Then, they’ll take turns rolling the dice and performing vocabulary-based actions based on their roll. 

Learn More:  Go Sadlier

21. Body Biographies

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Help your pupils become masters of character analysis by assigning these eye-catching body biographies. Prompt your young writers to examine the different characteristics of each character—both tangible and intangible—and use them to create a character analysis. The visual aspect of the posters makes this activity more engaging than a written description and encourages your kids to search for different elements of character roles in the text. Not only will your students love doing this, but you’ll also be able to display their body biographies for reference. 

Learn More: Study All Knight 

22. Podcast Pairings

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Consider pairing relevant literary podcasts with your classroom texts/discussions. Introducing a different medium into your teaching toolbox is an excellent way to change up your methods and better engage auditory learners. These podcasts are sure to give your students different perspectives on the topics and ideas that are introduced and discussed in your classroom texts. 

Learn More: Building Book Love

23. Keyhole Book Scene

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This is a clever visual way to emphasize the importance of different characters’ points of view. Having your students create a keyhole book scene gives you the opportunity to check your students’ understanding and comprehension of a story. Ask your learners to illustrate a scene from one of the texts they are reading—from the perspective of someone looking into the room through a keyhole. You can base the assignment on a specific character’s point of view or let your kids choose the perspective themselves. They should be encouraged to include different text elements and imagery to show what exactly the specific book scene “looked like” in their minds. 

Learn More: The Room Mom

24. Crime Stories

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Have you ever considered engaging your high school literacy students with creepy crime stories? Your teens can pick a real-life criminal and use their investigative skills to determine motives and other crime components. Then, have them choose a medium—blog, podcast, research paper, etc.—to present their perspective. The real-world aspect makes these narratives particularly compelling—and your learners will be so engaged in the crimes that they won’t realize how much hard work and learning they’re actually doing!   

Learn More: Besp o ke ELA

25. Song Lyrics to Teach Paraphrasing

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What teenager doesn’t love music? Here’s a great way to use this to your advantage! Print off lyrics to popular songs that your students will love. Then, challenge your kids to go through the lyrics and attempt to paraphrase what the song is saying, using their own words. This will help them get a better understanding of what their favorite songs are about as well as give them practice in their rewording skills.

Learn More: Mondays Made Easy

27. Selfie Fingerprint Poem

Great Ideas And Tips For Teaching Poetry. Poetry reveals many aspects of life that they may not get to experience or witness first hand. Poetry may speak some ‘truth’ about how others live and that helps build empathy with our students. Read on for 6 ways you can set your students interest ablaze for poetry! Grades 4-12 | Middle School ELA | High School English

Poetry can be a tricky topic to introduce—and a particularly hard one to get your high schoolers excited about. With this fun fingerprint poem, your students can use colors and stanzas to create a poem that represents themselves and is as unique as their fingerprints. This is a great way to get your students excited about introducing themselves and things that they consider to be important. 

29. Funny Short Story Study

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Looking for something to break up the heavier literary units you have planned this year? This diverse bundle of hilarious short stories is perfect for teaching your students short and sweet literary concepts such as sarcasm, irony, foreshadowing, etc. 

Learn More: Hopefully Home

30. Thought Bubble

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Do your students need help delving into the thoughts of the characters you’re reading about? This simple thought bubble exercise will get your high schoolers engaged in deeper-level thinking. All they have to do is imagine what a character in a book, a short story, or even an image is thinking. Then, they can write it in a thought bubble on a sticky note. Getting into the habit of considering characters’ inner thoughts will encourage your readers to pay more attention to the text and make stronger connections with the stories.

Learn More: The Thinker Builder

31. Escape Rooms

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Make learning fun for your high school English students by incorporating escape room activities in your classroom! You can download an escape room kit online that incorporates concepts from books your students are reading in class—or design your own! An escape room is an interactive way to encourage teamwork among your kids and enhance their understanding and application of the texts you’ve covered. 

Learn More: Teach Nouvelle

33. The What If Game

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The what if game is sure to get your students’ creative juices flowing! This group activity is fun and easy to set up. You’ll start by dividing your learners into groups of four to five, giving every group three cups—one for characters, one for settings, and one for actions. The groups will begin by brainstorming examples for each category and placing them in the cups. Then the real fun begins! Have your kids take turns drawing papers, one from each cup, and combining them in “What if?” questions. The last step is to use their what if question as a story prompt, being sure to fully explore the character, setting, and action they’ve drawn. Your high schoolers will enjoy the mix of group brainstorming and individual writing—and produce their own literary masterpieces in no time!

Learn More: Bespoke Classroom

34. Hexagonal Thinking 

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Hexagonal thinking is another dynamic group brainstorming activity—and a great way to help your students think critically about texts and make broader connections. After reading through a story with your class, separate your students into groups. Then, give each group a series of blank paper hexagons and have them fill in various themes, characters, quotes, and even simple drawings. Once they’re done, task your kids with working together to arrange the hexagons in a web—in a layout based on logical connections between the cards.

Learn More: Now Spark Creativity 

35. Mock Trials 

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Help your students examine a text through mock trials. After reading through a story, pick a student to be the prosecutor (or a group of students to be a team of prosecutors) and a student to be the defendant (or team of defendants). Give your kids time and tips for drafting their arguments, and then select a jury from their classmates. When everyone is ready, it’s time for the trial! You can be the judge, critiquing your students’ logic and powers of persuasion. Your teens will have so much fun playing their roles that they won’t even notice the preparation and research involved!

Learn More: Now Spark Creativity

36. Graphic Essay

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Looking to shake up your students’ essays? Graphic essays are a clever way to introduce visual elements into a traditional writing assignment. Your students will use pictures and symbols to convey certain portions of the story. It’s a helpful way to engage visual learners and encourage all your kids to think and express themselves in new ways. They’ll appreciate the chance to inject their work with their own creativity—and the break from normal essay writing! 

Learn More: Living in the Layers

37. Elements of Fiction Stations

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Get your class up and moving around the room with these informative stations that teach the basic elements of fiction. At each station, your learners will delve deeper into elements of fiction such as setting, conflict, characters, point of view, and plot structure. You can have your kids visit these stations during certain time periods or even different class periods. 

Learn More: Hey Natayle 

38. Figurative Language Tasting

Pinterest Pin for blog post: How to Host a Figurative Language Tasting

Who doesn’t love to eat tasty snacks while learning? Get your students actively involved in your delicious and savory lesson using a few snacks. Explain to your kids that the objective of this lesson is to practice using different figurative language elements to describe both the taste and feelings of snacks. Then, let the fun begin! Distribute the snacks to your young gourmets—along with prompts that challenge them to describe the tastes using various types of figurative language. It’s sure to help your high schoolers develop a taste for descriptive writing!

Learn More: It’s Lit Teaching

39. Explode the Moment 

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Are your kids having trouble expanding their thoughts and ideas during writing time? With this activity, your students will be challenged to expand or “explode” the moment they are writing about. For example, if your learner writes “The park was fun,” they’ll be prompted to explain the entire moment at the park, using sensory imagery. This is a relatable method to encourage your high schoolers to consider the “who, what, where, when” portions of their writing.

Learn More: Raise the Bar Reading

40. Figurative Language Sort

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Even though this activity was created with younger children in mind, that doesn’t mean your high school students won’t be engaged and excited to participate. You’ll need to prepare for this activity by collecting some interesting pictures and writing sentences about them using different types of figurative language that you’ve studied in class. To begin, give your high schoolers (individually or in a small group) one of the pictures, along with the related sentences. Then, task them with categorizing the sentences based on the type of figurative language. Lastly, encourage those who finish quickly to come up with their own examples for each category!

Learn More: Teaching with a Mountain View

41. Movement in the Classroom

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One way to make learning especially memorable for your students—and re-energize them if they need it—is to get them moving and actively participating in the engaging lesson. This doesn’t have to be complicated or require a lot of prep; you can find simple ways to add movement to work you’re already doing. For example, don’t just give your high schoolers a list of discussion questions; print out the questions and place them around your classroom. This will get your kids up and moving as they talk to each other! 

Learn More: Building Book Love 

42. Literary Puzzle Pieces 

Author purpose jigsaw activity

Sometimes a simple visual can give your students a new perspective on their work. Help them understand literary themes by comparing them to jigsaw puzzles—drive the point home by having them create their own paper puzzle pieces as they discuss the themes in your texts. First, put your high schoolers in small groups and give each group large paper puzzle pieces. Explain that each puzzle piece represents an element in your book; as they fill in the pieces they’ll be “solving the puzzle” of understanding your text. You can use this activity in different ways depending on the needs of your class, combining group discussion with independent work. It’s an ideal, hands-on discussion prompt to help your kids better grasp the subject material.

Learn More: Learning in Room 213

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25 High School English Activities You’ll Want To Try Right Away

Think outside the box.

Examples of high school English activities, including teen slang summary of the Crucible and grab bag of objects to personify.

Engaging middle and high schoolers can sometimes be tricky. How many times have you planned (what you think is) a cool and exciting lesson, only to walk away feeling pretty bummed and discouraged when your hip activity is a bust? Believe me, I get it. I’ve tried English activities for high school that I am positive (most) of my kids will love and appreciate. I’ve attempted to make English relevant and fresh. I’ve even tried to choose vehicles like social media that fit into their lives. As I plan, I often think, “Man, I would have loved having this kind of stuff when I was in school!”

Sometimes, my efforts fall flat. Other times, I hit a home run. After a lot of trial and error, I’ve finally figured out some techniques that consistently work. Here are my favorite English activities for high school.

1. Pretend you are an alien from another planet

As an alien, you don’t understand human emotions. Ask students to explain what happiness is to alien you. They will try to use other emotions to explain happiness, so you will need to kindly remind them that you don’t understand those. Someone will figure out that what you are looking for is figurative language (e.g., happiness is a Diet Coke at 11:30), and then, mission accomplished. This is one of my favorite mini-lessons to do because when I start class with “I am an alien from another planet …,” some give me weird looks, but most don’t even flinch because they’ve already witnessed enough of my shenanigans to think it may be true.

Try it: Alien From Another Planet Activity at TPT

2. Embrace the season and let it dictate your unit

Short stories with photos written by students

I change things up every year, but most recently I created a unit around “Spooky Season.” We read “spooky” stories and watched suspenseful short videos to evaluate how authors and storytellers employ devices that heighten the suspense for the audience. In these high school English activities, we analyzed theme and character development and compared different mediums all under the umbrella of Spooky October. As always, what works for my school and grade level may not work for everyone, but some of my students’ favorite spooky short stories were “Lamb to the Slaughter” and “The Landlady.”

3. Write your own spooky story

Bags labelled characters/suspects, location/scene of the crime, and props

After reading from our mentor texts and learning how to create suspense, we write fictional narratives that will haunt your nightmares … just kidding—I wanted to add a bit of drama. They pull from grab bags I create of different character names, setting ideas, and props they can use to create their own terrifying tale.

Try it: Spooky Story Starters at TPT

4. Turn everyone into a poet with blackout poetry

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Thanks to Austin Kleon , poetry is cool and accessible. If you haven’t heard of blackout poetry already, it’s created by taking a newspaper or loose book pages that can no longer be repaired and creating a poem using certain words on the page. Then, you black out the rest. I’ve done this every year and have changed my approach each time. Sometimes I give students free rein and let the words speak to them, and sometimes I’ll give them a specific topic I’d like them to create a poem around. I love to see 25 different variations of “courage” through poetry.

Try it: Blackout Poetry at We Are Teachers

5. Use emojis in class

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When teaching a complex concept like symbolism, use symbols that are already part of students’ daily life. Assign each small group a word or theme and then have them choose an emoji to symbolize that message. Have kids sketch them out on the board and explain why they chose that symbol, or turn it into a full-on art project and display them around the room.

Try it: More Fun Ideas for Teaching With Emojis at We Are Teachers

6. Go hunting for mechanics, usage, and grammar errors

Doing a quick search of these kinds of fails on the internet will provide you with a great deal of content. You can turn those fails into a slideshow while the class finds the errors and corrects them, or you can assign a few to each small group to tackle. 

7. What’s better than a one-pager?

Drawing of a mockingbird with words

The name speaks for itself here. There are so many variations of one-pager assignments that you could do, but the one that I like is to use one-page as a blank canvas for them to demonstrate their understanding of developing theme and symbolism. They sketch out symbols and images that are significant to the book they are reading and include text evidence to support their inferences and takeaways. 

Try it: One-Pager Template at TPT

8. Play reviewsical chairs

When I first started teaching and was looking for solidarity, understanding, and inspiration, I found love,teach . In one of her blog posts, she suggested playing reviewsical chairs to prepare for a test. It is like musical chairs, but you review. When the music stops, someone is without a chair and they have to challenge someone else for their chair by answering a review question correctly. This is a fan favorite in middle and high school.

9. Play the flyswatter game

I love a fun review game. This one requires you to put up answers around the room (e.g., character names, dates, themes, symbols, storytelling devices, etc.). Then, you divide the class up into two teams. Have them send two representatives up to the front and arm them with flyswatters. I normally tape off a box that they have to stand in while I read the question. Then, the first person to hit the correct answer with their flyswatter wins the point. This game is intense and so fun! Make sure you move any book bags or obstacles that may be tripping hazards (for me this is just air).

10. Listen to podcasts and discuss them together

Not all teenagers are familiar with podcasts, but it’s a great way to introduce lessons in an interesting way. And so far, my students have reported really enjoying them. In fact, I’ve even had students come back and tell me they’ve continued to listen to a podcast series on their own after we’ve concluded our lesson.

Podcasts encourage students to be actively engaged, because the information being shared must be processed and visualized by the students as it’s being said. I usually prepare questions for them to answer as they listen, and then facilitate a discussion afterward. In my classroom, this sometimes leads to mildly heated debates, which is a learning experience in and of itself.

Try it: List of Educational Podcasts at We Are Teachers

11.  Introduce “chapter chats”

Loose sheets of paper with writing on them

My students love being in charge of leading “chapter chats” in small groups. By encouraging them to be leaders in discussing specific book chapters, they take ownership in a whole new way. I’ve really enjoyed watching my kids come up with thoughtful questions, bring food to connect to something that happened in the text, and even create fun games that encourage their classmates to recall information from the chapter. Chapter chats are great high school English activities to assess those speaking and listening standards while also making them read critically because they are in charge of facilitating the discussion. 

Try it: Chapter Chats at TPT

12. Let your students be podcasters

Student drawings

Last year, I finally decided to let my students create their own podcasts. I’ve wanted to do this for years but logistically was not sure how to execute. It took a lot of planning on the front end of the assignment and organizing where to find places for them to record (makeshift sound booths), but we did it! They had to pitch their topics and get a red, green, or yellow light. Then, they had to research, cite evidence, write a script, and finally produce their own podcasts. We listened to the episodes and answered questions on the “listening guide” that they created. I loved this assignment and will definitely do it again. 

13. Throw parties with a purpose

We just finished reading The Great Gatsby , and since throwing lavish parties was Gatsby’s thing, we threw our own 1920s soiree. I divided my students into small groups to do research on their assigned topic (historically accurate fashions, refreshments, ambiance, guest list, etc.) and then deliver presentations. The students were responsible for assigning each other parts, complete with instructions on how to dress and what food or beverage to bring. They even provided each participant with a lexicon (specific vocabulary) to use at the party. This assignment was fun, and it also covered many standards, which is a win-win for me!

 14. Give speeches as characters

Envelope with words speeches for speech unit

After watching a number of TED Talks and studying what contributed to an effective performance, my students wrote and delivered speeches of their own. They drew prompts for characters with different occupations giving different types of speeches (e.g., Beyoncé giving a Grammy acceptance speech). I found that my students were much more confident and comfortable speaking when given permission to act like someone else. This activity was a hands-down favorite event for my eighth grade students. Those speaking and listening standards can be tough to master, and high school English activities like this helped us get there.

15. Read, solve, and create murder mysteries

Envelope with words murder mystery and papers

My students in both middle and high school love true crime. I’ve created murder mystery activities for high school English that fit really well with literature units and that focus on making inferences, writing, and using textual evidence. Once the premise of the mystery is determined, students create their own case files, evidence, and clues for their classmates to solve. I’ve had them pull from bags of evidence, locations, and possible suspects to add another element of fun and challenge. It’s simple, but they really like pulling things from mystery bags. This activity is also an excellent support for students who struggle with finding a starting point.

16. Read children’s books

I know many high school and middle school teachers who use children’s literature in their classrooms to introduce literary devices. Inspired by Ludacris , I once rapped Llama Llama Red Pajama in my creative writing class before I had students write children’s books of their own. I am sure there is footage of this out there living sneakily on someone’s camera roll, but thankfully, it hasn’t surfaced.

Try it: Famous Children’s Books at We Are Teachers

17. Use magazine clippings for found poetry

Magazine clippings pasted on paper to make a poem

Give students some scissors and a stack of magazines, newspapers, or books to look through. Have them cut out words and phrases they like and then arrange them into their own unique work of poetry.

18. Perform plays

Just this week, one of my sophomore students asked me what we were going to be reading next. We just finished 12 Angry Men . She said she wanted to do another play. Then, another student chimed in and agreed. Plays are appealing for many reasons. Plays allow us to study literature without having to tackle the entire length of a novel. Plays allow students to become characters and perform. Plays invite students to let out their inner thespian. My students take on roles and commit to them. 

19. Pique interest by doing First Chapter Friday

Row of popular books

It may seem uncomfortable reading aloud to your secondary students, but I am telling you, they still enjoy it! Read an exciting first chapter from books that you hope they pick up and read on their own. First Chapter Fridays are especially great activities for high school English if you have an expansive library of books for them to choose from.

Try it: First Chapter Fridays at We Are Teachers

20. Have them create SNL -style satirical sketches

Box of wigs and hats

When I teach my students satire and parody, I show them examples of school-appropriate satire. Then, we discuss why it is satire. After we get the hang of it, I have them write and perform them. I also happen to have a weird collection of wigs and costumes in my room that may help them get into character. Funny wigs are always an asset!

21. Write a summary of what they are reading incorporating teen slang

Crucible book next to sheet of paper with a teen slang version of the book printed on it.

My juniors are reading The Crucible and the language can be tricky for them. After a long weekend, I was worried they would forget what we read so I decided at 1 a.m. to write a Gen-Z summary of Acts 1 & 2. They may have called me cringey and told me to burn my paper but it made them laugh and they understood it so it was a W (as the kids say.) Afterwards, I thought it would be a fun assignment to have them write the same style of summary for Acts 3 & 4. It forces them to go through and truly understand the dynamic relationships in the play and how the events are unfolding. Then, they get to flex on everyone with a summary that slaps. 

Try it: Teen Slang Every Teacher Should Know at We Are Teachers

22. To build background knowledge, create fun stations

High school English classroom set up with station activities.

At the beginning of a short story or a novel, give your students the background knowledge they need by setting up stations for them to visit. When I had planned for my students to read Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe, we had some ground to cover before diving in. I set up stations that gave background information on who Poe was, what Carnival was, information about the Catacombs, vocabulary that they’d encounter and need to know, and finally questions that focused on heavy topics they’d see dealt with in the story.

Some of these stations were videos they watched that were posted as QR codes, some were articles they had to read, and some were discussion questions they chatted about and then wrote down their consensus. To make it vibey, I added dollar-store battery-operated candles, scattered plastic skulls around, and turned down the lights with a spooky playlist playing.

23. Get them talking and thinking by using anticipation guides

Anticipation Guide worksheet on desk with blue pen.

An easy way to get your students excited about the next story you’re going to read is to have them complete an anticipation guide. This is a great way to preview the topics that will point to themes in the story they’re about to read. It’s also a great way to start some good discussions before getting into the text. They’ll have a better idea of what they’re supposed to be taking away from the literature if you guide them in a way that’s engaging before reading. My favorite anticipation guide is from The Most Dangerous Game. I teach at a school where hunting is very popular so when we go over the questions, I’ll have them sit or stand if they agree and then each side will share their explanations as to why they chose what they did. 

24. To teach figurative language, create a weird grab bag

White paper bag filled with objects to describe with personifcation.

When my students struggle with figurative language, I put them into groups of three or four. Then I throw weird things in a bag, and one member of their group chooses an object from the bag. Once they pull out their fake mouse or rubber duck or whatever item they’ve selected, they have to write a few sentences using personification that is inspired by the object they grab. Then, they choose their favorite sentence and write it on the board for the class to see. We’ll then go through everyone’s sentences to check to make sure we’re using personification correctly and to inspire creativity! If they can write incredible sentences using personification about an Expo Marker, they can definitely challenge themselves in their own writing. 

25. For all the Swifties out there, analyze Taylor Swift

Print out of Taylor Swift song lyrics with notes analyzing them.

Will there be haters? Yes. Be prepared to shut them down swiftly. In my poetry unit, we analyzed “All Too Well.” Taylor Swift is an incredible songwriter. Her songs are an English teacher’s dream. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t speak for all English teachers but any and all Swifty English teachers will agree. You can choose other music too! We’ve also analyzed Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come.” 

If you liked these activities for high school English, check out these 10 Playful Tricks To Engage High School Students .

Plus, sign up for our free newsletters to get all the latest teaching tips and ideas, straight to your inbox.

Finding English activities for high school that engage and excite your students can be a challenge! Here are five that should do the trick.

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The Integrated Teacher

25 High School English Teaching Tips

Dec 8, 2022

There are so many reasons people become teachers. Some of the most common I know of include people wanting to make a difference or share their passion for a certain subject. During your teacher training, do you remember being asked (probably repeatedly) why you wanted to go into High School English Teaching?

I became a teacher because I love working with kids big and small . When I was in high school, I became a basketball coach for elementary kids at my church. In college, I started tutoring and worked with middle schoolers in a youth group.

Later on, I definitely realized I preferred working with high school students, particularly 9th and 11th graders!

Remembering your ‘why’ is sometimes easier said than done! Whether you’re new to teaching high school English or you’ve been doing it for a few years, you’re probably already familiar with some of the difficulties or struggles with teaching English. But, I’m hopeful you’re also really familiar with the achievements and successes that come with being a high school English teacher! 

Through my 17+ years as a teacher, I’ve shifted from trepidation to triumph (and back again!), but through it all, I’ve gained some knowledge!

Read on for 25 tips for high school English teaching that can enrich and reinvigorate your teaching practice!

Need help with Test Prep as a part of High School English Teaching? Check out this FREE Pack of 3 Test Prep Activities to help students achieve success on standardized tests!

Table of Contents

25 Tips for High School English Teaching

#1. be over-prepared..

You can never have too many activities ready to go for class. Having more ALWAYS helps when something isn’t going as planned since it means you can pull something from your back pocket to help you pivot. Plus, it can be hit-or-miss with how long an activity might take.

I know I have lessons that I’d thought would take a full class only to have students race through it in 30 minutes. This left me scrambling! Being over-prepared means that if your initial lesson takes longer, then you already have another class planned with the ‘leftover’ activities.

#2. Plan with the end in mind.

Backward planning from the final assignment all the way to the first activity/lesson ensures you are on track. A complete plan can limit your scrambling for what’s next or what skills need to be addressed in order to complete a unit’s final task.

#3. Use thematic units when you can.

Teaching by theme can add depth and dimension to lessons. Using activities like these for short stories and poetry organized around the concept of revenge can engage students and provide variety in possible texts and extend opportunities for analysis. 

See ideas by clicking below!

examples of thematic unit

#4. Make connections between what you read and teach from topic to topic or text to text.

Making topics relevant for students means they’ll likely be more engaged. Consider horror stories such as Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death” that can connect with pandemic life. A connection could be a nonfiction text with a shared central idea in different works of fiction such as these 5 easy-to-teach no prep lessons . 

#5. Focus on relationships, but do so through activities that mean something and have value in the High School English Teaching classroom.

Setting goals at different times of the school year can help establish a guide for student learning, and it will also help teachers better understand their students. Check out these activities to make goal-setting simple for you and your students.

#6. Choose good literature.

This includes higher-level texts in terms of language, topics, and themes. Check out this ultimate bundle of short stories and activities as a solution to finding good literature and saving yourself hours of planning time! 

Discover 13 Must-Read Short Stories for 9th Graders by clicking below!

short stories for 9th graders

#7. Vary assignments!

We all like different spices in life, and so do our students. Keep things fresh for everyone with different graphic organizers that help with citing evidence, writing activities for paragraphs or essays, completing visualization exercises, and more. Simply varying your assignments will help with High School English Teaching!

#8. Differentiate but don’t get crazy… keep it simple!

A teacher could spend hours and hours on a single lesson just in an attempt to include differentiated options.

Here are 5 EASY ways to differentiate for your students in High School English Teaching:

  • Shorten the activity requirements. If all students are writing a paragraph with 7+ sentences, maybe some students will write 2-3 sentences.
  • Assign fewer questions. If you have a quiz with 10 questions, only give 7, 5, or 3 to your students that need additional support.
  • Provide a simplified version of a reading passage. There are many options available online.
  • Read aloud a passage with a small group of students while others work independently.
  • Give students options for reading, writing, and projects.

This pack of graphic organizers for writing one-sentence summaries is just one tool to help with differentiation in high school English teaching! 

activities for high school english teacher

#9. Teach writing step by step.

Students need an outline as a guide. Use this Rhetorical Analysis Essay Writing Pack to help students who need assistance with creating thesis statements, outlining essays, examining nonfiction texts, and analyzing rhetorical appeals.

The bonus of the pack is that it can be used with any text saving you time and energy!  

Need some help with High School English teaching? Read about THEMATIC STATEMENTS below!

thematic statement examples

#10. Model what you want your students to do for High School English teaching.

Use the I do, We do, You do approach for your lessons. Show; don’t just tell how a skill is put into practice. Then have students work together (with or without you) before tackling the skill individually. This process will give much-needed input to ensure understanding!

#11. Read aloud to your students, even 11th and 12th graders.

Consider the rise in the number and popularity of podcasts as proof that everyone loves having a story read to them!

I also enjoy listening to audible books, and so do our students. You can focus on what you hear, and this type of activity might help your students analyze more effectively!

#12. Reteach, reteach, reteach! High School English Teaching requires it!

You might think that you have done that lesson before but make it fresh and teach it again. Using formative assessments during reteaching can help you figure out who needs extra support; reteaching can add depth and assist those who may have ‘got it’ the first time!

#13. Grade in class!

You can wander the room and check in with students to be able to provide immediate feedback. Plus, we all know that no one is more hopeful than an English teacher who brings home grading, only to lug that same bag–untouched–back to school!

#14. Check work, but don’t grade everything in High School English Teaching classrooms.

Really! Students need repeated practice, but they don’t always need the teacher to weigh in on this practice. Consider the use of peer review and self-assessments as another opportunity for learning!

#15. Offer specific feedback.

Feedback can focus on 1-3 areas of improvement, but do NOT mark up an entire essay sentence by sentence. This tip is a reminder that English teachers are not meant to be editors; instead, use your time wisely to offer targeted feedback for improvement. You want feedback students can apply to future assignments. When you’re able, use (well-designed) rubrics to streamline grading! 

high-school-english-teaching-picture

#16. Upload assignments online ahead of time.

Digital helps! Your learning management system (LMS) probably lets you add a draft of work online and then assign it when necessary. For example, this set of activities for Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Masque of the Red Death” can be added in its parts to your LMS and then rolled out to students when needed. This will save you time!

high-school-english-teaching-the-masque-of-the-red-death

#17. Set a firm deadline for assignments.

This foundation will provide you with a strong guide for all classes and can help students stay on task. 

#18. Vary your deadlines between your High School English Teaching classes.

You don’t want ALL of the essays for 180 (or more) students to arrive at the same time! To go with those firm deadlines, make sure there are staggered deadlines, too!

#19. Teach grammar! It is a High School English Teaching class after all…

Too often grammar is not taught, and this can be detrimental to the development of students’ writing. What has helped me most are lessons about compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences. Integrating these lessons into a planned curriculum rather than teaching it in isolation has been a huge help for my students.

high-school-english-teaching-grammar

#20. Scaffold using higher level texts.

You do not teach to the lowest reading or writing level of your students. You can always read with and differentiate for your struggling learners. For example, this bundle for “A Modest Proposal” and this bundle of satirical writing activities can be done with students at all levels. Preparation by scaffolding skills is the key to differentiation and ultimately success!   

activities for high school english teacher

LAST 5 HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH TEACHING TIPS!

#21. teach what you would want your own child to learn..

Consider what is needed to prepare students to have the opportunity to go to college if she/he so desires. Students are capable of achieving highly with teacher guidance and support.   

#22. Don’t assume students know something!

It’s easy to think, well, of course, they learned that in elementary or middle school, but that’s not always the case. Plus, reteaching how to capitalize certain words, how to write an introduction, how to cite a source, how to avoid plagiarism, how to annotate, etc. will actually save you from unnecessary headaches! Teaching it first is better than having to backtrack in a lesson once you realize your class needs a refresher!

#23. Make directions visible.

Write the directions where students can see them, read them aloud, and give time for questions. If students ask what to do, simply point to the directions. 

#24. Use time effectively as an English Teacher. We only have our students for 1 year!

Don’t waste a day watching movies unless you have a purpose in connection to the standards… Pop culture absolutely has a place in English classes, but it must have a purpose! These activities to analyze film techniques as a way to establish purpose can apply to any film and incorporate a variety of curriculum standards. 

high-school-english-teaching-film

Want to teach the reading standards by analyzing themes, characterization, and techniques in movies? Click below for these High School English Teaching ideas!

teaching with movies

#25. Check-in; don’t just check out!

If you’re struggling with high school English teaching content, grading all of the things, or managing a difficult class, make sure to check in with others. This check-in might be with another teacher in the building, your department head, or even taking a day with yourself. Rest is rarely a bad idea even if it means doing a bit more prep to have a sub cover your class!

Add to your High School English Teaching Toolbox

Whether you’re new to the profession or you’re a seasoned high school English teacher, there’s always a teacher tip or two you can add or revisit in your teacher toolbox. I’m hopeful this list of 25 high school English teaching ideas can help you and your students in the months and years ahead! 

Need more fun lessons and activities that incorporate good literature for High School English Teaching? Check out my store Kristin Menke-Integrated ELA Test Prep !

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Hi, I’m KRISTIN!

I primarily focus on  integrating multiple disciplines and subjects. The goal is to make teaching simplified and effective!

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  • Teaching secondary

Here you can find a wide range of short activities to use in your secondary classroom. All of our activities are designed around themes engaging and relevant to secondary learners and can be used to complement your school curriculum, giving students an opportunity to develop their English language and skills in motivating and enjoyable ways. Written by young learner experts from around the world, our activities are easy to use and aim to give your students the skills and confidence they need to enjoy learning English.

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ESL Lesson Plans for High School: 4 Exciting Activities to Get Your Students Speaking Confidently

What does it take to build ESL lesson plans tailored for high school students?

It’s actually pretty simple: They need to be fun, challenging and rewarding for both you and your students.

More practically, they need to help students work together as a group  while also building their own identities .

In this post, we are going to look at four effective lesson plans that’ll boost your ESL high school students’ confidence with English. 

1. ESL Vision Board

2. hobby charades, 3. where would you go, 4. hero awards, the key to teaching esl for high school.

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

Your ESL high school students will gather their favorite magazine clippings and words relating to their English future. This lesson plan allows students to set English goals in a fun and powerful way .

The ESL Vision Board activity may extend to two days, depending on class time. It is good to carve out about two hours for this lesson plan to be fully effective. You will need to compile a variety of magazines for your students to browse and cut pictures and words out of. Many places like doctor offices, corporations and libraries will often donate outdated magazines for this activity.

A Closer Look at the ESL Vision Board Lesson Plan: 

  • Practice. Put your class into small groups of three or four. Each group will have a stack of magazines they will browse through together. This will allow them to communicate in English and discuss their individual language goals with others. 
  • Production. Once the student groups have a good plan in place with photos and English words cut out, let them loose to get creative. You can keep them in groups to enhance the communication aspect of the activity as well. Once their ESL Vision Boards are complete, they will present them in front of the class during the second hour of the lesson plan.

Your rowdy class of ESL high school students has a lot going on. They are studying to earn that high school degree, keeping up with friends on social media and filling their free time with loads of hobbies.

So what better way to apply practical English than discussing hobbies? The Hobby Charades lesson plan can be easily completed in one hour, and you can always extend it to two classes if your ESL high school students are excited and engaged.

Take an hour and develop a fun worksheet with pictures and designated areas for your students to list their hobbies and make sentences with those. Here is a great ESL teacher resource for you to draw from.

To spark creativity, put a few pictures of hobbies at the top of the worksheet. Then make a line down the center of the worksheet, serving as the two areas your students will use to put their hobbies on paper.

Half of the Hobby Charades worksheet will be for brainstorming and writing hobbies down. You can label this at the top as “Hobbies to Explore.” The other half of the worksheet will be for those Hobby Charade sentences. You can label this half of the worksheet “Hobbies in Action.”

A Closer Look at the Hobby Charades Lesson Plan:

  • Presentation. Once your Hobby Charades worksheet is complete, fill one out yourself and share it with your class. Then you will pick one student to act out one of your hobbies, letting his or her classmates guess what it is. This will give your students a clear idea of how to write and explain their hobbies.
  • Practice. Pass out the worksheet and let your students add their favorite hobbies and write complete sentences. 
  • Production. Once all students have completed their worksheets, separate your class into two groups and have students from Group A exchange their worksheets with students from Group B. Then one student from Group A will act out a hobby from a student’s worksheet from Group B, and his or her teammates will need to guess what that hobby is. This will continue until the hobbies run out or class time finishes.

Nearly every high school student has travel on their mind. They are growing into adulthood and want to explore the world and experience cultures different from their own. Where Would You Go? is a fun lesson plan to get your ESL high school students chatting about their English future.

After all, many of your students may have aspirations to travel to English-speaking countries and strut their ESL skills in a powerful way. You may even be teaching ESL to foreign students in a native English-speaking country. 

A Closer Look at the Where Would You Go? Lesson Plan:

  • Presentation. Think about where you would go (if you could go anywhere), then prepare a short presentation for your students. This will allow them to begin thinking about where, why and what . You may even find an opening question useful to start the conversation, such as, “What are some places in the world that interest you?”
  • Practice. Next, let your ESL high school students do a bit of brainstorming. Let them think on their own and also encourage them to ask you and other classmates questions. Here are a few example questions for travel. 

The Hero Awards ESL lesson plan is a great way to get your high school students thinking deeply in English, as well as having them think about what values a good person has. 

This lesson plan is perfect for two one-hour classes, which will give your students time to prepare their presentations.

Your students will need to choose one person, past or present, to be the recipient of a Hero Award. However, you will need to present your own person first. You can use this information  to draw ideas for this lesson.

A Closer Look at the Hero Awards Lesson Plan:

  • Presentation. First things first, show your ESL high school students a picture of someone with a Hero Award. Explain to your students what that person has done, and why you chose them to be your Hero Award recipient. This allows your ESL high school students to begin thinking about their very own presentations.
  • Practice. After your presentation, open the classroom up for questions, then pair your students up and let them begin their Hero Award creative process. They can discuss, collaborate and bounce ideas off their partners. They can also begin practicing their presentations with their partners toward the end of the class period.
  • Production. Students will present their Hero Award and also take any questions from their classmates. This will give them invaluable public speaking skills they can use with both English and their native language.

Your ESL students are not only learning the skills they need to succeed after high school. They are also engaged in developing their personal and cultural identities and figuring out how to fit in as adults. It is important to harness this energy: Combine their urges to identify themselves with ESL lesson plans , and you have your teaching work cut out for you.

Teaching ESL high school students can be a very rewarding moment in any teacher’s career: You get to be part of your students’ growth into adults and often help them achieve their goals of reaching university-level academia.

To make your lessons even more relatable—these are teenagers, after all—you can also show them popular English videos and articles related to the activities. For instance, FluentU’s English program has hundreds of diverse video clips from movies, TV series, songs and more, and they’re all learner-friendly because they come with interactive subtitles and quizzes.  

Take advantage of these unique resources for your high school students and get them learning English in fun and exciting ways!

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activities for high school english teacher

Bright Hub Education

A Resource Guide to Teaching High School English

A Resource Guide to Teaching High School English

Being a high school English teacher can be very rewarding as well as daunting. High school students are very impressionable and are at a point in their lives where they need a mentor.

An effective high school teacher needs to be compassionate and be able to teach students’ valuable skills that will help them to succeed in school and beyond. A high quality teacher will be able to accommodate the needs of their students as well as set a positive example.

High school English teachers have the opportunity to play a critical role in their students success because reading and writing are the foundations of how we learn. Teachers get to introduce the students to the necessary skills that are a vital part in education.

Use these tools and resources below to help you educate and create dynamic lessons about the subject of English. You will find lessons and activities on writing, reading and literature, short stories and project ideas.

An extensive part of high school English class is spent on teaching students how to write effectively. Assigning students a lot of writing assignments will not make them better writers. What students need is writing strategies and activities that focus on sentence structure and techniques. Developing a writing program that is designed to equip them with the writing tools that they need will lead them to success.

Five ideas for teaching writing:

  • Use students’ lives to inspire a writing piece
  • Pair students with writing buddies
  • Encourage students to analyze their writing
  • Practice revision techniques
  • Help students ask questions about their writing

Some of the activities highlighted in the articles below include learning how to write a: thesis statement, essay, autobiography and research paper.

  • How to Write a Thesis Statement
  • Write a Good Five Paragraph Essay
  • Lesson Plan: High School Writing Assessment for 10th Graders
  • Tips on Writing a Research Paper: How to Identify a Topic Question for Essays and Research Papers
  • Selection of a Research Topic: Teaching Students to Do Research
  • Research Paper Writing: How to Choose a Topic for a Research Pape r
  • A Lesson Plan on Writing a Career Essay
  • Creative Writing in High School English: Teaching Body Language to Build Character
  • The Format to Write an Autobiography

Reading and Literature

Teaching high school English literature means teaching Shakespeare and classics such as The Catcher in the Rye and The Red Badge of Courage . Students can be very apprehensive when it comes to reading materials that do not interest them. Use the following tips to encourage your high school students to read the literature that you assign:

  • Relate the literature to real life situations
  • Encourage students to ask questions
  • Have students role-play characters in the book

It is imperative that teachers have good presentation and communication skills when presenting their students with literature they want them to read. Present material in such a manner that will encourage the students to want to read the story.

Use the following lessons as they are or modify them as you wish:

  • Vampires and Werewolves and “Twilight” — Lesson Plan for High School English
  • 12th Grade Compare Text and Movie Lesson
  • Teaching About Author’s Point of View in Nonfiction
  • Shakespeare Lesson Plan for High School: “The Merchant of Venice” Plot
  • High School Literature Lesson Plans: Create a Monster “Frankenstein” Lesson Plan
  • “A Midsummers Night’s Dream” Lesson Plan
  • Novels for High School: “The Old Man and the Sea” Book Review
  • A Review of “The Catcher in the Rye” for High School Teachers with Lesson Plans
  • “Red Badge of Courage” Review and Lesson for High School English

Short Stories

Short stories are part of teaching high school English class. To introduce the students to a short story, ask them to answer the follow preview and predicting questions as they read:

  • What am I seeing?
  • What do I think will happen?
  • What does this compare to?
  • What does this remind me of?
  • Do I have any questions I need answered?

After students read the short story, have them answer the questions in a notebook and discuss their observations when they are finished.

Some of the short story activities that are presented below include: creative writing activities, charting characters, role-playing, narrating a story, completing an alternative ending and much more.

  • Great American Short Stories for High School
  • Teaching Short Stories: Edgar Allen Poe Short Stories for High School
  • Mark Twain Short Stories for High School
  • Science Fiction Short Stories for High School
  • Popular Short Stories by Women
  • Point of View Lesson Plans: Short Stories for Teaching Point of View in Literature
  • Teaching Conflict in Literature: Short Stories for Teaching Conflict
  • Teaching a Setting of a Story: Short Stories for Teaching a Setting
  • Irony Lesson Plans: Short Stories for Teaching Irony in Literature

Teacher Resources

There are many ways to teach high school English. Teachers can use lesson plans, create fun activities, have open discussions, play games and even use a SMART board. Whatever method you choose will benefit your students learning.

Here are a few additional resources for you to read. You will find information on assessment, project ideas, activities using a SMART board and even a cute article on the myths of teaching high school English.

  • Assessment and Presentation Guides and High School Project Ideas
  • Education Myths: Teaching High School English
  • Ideas for Using a SMART Board in High School English Class

Tell Us What You Think

Do you have experience in teaching high school English? If so, please take a moment to share a comment or suggestion you may have. We welcome your feedback and would love to hear your thoughts.

  • • Image: Old Books 2 by nkzc under the royalty free license .

The Classroom | Empowering Students in Their College Journey

ESL Activities for High School

Tips on Teaching 3-Year-Olds ESL

Tips on Teaching 3-Year-Olds ESL

Teaching English as a second language (ESL) to high school students can be challenging. Many activities are available for beginning students, but it can be harder to come up with activities for advanced ESL students that are appropriate to their ages and language levels. High school students don't want to be treated like children but still want activities that are fun and entertaining. Many ESL activities for high school students can be used to teach and reinforce integrated and higher English skills.

The Hot Seat

The Hot Seat is a no-preparation game that you can adapt to teach vocabulary, verb tenses, phrases or other grammar principles. You need a list of words, a chair or desk, a blackboard or whiteboard and something to write with. Divide the class into two teams. The team going first (or you) will choose a member to sit in the hot seat at the front of the class, facing away from the board. Write a word or phrase on the board. The student's team must try to get him to guess the word or phrase by giving non-verbal clues. You can make this timed or not timed, depending on your students and their language levels.

The Hotel Managers

This is a collaborative project for higher-level ESL students. Divide your class into small groups. No more than five people should be in each group. Explain to them that they are all managers of a beautiful beachfront hotel that has many problems that they need to solve. Hand each group a problem, such as "No one knows about the hotel, so there are few guests" or "There are no activities for children." Give your students a certain amount of time to prepare their solutions, then ask them to make presentations concerning the problem and how they would solve it. If you want to make it more complicated, you can ask them to include visual aids, use PowerPoint presentations or include a cost analysis.

Skit in a Bag

For Skit in a Bag, you will need slips of paper and plastic or paper bags. Prepare a list of nouns, adverbs and adjectives, including location names. Divide your class into small groups and give a bag to each group. Students will have a certain amount of time to come up with a skit that uses all the words in the bag and includes each member of the group. For higher-level practice, make a rule that all discussion and preparation has to be done in English.

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  • Ronald V. White: Activating Advanced ESL Students-A Problem and a Solution

Amber D. Walker has been writing professionally since 1989. She has had essays published in "Fort Worth Weekly," "Starsong," "Paper Bag," "Living Buddhism" and more. Walker holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Texas and worked as an English teacher abroad for six years.

activities for high school english teacher

9 New Year’s Activities for High School English

  • November 29, 2023
  • AP Literature , English 11

Starting school again in January is hard.  Most of us have had a long(ish) break.  In my part of the country it can be anywhere from a 6 days to two full weeks depending on where the holidays fall.  In other parts of the country, the break is sometimes three weeks.  And, to top it off, it’s January.  It’s dark.  The weather isn’t great.  But what if you had a pile of New Year’s Activities for students to get everyone back into the flow of everything school.

9 New Year's Activities for high school English--ideas for reflections and goal setting.

Don’t Jump Right Into Instruction

As school teachers and students, we are lucky enough to have two new years.  We get the new school year in August or September and then we get the new calendar year in January.  Often at the start of the school year, we are so focused on establishing routines that we don’t have time to be reflective.  Starting January with New Year Activities give us the perfect opportunity to be reflective and focus on what’s ahead.

Additionally, sometimes the few weeks we have in January are timed awkwardly between having finished a unit before leaving in December and the start of a new semester (which sometimes means new groups of students).  

And let’s face it, everyone likes to ease back into school, especially in the deepest part of winter.

I have invited some guests to share some ideas along with a bunch that are mine.

New Year’s Reflection Activities

The first days after the return from winter break are the perfect time to do a little New Year’s reflection. These New Year’s Activities all include a New Year’s reflection allowing students to look back at the old year and then set intentions for the New Year.

The One Word Project

This is a great opportunity to focus on choosing a word for the new year instead of a making New Year’s Resolutions.  In a true one word project , students go beyond just selecting a word.  Instead, they take some real time to explore the word. 

In the post where I introduced how I use The One Word project in high school English , I talk about how I start them out selecting a word in September and then once a month, we return to the word with a writing prompt.  However, in the reviews for the TPT product , teachers have shared using it over a shorter time frame, completing it in a week, a month or over the course of two months.  The important thing is for students to really spend time with their word so that it becomes part of their experience.

New Year’s Activity: Word of the Year Digital Vision Board for Middle or High School

Amber Walther of Success through Literacy has a variation of The One Word Project with her vision board activity. This is a no prep lesson to help with back from break blues with a digital word of the year vision board for middle school or high school.

Begin by teaching students what a word of the year is. Then they can choose from the over fifty words included in the vision board assignment .

Instructional videos walk students through the lesson and through the technology skills needed to create a digital vision board. Videos allow the activity to be done asynchronous or in centers while the teacher can individually check in with students while they are working. This is especially helpful if you have students who may not have had an enjoyable break at home. 

Mrs. Walther loves using this lesson with her students as a way to help them set an intention for the new year. Self-reflection questions are provided to use throughout the year to help students check in on their word. By having students select a word, it provides a grounding framework for students as the school year progresses that you, as their teacher, can help guide them along to. 

A list of 9 New Year's Activities to do in High School English classes including the one word project, digital vision board and several poetry ideas.

New Years Activity: Top Ten One Pager

This is how I am starting on January 2 this year.  Students will spend the period reflecting on last year.  They will use this one pager template to focus on a variety of “Top 10s” for the previous year including events, music, books, songs, movies, etc.  Most importantly, they will reflect on their most important moments in the previous year.  

Additionally, they will set a few goals for themselves.  Not New Year’s Resolutions, but long-term goals for the year.  These are big ideas that they will have to work toward. 

The template is all set up for them, and they can choose from a variety of layouts in addition to being able to choose to count up or down depending on how they are thinking about the lists.

They will use color and use The Top Ten One Pager to celebrate the previous year.  It’s a great visual way to reflectively  look at the year that has passed as well as the year to come.  This would also be a great activity to use at the end of the school year.

Get your Top Ten One Pager New Year’s Activity.

Teaching Reset: Exploring It’s a Wonderful Life for Reinforcing Classroom Community

Danielle at English Classroom Architect is passionate about helping teachers to combat and avoid burnout through streamlined systems, collaborative and engaging lessons and units, and support for maintaining appropriate boundaries.

If you want a way to start the year that is low stress for you and gives students opportunities for context building, thoughtful reflection about their goals for the year, AND connections to previous and future themes, some activities around the heartwarming holiday classic It’s a Wonderful Life may be the approach you didn’t know you needed. 

In her FREE It’s a Wonderful Life private podcast series , listeners can expect an enriching exploration of It’s a Wonderful Life designed to provide ideas and resources for teachers to start the year off right. Each episode is carefully crafted to offer a seamless transition plan, providing educators with the tools needed to ease students back into learning after breaks without overwhelming themselves. 

Not only will teachers have a plethora of ideas to start the year with this classic film, embedded in the podcast is an activity for students to reflect on the goals and challenges of the characters in the film and also think about their own lives and set some goals and create an action plan for the new year.

Looking Back to Move Forward: The End of the Semester Reflection Your Students Need

Coming back from break can feel overwhelming. But Becca from The Teacher Rewrite has just the resource for you. Whether you are nearing the end of your course or reaching the halfway point, this End of the Semester Reflection is perfect for you. 

This reflection isn’t just your run-of-the-mill survey. In this one-pager, students answer prompts that allow them to share their favorite parts of the class and their proudest moments. This resource includes easy-to-use directions that help students offer advice, ponder their success, and suggest improvements. 

Now, why is this gem particularly awesome for the new year? As students bid farewell to the old and welcome the new, this activity helps them set intentions, refine their goals, and step into the upcoming year with a clear vision. It’s not just about looking back; it’s about gearing up for success in the months ahead. So, if you’re looking to infuse thoughtful reflection into your classroom and set the stage for a fantastic new year, this resource has your back!

New Year's Poetry Activities for high school English.

Focus on Poetry for the New Year

New Year’s Poetry is a perfect way to reengage students in January. Students can use the poetry to ease back into academics while using it for New Year’s Reflection and more.

New Year’s Poetry Mini Unit

There is so much poetry written about the new year.  It’s incredible actually.  A quick New Year’s Poetry Unit can be a great way to engage students in New Years activities while still being semi-academic.

You can use the New Year’s Poetry to focus on reader response, collaborative annotations, close reading, term review and so much more.  This works well following one of the more reflective activities like Top Ten One Pagers and Vision Boards.  

I start with the Top Ten One Pager and then move into some close reading on New Year’s Poetry .

New Year’s Poetry gives students the opportunity to examine how other people are thinking about the transition to the new year.  It can help them to work on social emotional learning by looking at the New Year through another’s eyes.  And it is another way to ease students back into academics.  For more, check out my New Year’s Poetry Mini Unit .

New Year’s Activities Including Poetry Analysis and Personal Affirmations Activity

Embarking on a new year often calls for a unique approach to engage students from the get-go, and Julia at Around the World With Mrs. C’s favorite way to kickstart the learning journey is through a three-day exploration focusing on the renowned poem “Invictus” . This specially crafted activity seamlessly intertwines literary analysis with Social-Emotional Learning (SEL), offering students a robust start while setting the tone for a positive and supportive classroom environment.

Day one dives deep into the poem “Invictus,” unraveling its layers through thorough analysis and discussions. Delving into the poet’s intent, students also uncover how the poem serves as a personal affirmation, nurturing mental fortitude during challenging times.

On day two, a segue into the concept of affirmations for inner strength unfolds, igniting the students’ enthusiasm as they craft their own empowering mantras. The classroom comes alive with enthusiasm and creativity.

Day three fosters a Schaffer paragraph analysis, delving into the poem’s tone, thus refining the students’ analytical skills and deepening their understanding of the poem’s emotional resonance.

What Mrs. C especially loves about this activity is that it’s not just about understanding poetry – it’s about boosting your emotional smarts too. It’s setting up a classroom that’s all about supporting each other and starting strong in academics. It also gives students the tools to set their intentions for the year ahead!

What can the new year bring? More poetry to start!

Lesa from SmithTeaches9to12 loves poetry! She writes about it all the time on her blog and includes tons of ideas to include poetry throughout the year. 

And there’s no better time than the start of the new year to focus on poetry! “The Year” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox is short, impactful, and accessible to students. We’re not talking about a Shakespearean sonnet to get back into learning in January! It is the perfect New Year’s Activity for High School English.

Present the poet — her life is fascinating — and share the poem . Students read it and make note of figurative language, the tone/mood of the poem, as well as the overall message. You could have them complete a scaffolded analysis activity using a TP-CASTT graphic organizer. 

The subject of the poem is also perfect for the new year because it’s all about what is to come that’s good (or not) for the new year! Use this to extend the lesson by having students set goals, predict highlights for their year, or even offer advice to their future self (SEL activity). 

Lesa’s advice for the new year? Grab this ready-to-go lesson plan to start your year with poetry!

New Year Poetry for High School English in the New Year.

Create a New Year’s Activities Mini Unit

It is really easy to take a few of these and combine them to make a 1-2 week unit.  This year, my students will be starting with the Ten Things One Pager on the day we come back from break and we will follow it up with a few New Year’s Poems.  Then we will do our January One Word Project prompt which is to revisit our words and choose a new one if they want to. You can easily build a unit that will help you to reengage your students through activities to ring in the new year. And if you are just looking for something that can set a relaxing, meditative tone, you could offer your students New Year’s Coloring Pages with Inspirational New Year’s Quotes .

Additional Resources for New Year’s Activities

Mud and Ink Teaching’s Top Nine (Instagram Style Reflection)

Determinations for the New Year (Another one from Lesa at Smith Teaches 9 to 12)

The One Word Project (a blog post that goes into greater detail)

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Ready to Use One Word Project

New Year’s Top Ten One Pager

New Year’s Poetry Mini Unit

New Year’s Coloring Pages with Inspirational New Year’s Quotes

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High School English Teachers: I Planned Your First Week Back To School

High School English Teachers: I Planned Your First Week Back To School

Whether you’re a brand new teacher or you’ve been at this for a while, the first week of school is a crazy, roller-coaster ride of a week. Students' emotions are intense this week, and so are yours as their teacher. Plus, a lot more administrative stuff is asked of you. It can be a tough week, to put it mildly. 

What you need to make that first week run smoothly is a strong plan that allows everyone to feel safe.

So, I went ahead and planned that week for you. I’ve laid it all out here. It includes ways to connect with your students (on their terms); it also allows for you to begin equipping them with what they need to be successful in your class. 

banner that says

I taught full-time for 13 years, and here’s what I found matters most during the first week of school:

  • That students get a sense of who you are--that you are knowledgeable and caring
  • That you start building relationships and rapport with your students, but on their terms
  • That you start establishing class norms, routines, and expectations
  • That you start getting into the material of the course in a way that sets them up to do well in your class

Everything you do that first week should have one or more of those elements in mind. I've got a lot of FREE LESSONS in this post. If you want to jump straight to those, click here . 

Without further ado, here's your first week of school, planned.

Monday: Welcome and Writing

When I was a brand-new teacher I did icebreakers that first day and then I would talk for a solid 30 minutes about my syllabus. Whatever you do, don’t do that. That was not a great plan because it threatened some students (icebreakers are hard), and then it bored all of them (syllabi are boring). 

Here’s a much better plan that I discovered over the years with help from colleagues:

Save your syllabus for the second day of school.

The first day of school is filled with so much listening for your students, and it’s exhausting for them. But when I say “listening,” I don’t really mean that they hear and register what the teacher is saying. It’s more like the listening that appears to be happening when a group of students is sitting at desks silently. They aren’t talking, but they aren’t listening. Because who could actually take all that information in when they’ve heard 5 other syllabi presentations that day? 

What’s more, why even bother listening if all that information is printed on the syllabus? They can just read it when they have questions. 

If you do your syllabus the first day of school, that's fine, but only spend 10-15 minutes on it. 

Instead of talking at length through your syllabus, have them do this first-day-of-school activity.  This activity allows you to give your students either a set of questions geared toward their history as a reader and a writer or a creative writing opportunity to see what their writing style is like (which can work great for more advanced classes or creative writing classes). 

You can grab this lesson and over 100 more resources when you become a member of the English Teacher Vault!

first day of school activity handouts

My History as a Reader and Writer Assignment

One of the options in this activity asks students a set of questions about their history as a reader and as a writer. These questions are broad as well as specific and work great with 9th-11th graders. Have them write for a pretty big chunk of the class period. 

Then, over the next several days you can read through these and get a sense of who your students are in a way that did not require them to embarrass themselves or think of something clever that rhymes with their names. 

Having students create name plates on that first day of school that they then bring back all week is also incredibly helpful as you start learning names. 

I go into a lot more details about this lesson in this blog post “Want An Outstanding Activity For The First Day of School?”

One added benefit of this activity for the first day of school is that it immediately gets students writing in your classroom, and they will start to relate your class with a place where meaningful writing is going to happen. It sets the tone. I like to start with a narrative writing unit early in the school year, and this first-day activity is narrative writing. Some students could later draw from what they’ve started here and develop it into a longer narrative writing piece. 

Tuesday: Syllabus, Accounts, and Norms

Briefly, cover your syllabus..

For Tuesday, hit the high points of your syllabus if you didn't go over it Monday, but do not read the syllabus to your students. I find it best to explain the late work policy, when you are available to respond to emails, and what your “office hours” are. Besides these things, students can read what’s on your syllabus. 

It’s also helpful to have your syllabus designed as an infographic that draws students’ attention to key places and lets them take the information in quickly and easily. We have an editable syllabus template in the English Teacher Vault that you can make your own when you become a member! 

Set up accounts.

If students need to set up any type of account for your classroom, this is the day to do it. Set aside 10 minutes for students to do this and then move on. 

Establish classroom norms.

The most important thing you will do on day two is to establish your classroom norms for the year. 

If you are not familiar with the concept of classroom norms, this will revolutionize how you handle classroom management, especially with secondary students. High school students are transitioning between childhood and adulthood, so it’s important they have some voice in what the expectations are for them at school. They have more ownership this way and more buy-in.

If this is all totally new to you, please jump over to this blog post and take 5 minutes to read all about what classroom norms are and the benefits of using them in your secondary classroom. 

Banner that says "After 12 years of teaching, I've found that norms are better than rules."

In this blog post, my former colleague, Sam Bradford breaks down what norms are and how you can set them up early in the school year. 

Essentially, norms are principles decided upon by all your students--they are not rules that the teacher created and imposes on students. 

They are short and easy to remember, and they should also be revisited frequently. 

You can have your students brainstorm individually, and then work in small groups to start developing the classroom norms. As a class, you will ultimately decide on a handful of norms that will be your guiding principles every day. These norms might change later in the school year, and that is totally fine. They are dynamic! 

Here is a great free resource that walks you through how to set up norms in your high school ELA classroom: Norms Construction – A Process of Negotiation – School Reform Initiative

Wednesday: Get Into Grammar

Now that you’ve set up your classroom norms, you can jump into the content of your class. It’s important to get to meaningful learning in that first week to set the tone that this is a place where purposeful learning will happen. 

A focus on grammar is a way that students can be successful that first week, get needed review, and have the essentials that they will need to do well in your class going forward. 

By teaching a few highly-engaging grammar lessons this first week of school, you will set your students up for a clear path toward powerful writing for the rest of the school year. 

Teach vivid verbs on third day of school. Verbs are familiar to your students, but most students don’t realize the power of using action verbs instead of linking verbs. This lesson gets them there. 

I’ve put together a free parts of speech unit  that I’d love to give to you, so you have nothing to prep on this day at all (and for several other days those first few weeks). Each lesson includes:

  • Direct instruction on the concepts of action and liking verbs, strong nouns, adjectives, and adverbs
  • Amazing mentor sentences that showcase the power of each part of speech
  • Sentence frames for students to start practicing using parts of speech well
  • A video writing prompt that will further instruct students in using the concepts in their own writing
  • Quick writes to follow up the lesson and to allow students to work with each part of speech

The free lessons will give students a sense that they have a path to becoming better writers, and your classroom is the place where that will happen. 

picture of a large computer screen that says

Thursday: Build On Grammar For Writing Success

For the fourth day of school, continue teaching grammar in a way that is engaging, purposeful, and with a clear purpose: for students to become better writers. 

From time to time, it’s good to start class with a very short hands-on game to review grammar concepts. These games should be low-stakes, and early in the school year they should not be competitive. Remember, you’re working hard to create a safe place that first week. 

This hands-on grammar game allows students to look at mentor sentences and then determine if each sentence has a linking verb or an action verb. Students can do this activity in pairs, or you can do it as a full class. There are several variations of how you could use this game depending on the size of your class. 

This activity comes with the free parts of speech unit! 

action verbs game

After this game, jump into a lesson on using strong nouns.    I know what you are probably thinking, “My high school students know all about nouns.” And I hear you, and I get that. They do know a thing or two about nouns, but let me tell you what this lesson does and does not do:

It does not:

  • Require students write down the definition of nouns
  • Require students do tedious worksheets finding nouns
  • Challenge students to think about how to use nouns intentionally
  • Remind students of the difference between concrete and abstract nouns
  • Immediately give students a chance to write meaningful prose using nouns intentionally
  • Let students have a little fun thinking about and playing around with nouns

If you’re worried that around this time (two grammar lessons in two days) your students will start to moan, whine, and complain that “grammar is boring,” or that they “know all this already,” or that “there’s no point in knowing grammar,” let me say this can be your response:

Grammar is a tool for better writing.

It is my strong belief that knowing grammar is indeed useless if you are only memorizing a bunch of terms (i.e. an adjective modifies a noun or pronoun). It's also useless if students are only working with grammar in isolation on worksheets or drills that don't affect their writing.

The purpose of grammar is for students to understand how language works, so they can apply those concepts to their own writing, creating powerful pieces of writing that let their voices be heard and even effect change. 

That’s it in a nutshell, but if you want to read more so that you are ready for your students (totally valid) questions regarding the point of grammar, check out this blog post, "Why Teaching Grammar Matters,"   that goes into much more detail about why grammar is so important. 

As a side note, I will say that in my experience, students don’t complain as much this first week of school. They generally have not gotten comfortable enough to complain, so I find that grammar earlier in the year works better for this reason as well. 

Friday: Quick Writes and First-Chapter Friday

As I mentioned above, grammar only matters if students take those concepts and use them in their own writing. 

So, on Friday give them a quick-write writing prompt that allows them to focus on using their nouns and verbs in a meaningful way. 

I’ve designed these quick-write prompts with open-ended questions; any student should be able to choose one and respond without much wracking their brains for a response. Then, they will look back over their writing and craft a few sentences with their nouns and verbs in mind. These prompts are scaffolded, meaning that I have a prompt that only focus on nouns, one that focuses on verbs, and another on adjectives. Then, there are ones that combine multiple skills. 

quick write writing prompts

These writing prompts also provide a safe way to start getting to know your students better and build more rapport and community. 

Ask volunteers to share their response if they’d like, but don’t force anyone to talk. You’ll start to get a feel for everyone’s personalities by just opening it up to volunteers. This is day 5 with your students, so they will likely feel much more comfortable sharing about who they are on this day than they would have on day one or day two. 

For the rest of the class period, do a “First Chapter Friday” where you read students the first chapter of a book and allow them to jot down initial observations. Or, don't read the first chapter--instead have the actual author do it! 

Check out Now Spark Creativity's compilation of First Chapter Friday video reads HERE . 

It’s important students have some type of independent reading they are doing that they are not being quizzed on, and so it’s critical those first few weeks that you get them thinking about a book they can be reading on their own. 

For many years I started class with 10 minutes of sustained silent reading and this was when students would read their independent reading books. 

Why Do Grammar The First Week Of School

If your students have a strong understanding of basic concepts they will be set up for success in your class. 

Many teachers realize the importance of teaching writing concepts like organization and the difference between analysis and summary, but few teachers realize that without a clear and direct explanation of grammar concepts, students will struggle all year with how to write a concise idea in an articulate way. 

  • If a student can see the difference between a vivid verb and a linking verb, they’ll start to grasp how vivid verbs can make their writing more interesting and far more concise. Their sentences will be packed with meaning instead of packed with words just taking up space. 
  • If students grasp what modifiers are, they’ll start to think about ones that can be placed in different parts of their sentences to make their writing more compelling.
  • If students know what a clause is, they can work with using multiple clauses in their sentences; they can create compound and complex sentences that are punctuated correctly. This helps them become more fluent writers! 

Most students have a lot of thoughts about a lot of topics, but they don’t know how to harness those thoughts into powerful sentences that someone else can understand. Grammar helps them do this. 

pull out quote that says "most students have a lot of thoughts on a lot of topics, but they don't have the tools to harness those thoughts into powerful sentences."

Now, I’m not saying you're going to tackle modifiers and clauses that first week of school, but I am saying, the sooner the better. 

If you’re not feeling confident with how to teach grammar in a way that engages your students and sets them up for successful writing for the entire school year, check out my full-year grammar curriculum that gives you every single lesson you need. It provides you with a pacing guide as well so that you can confidently move through the lessons knowing that concepts are building on each other. 

You get access to the whole curriculum when you become a member of the English Teacher Vault!

grammar for high school students curriculum

That first week of school focus on building a strong rapport with your students through

  • Getting to know your students on their terms
  • Giving students a sense of who you are (you are a knowledgeable and caring teacher with clear expectations)
  • Establishing classroom norms
  • Teaching grammar so that students have a clear path toward mastery in your class

I hope these first-week of school lesson plans have given you clarity and a sense of excitement as you get ready for the amazing students who will be in your class this school year! 

Related Articles

Want An Outstanding First Day of School Lesson?

Why Classroom Norms Are Better Than Rules

First Chapter Friday Ideas by Now Spark Creativity

Back To School Units by McLaughlin Teaches English

5 Reasons To Teach Short Story Analysis At The Beginning of the Year

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6 Super Fun Games For High School Students

High school students can lose interest easily, and if your lessons are not fun and engaging, it can be difficult to get students to focus. But don’t worry! There are lots of fun and energizing classroom games you can use to keep high school students engaged. Below you’ll find our favorite fun games for high school students .

Fun Games For High School Students

1: thumbs up game.

This first activity is a classic classroom game that high school students love to play! To play, first, choose three students to come up to the front of the class. These students are the ‘walkers’. Next, tell all other students to put their heads on their desks, close their eyes, and put their thumbs up. Now the game can begin.

The three ‘walkers’ will then walk around the class and choose one student each by touching their thumbs. If a student’s thumb is touched, that student should put their thumb down. Once all three ‘walkers’ have chosen one student, they should return to the front of the class, and then the teacher should tell all students to “ Wake up !” (i.e., open their eyes and sit up).

The three students whose thumbs were touched should stand up, and then they must guess which of the ‘walkers’ touched their thumb. If they guess correctly, they get to swap places with the ‘walker’. If they guess wrong, they sit back down.

To make this game more fun for high school students, you can try giving each of the ‘walkers’ a funny name. This can be something silly or names from their favorite pop group, TV series, etc. Another thing you can do to make it even more fun is to get the ‘walkers’ to make a silly sound or to say something with a different voice when they touch another student’s thumb.

2: The Liar Game

High School Classroom Games

This next activity is very versatile and can be used in almost any high school class. To play, you’re going to need some ‘game cards’. If you’re teaching vocabulary, these can be small flashcards , or if you’re teaching reading, these can be cards made from a passage of text split up into sentences. For the purpose of this explanation, the cards will be numbers. Create sets of 6-8 game cards and give one set to each student.

Next, you need to tell students the order in which the game cards will be played during the game. A great way to do this is to include the order number on the top of the cards when you create them. Finally, put students in groups of 3/4.

To begin, all 3/4 students in a group must put all their cards in the middle and mix them all together. Then, they must each choose 6/8 random cards (depending on how many are in each set) and make sure not to show these cards to other members in the group. Now the game can begin.

Students will take turns placing the game cards facedown in the middle in the pre-determined order. So, the first student should look at their cards, find the number 1 card, and then place it facedown in the middle and say “ Number 1 ” (or say the word/text that is on the number 1 card). The second student should then look at their cards, find the number 2 card, and place it facedown in the middle and say “Number 2”. Then it’s the next student’s turn to place the number 3 card in the middle. And so on.

The fun part of this game is that a student may not have the correct card to place in the middle because they chose random cards at the beginning. And so, if a student doesn’t have the correct card, they must lie! In this situation, they would choose any of their cards and pretend they are placing the correct card in the middle.

At any time, if any of the other students think someone is lying, they can shout “ Liar !”, at which point the last card to be placed in the middle would be turned over to check if the last student did in fact lie.

If a student is caught in a lie, that student must pick up all the cards in the middle. If a student is accused of lying, but they did not lie, then the accuser must pick up all the cards. The first student to get rid of all the cards is the winner!

3: Word Association Game

High School Classroom Games

The are plenty of word association game variations , but the one we find works best with high school students is a version with a particular topic. To play, first, you must choose a topic. A great way to do this is to ask the students for ideas. This way, you will get topics that the students are interested in, which is a great way to keep students engaged. For example, students might choose a topic such as ‘ computer games ‘, ‘ pop groups ‘, ‘ types of food ‘, etc.

Once you have a topic, tell students that they will take turns saying a word associated with the topic. For example, if the topic is ‘ types of food ‘, one student might say “ Mexican food “, and the next student might say “ fried food “, etc. If a student is not able to say an associated word or repeats a word that has already been said, then that student is out! Play until only one or two students are left. These are the winners. Choose another topic, and start again.

4: The Chain Game

High School Classroom Games

This next activity is similar to the above word association game but with a fun twist. To start, one student would say a word, and then the next student must say a word that starts with the last letter of the previous word. This ‘chain’ continues until a student can’t think of a word or repeats a word that has already been said.

If your high school students have a particularly large vocabulary, this game might be too easy. However, a great way to make it more challenging is to make a rule that each word must be from a particular category. For example. ‘ things that are blue ‘, ‘ girl’s names ‘, ‘ famous people ‘, etc.

5: The Hula Skirt Game

High School Classroom Games

This game is superfun and a great way to get your high school students out of their seats, speaking, and having fun. To prepare for this activity, you’ll need to prepare some questions to create the ‘hula skirt’. You can use any questions, but if you’re stuck for ideas. these 30 Ice-Breaker Questions work great with this activity.

Once you have your questions, type them up, one question per line, and print them on an A4 piece of paper. Next, with a pair of scissors, cut a line between each question to make strips. Don’t cut all the way to the end of the page so that the strips are still all connected. This is our ‘hula skirt’. Finally, tape the ‘hula skirt’ securely on the board and place a trash can about 5-10 feet from the board. Now the game can begin.

Make two teams and have them line up at the far end of the classroom. When the teacher says “ Go! “, one student from each team must race to the board and tear off one of the strips of paper. At which point they must read the question that is on the paper out loud and answer the question as quickly as they can.

After answering the question, a student must roll up the strip of paper into a ball and try to throw it into the trash can from where they are standing. If they get it in, they get 1 point for their team. Next, the student runs back to their team and tags the next player who runs to the board to choose the next strip of paper.

6: The Mafia Game

Mafia Game

The Mafia Game is a really fun game that high school students want to play time and time again. The game is quite complicated, however, so you may need to practice a few times before students get it. Here’s how to play the Mafia Game step by step.

Step One: Choose A Narrator

The narrator’s job is to assign the roles, read the scenario, and moderate the gameplay.

Step Two: Choose The Number Of Mafia Members

The number of Mafia members should be about 1/3 of the total number of players. For example, if you have 30 students playing, then 10 of them will be in the Mafia.

Step Three: Assign Roles

In addition to the Mafia members, there should also be police officers, doctors, and civilians. Police officers try to catch the Mafia members, doctors heal people who have been attacked by the Mafia, and civilians are just innocent bystanders.

While assigning the roles, it is important to keep the roles secret or the game won’t work. A great way to do this is for the narrator to tell everyone to close their eyes and assign the roles by saying, “ I will now touch the Mafia Members on the head. “, “ I will now touch the Police Officers on the head. “, “ I will now touch the doctors on the head. ” Those that are not touched are the ‘civilians’.

Step Four: Round 1

Next, it’s time for round 1. The narrator should tell everyone to close their eyes. Then, the narrator will then say, “ Mafia members open your eyes. ” The Mafia members will open their eyes and choose one person to ‘kill.’ So that this is a secret, they should silently point to one person to make their choice. Once the Mafia have made their choice, the narrator should take note of who they killed, and then they should close their eyes again.

Next, the narrator says, “ Police officers, open your eyes. ” and the police will point at someone to ‘interrogate’. Later, this person will be asked if they are the Mafia and they cannot lie. The narrator takes note of who will be interrogated and then the police officers close their eyes.

Next, the narrator says “ Doctors, open your eyes. “, and then the doctors point at one person they will ‘save’. If this person was killed by the mafia, they are ‘saved’ and get to stay in the game.

Step Five: The Narrator Explains The Scenario

Next, the narrator says “ Everyone, open your eyes .” and then explains what just happened. For example, “ The Mafia Killed Chris. The doctors saved Kelly, and the police chose to interrogate Tom. ” Then the narrator will ask Tom if he is a member of the Maffia, and he must tell the truth.

In this scenario, Chris is out as he was killed by the Mafia. Kelly wasn’t killed and so there was no need to be ‘saved’. And if Tom answers “Yes” to being in the Mafia, then he is out. If he answers “No”, he is still in the game.

Step Six: Everyone Discusses

Now, that everyone has heard the scenario, it is time for everyone to discuss who they think is the Mafia. After the discussion, everyone will vote on who they think it is. The person with the most votes is ‘lynched’ and are out of the game. The narrator can then tell them if they caught a Mafia member, or killed a civilian, doctor, or police officer.

Step Eight: Repeat

Repeat the above steps until either all the Mafia members have been caught, or all the civilians are out.

As you can see, the Mafia game is quite complicated but it makes a fantastic classroom game for high school students once they get the hang of it.

Thanks for reading. I hope your students have lots of fun playing these classroom games. Before you go, here are some more activity ideas and resources you might find useful: Reading Games For Middle School Students Classroom Games For Middle School Students Middle School Icebreakers PowerPoint Game Templates ESL Activity Videos

ESL Teacher 365

10 ESL Activities for Busy Teachers

Are you looking for low prep, easy to lead ESL activities for your ESL classroom? Bookmark this tried and true list of 10 quick warmers and fillers that will get your students speaking, reading, listening, and writing in English.

I’ve used these ESL activities in my classroom for the past 10 years and my students love them. If you’re a new teacher, or just a busy teacher looking to change things up in the classroom, there’s bound to be something you’ll like.

These activities can be modified for virtual learning as well!

Post Contents

10 ESL Activities for Your Teaching Toolbox

1. two truths and a lie.

Level: Mid or high

Players: Whole class

Grammar Point: Used to, daily routines, present perfect, etc.

Time: 15-25 min

How to Play: Students think of three facts about themselves, 2 that are true and one lie. Remind the students that the lie can be the first, second or third sentence. 

As a writing activity: each student writes down their name at the top of a sticky note and their three sentences below. Students walk around the room, putting a tick on the sentence they think is a lie. Then, students take turns revealing the correct answer.

As a speaking activity: Each student says their three sentences aloud, repeating if necessary. Next, hold a vote to see which sentence the other students think is the lie. The speaker can then reveal the correct answer.

Two Truths and a Lie can be used as an ice breaker activity to get to know students on the first day of class. It can also be used to review or produce a grammar point. Challenge the students to include a certain grammar point in their sentences (ex: used to, daily routines, present perfect, etc.)

2. What Are You Doing?

​ Level: Low or mid

Players: Whole class or small groups

Grammar Point: Present continuous

Time: 15- 25 min

How to Play: In this improv activity students can practice present continuous as well as vocabulary. 

Form a circle with a student in the middle. The student will mime an action (cooking, sleeping, etc.). A student from the circle will ask “Hey (name), what are you doing?” The student in the middle of the circle replies with a different action, unrelated to the action they are miming. (ex: “I’m watching tv” while they mime that they are cooking.) 

The student who asked the question then enters the circle and begins doing this action (following the example, they mime that they are watching tv), while the original student rejoins the circle. 

Now, a new student asks the question “Hey (name), what are you doing?” and the activity continues. Encourage students to be creative in their verbs, and you are sure to get some laughs!

3. Big Red Balloon

Level: Low or mid

Grammar Point: Phonics or spelling

Time: 10 – 20 minutes

How to Play: This is one of my favorite ESL activities that I used to play with my students at camp in France. Draw a picture of a hot air balloon on the board and announce to the class “I’m going up in a big red balloon and I’m bringing a ________________.” 

Depending on your grammar point (sound or spelling pattern), you will give an example of an item that fits your chosen pattern. For this example let’s use double letters, so imagine I tell my students I’m bringing a tree. 

Ask students to guess what else you are bringing by repeating the sentence “I’m going up in a big red balloon and I’m bringing a _______________” and filling in the blank with their own example. 

If their example matches your pattern, tell them “Yes, you are.” If their example doesn’t match the pattern, tell them “No, you aren’t.” 

You will be met with confused looks at first, but eventually, it will click with a student or two! If your students aren’t quite getting it, give them a few examples to coax them along. 

Teach written on blocks

Level: All levels

Players: Pairs or groups of 3

Grammar Point: Spelling or vocabulary

Time: 15-30 minutes

​ How to Play: One of the most popular ESL activities around is Boggle! Google “Boggle boards” and add them to PowerPoint slides, one board per slide. You can also create your own 4×4 grid if you prefer.

Explain that students need to form words using ONLY the letters they see. For higher levels, challenge them to create 4+ letter words or only words related to the vocabulary they are studying. For lower levels, tell them to form words with 2+ letters. 

Set a time limit (5-10 minutes) and begin! Once the time is up, correct the lists by eliciting words from each team. Practice the alphabet by having groups spell out the words as you write them down on the board. 

Each unique word counts for one point. The team with the most words wins! Switch partners and play again with a new board. This game can be a quick warmer, or you can really stretch it out into a 30-minute activity.

5. Compound Noun Tic Tac Toe

Players: Whole class divided into two groups

Grammar Point: Compound nouns

Time: 15-20 min

​ How to Play: For this ESL activity, prepare a list of compound nouns. For low levels, house-related words like: bedroom, toothbrush, bathroom, etc. are great, but you can play with any compound nouns you like. 

Round 1: Draw a tic tac toe board on the board with the first half of a compound noun written in each square. Write up the matching second half of the compound nouns in a list along the side of the board in random order. 

Designate one group as “X” and one group as “O.” Taking turns, groups match the nouns to create compound nouns while playing the game tic tac toe. If they are correct, mark their square with their team letter. First team to complete three in a row wins! 

Round 2: Write up the first half of a compound noun, but DO NOT write up the second half. Play as before, but this time students need to think of possible endings. 

6. Whisper Challenge

​ Level: All levels

Grammar Point: Vocabulary, vowel sounds, phrasal verbs etc.

How to Play: Choose the words you’d like to use and write them on small pieces of paper. If you have small whiteboards, give one to each team. If not, you can just use a blank piece of paper. 

Have students stand on opposite sides of the room, across from one another. If you are playing with a group of three, one person will be opposite two people.  

Give each “whisperer” a card. Give the other student(s) the whiteboard and a marker.

The “whisperer”  must mouth the word or phrase on their paper without making any noise while their partner(s) tries to guess and write out the word or phrase. This is especially difficult if you have students with a variety of native languages. 

Once everyone has guessed, switch whisperers and hand out new cards to continue the game.

activities for high school english teacher

7. Telephone and Writing Telephone

Grammar Point: Telephone can be used with any grammar point and writing telephone practices describing pictures

How to Play: 

Think of a sentence using the target language and whisper it into a student’s ear. If they don’t understand, they can ask you to repeat the sentence by saying “operator.”

Next, this student will whisper the sentence into the next student’s ear until all students have participated. The last student can either say the sentence or write it on the board.

If the sentence is completely different from the original one, you can try and track down where and how it changed, or just try again. Likewise, you can also break students into two groups and have them think of their own sentences based off of your model.

Writing telephone:

You’ll need one paper for each student and a pen or pencil. Ask each student to write a sentence at the top of their paper. You can ask them to include specific vocabulary or grammar points in their sentence.

Once everyone is ready, ask students to pass the paper to their right. Now, they must read the sentence and try to draw it. Their drawing should be small and directly under the sentence. 

Before passing the paper to the right again, make sure the students FOLD OVER the paper so that only the picture can be seen, and not the original sentence. Now, students must write a sentence based on the picture they see. 

Continue the pattern until the paper is full. Then, unfold the paper to see how the sentence has changed! This one always gets lots of laughs and is great for any level!

8. Snowball

​Level: All levels

Grammar Point: Asking questions, verb tenses, etc.

How to Play: For this ESL activity, prepare a small piece of scrap paper for each student. Depending on your grammar point, ask a question and have students write their answers on the paper. Tell them NOT to write their name and try to disguise their handwriting if they know each other well. (Example: Grammar point: 2nd conditional… If you won the lottery, how would you spend the money? Students might write something like “to travel” etc. on their paper).

Next, ask the students to crumple up their papers into ‘snowballs’ and throw them at you (kids love this) or at a target drawn on the board (adults love this). Now, it’s mingle time.

Instruct students to pick up one snowball each, and try to find the writer by asking a question. (Example: The paper says “buy a house” so the student asks another student “If you won the lottery, would you buy a house?” If the answer is yes, it’s a match! If not, they should keep looking until they find their match. Keep playing until all students have found their match.

9. Twenty Questions

Players: Whole class, small groups or pairs

Grammar Point: Question forms, vocabulary sets

How to Play: One of the best ESL activities for vocabulary building. Model the activity by telling students you are thinking of an animal. (This activity can be played with any vocabulary set like countries, occupations, etc.) They can only ask you “yes or no” questions. Review question forms if needed. 

Tell them that you are keeping track of their guesses, and that they should work together to guess what the animal is before 20 questions are asked. 

Once your students have guessed your word, you can continue to play as a whole class by having the student who guessed begin again with a new word or break up into smaller groups you can monitor.

10. Password, Taboo, and Hot Seat

Grammar Point: Describing a word (could be a noun, adjective, verb, adverb), vocabulary

Time: 15 to 30 min

​How to Play: 

Place a chair in front of the board and ask a volunteer to sit looking away from the board. Tell students that you are going to write a word on the board and that they must give the student in the chair clues to help them guess the word. 

Remind them that they can’t use any part of the word to describe it (example: if the word is airplane, they can’t say air or plane). Once the student guesses, have them choose another volunteer and continue the game. Additionally, you can break students off into smaller groups and play with mini-whiteboards. 

Similar to Password , except that students cannot say any of the words written on a short list of words connected with the word they need to guess. (Example: write “cake” in red. The student in the chair needs to guess this word. Below “cake” write “kitchen, cook, dessert and sweet” in black. These words are ‘taboo’ and cannot be said.)

Play the same as Password, making sure the students don’t say ANY of the words on the board. If they do, start again with a new word. 

Once again, similar to Password except that you need to divide the students in half and place two chairs in front of the board. The students in the chairs should be close enough to their teammates to be able to hear them. 

I like to play this with entire sentences. When a student thinks they have guessed the entire sentence, they need to raise their hand and repeat the sentence to you (without looking at the board first! They always want to turn around!) 

If they are correct, award their team a point. If not, keep playing. 

Tip: Encourage more advanced students to use the parts of speech and other clues to help their partner guess. 

More ESL Activities

If you liked these activities, try out 10 MORE ESL activities for busy teachers . What are your favorite ESL activities to teach in the English classroom? Leave a comment below!

More posts for English teachers:

Cambridge First Certificate teaching tips

Free beginner pronunciation lesson

Odd One Out Speaking Activity

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Samantha in Secondary

5 First Day of School Activities for High School English

July 13, 2022 by Samantha H.

I know it’s tempting to run to your old standby when you’re looking for first day of school activities for your high school English class, but I’m here to tell you: there is another way! You don’t need to read the syllabus to your students OR voice any expectations at all during your first lesson. You can certainly do those things, but they don’t need to be done on the first day. Let the first day be all about community and connection. I have 5 great ideas for you to kick off your year cultivating your best classroom culture yet.

first-day-of-school-activities-high-school-english

#1: Review Email Etiquette

first-day-activities

In my 15 years of teaching, this was almost always my go-to first day lesson for a general ELA classroom. You’re sneaking in a little bit of content in an engaging way, but also getting to know your students a little bit and gathering a writing sample. (They barely even notice or groan about it, either! Win!)

I first spend about 10 minutes reviewing professional email expectations. (I know you wouldn’t be shocked at how many students need this refresher!) We take a few notes, but I make sure it’s just that- a few.

Then, my favorite part, I show a good amount of examples and non-examples. We all have a good laugh at some of the poor souls who have emailed me complete nonsense in the past who are now immortalized in my presentation for future students. This is always the part students remember and sometimes I even bring them up later if a student commits any of the same offenses. I gently ask, “Hey, remember when we learned about email etiquette?” The light bulbs almost always immediately flash.

Next, I check for understanding with a little, no-stakes quiz. This is usually a good time to practice routines for technology if I decide to do this through Google Forms (which I usually do!).

Now, it’s time to practice! I have students write an email both to me and a family member. You can have them practice on paper or write actual emails to you. (I make a folder and sort them to read later.) I tell them in the email to me they MUST tell me three things about themselves. This provides a few important things: practice writing professional email, a few personal tidbits for you to learn about your students, and a writing sample. First day perfection!

activities for high school english teacher

#2: Create Reader Timelines

activities for high school english teacher

This is one of my favorite ways to open to a room full of readers. It’s especially powerful in an ELA elective course where you know you’re dealing with students who love to read. Enter: The Reader Timeline Project.

Early memories as a reader are so powerful- both positive ones and negative. Many people can identify core memories that made them into a reader (or made them hate reading!) and it can be a really compelling activity to explore them.

For this activity, have students identify a few core memories of their experience with reading. This can be particular moments, books, etc. They choose the memories and then create a timeline with images to share with the class. This can be done digitally using Google Slides or on paper with some coloring supplies. I usually give kids a choice so they can work with the medium that fits them best.

Then, have everyone share their timelines. You’ll love what beautiful discussion can blossom from reliving students’ experience with reading. Make sure to include a few memories of your own!

activities for high school english teacher

#3: Share Your Enneagram Type

enneagram-activity-high-school

Another one of my favorite ways to introduce students to my class is with Enneagram types. (Hello, fellow 8’s!) A lot of them have a vague idea of what the Enneagram is or has heard of it before, but don’t really know any details. I make sure to include a reading with comprehension questions here so we’re definitely including some ELA skills on the first day. Then, of course, we take a quiz to find our types and share them out. I have students create a little “Enneagram profile” that connects their type to elements of pop culture.

You can check out a detailed post I wrote on the Enneagram for Angela Watson’s website, Truth for Teachers, here . You can also see my full, no-prep resource so you can implement this activity today right here .

activities for high school english teacher

#4: Help Your Students Discover How They Learn

multiple-intelligences-activity

This is a newer activity in my arsenal, but it was very successful when I ran it last year. This is especially powerful if you have a remediation class or students who don’t typically view school in a positive light. Showing students that there are many ways you can be smart not only empowers them, but also shows them that you’re a safe space for them. I had many students tell me how much they loved this activity when it was done!

I call this activity the Multiple Intelligences Learning Profile Project . This project teaches students all about Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences, directs them on how to find their own unique combination of intelligences, and then allows them to create their own learning profile to display their findings. Not only is this a great way to get to know your students, but you could easily make a very attractive bulletin board out of the profiles!

activities for high school english teacher

#5: Review Content (In a FUN Way!)

first-day-of-school

As an ELA teacher, I am always hyper aware of how content-specific language students forget over the summer. One of the first things I do is usually take it WAY back and review parts of speech. (Even with my upperclassmen sometimes… #iykyk)

An easy way to do this is with my Silly Stories resource (just like Mad Libs). Students think you’re just doing something fun when really you’ve found a sneaky way to make sure they remember terms they need to know. This is a great activity to have in your back pocket any day, but it’s especially handy for a first day block. (Those last 15 minutes can be killer when you’re re-adjusting your pacing!) Grab a few sets and print them off just in case.

You can do something similar with ANY content. Review games or escape room activities are also great ideas.

What’s your favorite way to introduce your students to your class? Sound off in the comments below or follow me on Instagram or Facebook to join the conversation!

Happy teaching!

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activities for high school english teacher

Listening activity ideas for adult learners

Adults in a classroom

Because of the way course materials are designed, teachers often use traditional listening exercises in class like gap-fills and multiple-choice questions, to develop their students’ listening skills. These tasks primarily focus on details and comprehension but sometimes lack a broader aim. L et’s explore alternative and engaging listening activity ideas for English practice that you can do with your adult learners. These activities and techniques encourage students to connect with real-life situations, enhance comprehension and promote interaction. 

Using clips from movies and series 

Using clips can help students practise authentic listening, whilst engaging students with things that they are likely to be interested in. 

You could have students watch clips for a variety of purposes, such as: 

  • becoming familiar with various accents and colloquial expressions
  • retelling or summarising the content in their own words 
  • whole class or pair discussions about what might happen next 
  • making notes on the main ideas and then writing a review about the film or series 

Using transcripts for role-playing

This active listening activity reinforces listening skills but also improves speaking and oral fluency.

  • Give out transcripts of audio materials, such as interviews, podcasts or news reports. Ask students to read along as they listen, paying particular attention to intonation, pronunciation and stress patterns.
  • After listening and reading, students act out the dialogues with a partner. 
  • You could also have students change parts of the transcript to their own ideas. 

Using music

Music offers an excellent opportunity to expose students to authentic language that isn’t typically taught in traditional lessons. So, what are some ways of using music for English listening practice? 

  • Instead of using single-word gaps, try removing chunks of phrases, idiomatic expressions or unusual grammar constructs. 
  • On the first listening, challenge students to focus on the number of parts they can hear (how many words in each gap). This exercise can be especially useful for distinguishing contractions and connected speech.

Using podcasts and news

You could start by finding out whether your students listen to podcasts and what topics they enjoy. That way, you can personalise the class to your students’ interests. 

  • While listening to the podcast, have students focus on details and then summarise what they heard either orally or in writing, with their partners.
  • You could also assign different parts of the podcast to different pairs or groups. So, if there is a true crime podcast that tells a chronological story, have one group listen to the first part, the next group the second part and so on. You can then do a mingling activity where students try to piece together the complete story.  

With news, you can combine English listening practice with reading skills. 

  • Have students find a news story online that interests them. Have them look for the same story on different online sources to see how it’s being told from different viewpoints. 
  • You can have students listen to the story rather than read it. Alternatively, have students write the news story in their own words to tell a partner. The partner then writes down the key points they hear. 
  • This active listening activity practises students’ authentic listening of peers. 

Using vlogs and social media clips

  • Create an engaging listening activity where partners plan a holiday together to a chosen destination. They need to gather information about the place before their trip, by watching short videos related to it.
  • For each video, instruct students to take notes on the summary and key points. After watching all the clips, they can report to the class what they’ve discovered about the destination, including information about local cuisine, tourist attractions and special events.

By incorporating these diverse listening activities for adults into your lessons, you can help your students develop their listening and communication skills and overall proficiency in English. 

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15 Back-to-School Activities for Middle and High School

15 Back-to-School Ideas for Middle and High School

It’s time to go back to school! With the back-to-school season upon us, it is time to start planning back-to-school activities for the first week of school. Here are 15 engaging and fun first-day and first-week school activities for middle and high school students.

1. Student survey

Back to School Activities

After my students complete this survey, I keep them behind my desk organized alphabetically by class period in a binder. This survey is also included in my Back-to-School Stations and my  Back to School Activities for Secondary ELA pack .

2. One-word project

A one-word project is a fun and simple way to start the school year. I use 4×6 notecards and have students think of just one word they want to embody their school year. I provide students with markers and other art supplies and encourage students to fill out the entire card.

3. Stacking cup challenge

Have you ever played the stacking cup challenge? It is a fun way to encourage teamwork and collaboration. I usually complete this challenge toward the beginning of the school year. You can read more about my Teambuilding Tuesdays in this blog post .

4. Classroom quilt

When building a classroom community, one way to include everyone is to make a classroom quilt and display it on the walls. Everyone receives a quilt square, and then students decorate their squares with things that are important to them. The classroom quilt activity is available as a stand-alone resource or included in my Back to School Activities for Secondary ELA pack .

5. Classroom welcome slides

Another great way to welcome students into the classroom is by creating a welcome slide deck. Each student contributes their own slide to the deck, and once the final presentation is complete, you can share the deck with the classroom. I created this free back-to-school activity as a way to help my students get to know one another.

6. Back-to-school stations

Back to school stations for secondary ELA

This resource includes four different stations that are absolutely perfect for the middle school and high school English classroom! In this activity, students will complete a survey, set up all of their class accounts, review the course syllabus, and complete a fun reading recommendations.

7. Growth mindset escape room

Escape rooms are always a fun and engaging activity to get students collaborating! From my experience, students are 100 percent engaged in the activity on escape room days. This growth mindset escape room is a great activity for the first week of school. It helps students learn about a growth mindset and includes famous failures as well!

8. Name cards

I don’t know about you, but I don’t always memorize my 180 students’ names during the first week of school. It is just….really challenging with such big class sizes. One way to help learn students’ names and more information about them is to have students complete a name card or a nameplate. Students write their names in the center in large, bold text. Then, they write one thing about them or one interest in each corner.

9. Growth mindset activities

growth mindset activities

This growth mindset resource includes a growth mindset survey, class exit tickets, assignment reflection forms, and so much more! You’ll be able to use this resource throughout the entire school year!

10. Letter to yourself

Having students write a letter to their future selves is another great way to start the year. Just like with the one-word project, you can provide students with a large notecard and have them write the letter to themselves on it. Better yet, have them write their letter on the backside of the one-word project and have them turn it into a postcard.

11. Class contract

Students perform best when they feel seen and heard. One way to start the school year is to create a class contract together. As a class, discuss what classroom rules and policies seem most fair, along with which ones will help students succeed. Yes, you’ll have some students suggest unlimited time on phones and complete access to music at all times in class, but this is a good time to teach students about digital citizenship and smart and responsible use of technology.

12. Email etiquette

Teaching Email Etiquette

I teach my students the ins and outs of email etiquette and how to write a professional email using this email etiquette lesson . My students love the presentation for the direct instruction portion of the lesson, and I love the emails I receive later in the year.

As an added bonus, my teacher inbox is a much friendlier place now!

13. Growth mindset banner

I really love decorating my classroom with my students throughout the year. One really great way to do that is by having students help create colorful decorations from day one! This free growth mindset banner is a perfect way to celebrate your new students and their aspirations!

14. Writing a personal statement

15 Back to School Ideas and Activities

15. Classroom syllabus scavenger hunt

Finally, an enjoyable way to help students review the syllabus without boring them is by completing a classroom syllabus scavenger hunt. Rather than read the syllabus aloud with students, I have them complete a scavenger hunt by finding key information, like “do I accept late work?” “what is the restroom policy?” and things like that. Students find and write the critical information, and the students keep the scavenger hunt page in their binders. I have a classroom syllabus scavenger hunt activity available in my  back-to-school stations .

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  6. 15 Fun Poetry Activities for High School

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  1. 42 Engaging English Activities For High School

    1. Paint Chip Poetry This is a fun activity that's easy to understand and set up. This game will challenge your students to use paint names to create beautiful pieces of poetry. A mix of paint chips, poetry prompts, and "variation cards" to keep things interesting makes for a unique way for your kids to experiment with words and poetry.

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  3. My Favorite High School English Activities of the Year

    Rhetorical Appeals Learning Stations Rhetoric is one of my favorite units to teach. I love reading significant and persuasive speeches with my students and teaching them how to analyze the language. I love seeing that moment when they get it -that moment when they realize just how powerful language is.

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    #1. Be over-prepared. #2. Plan with the end in mind. #3. Use thematic units when you can. #4. Make connections between what you read and teach from topic to topic or text to text. #5. Focus on relationships, but do so through activities that mean something and have value in the High School English Teaching classroom. #6. Choose good literature. #7.

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  6. 10 Innovative Ways to Teach English: Creative Activities ...

    1. Teach Through Play 2. Incorporate Students' Interests into Your Lessons 3. Blogs for Creative Writing 4. Video Games for Motivated Practice 5. Skype for Real Conversations 6. Celebrate Student Accomplishments 7. Spaced Learning to Better Absorb Information 8. Conduct Classroom Experiments 9. Encourage Reflective Thinking 10.

  7. 10 Essential High School English Lessons to Teach

    1. High School English Lessons to Teach: Rhetorical Appeals. When students learn about rhetorical appeals and can identify them in a text, students gain a much stronger understanding of the text, its purpose, and why the author wrote it. Learning about and understanding rhetorical appeals also helps students become stronger writers themselves.

  8. Activities

    Here you can find a wide range of short activities to use in your secondary classroom. All of our activities are designed around themes engaging and relevant to secondary learners and can be used to complement your school curriculum, giving students an opportunity to develop their English language and skills in motivating and enjoyable ways. Written by young learner experts from around the ...

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  10. A Resource Guide to Teaching High School English

    Some of the activities highlighted in the articles below include learning how to write a: thesis statement, essay, autobiography and research paper. How to Write a Thesis Statement Write a Good Five Paragraph Essay Lesson Plan: High School Writing Assessment for 10th Graders

  11. ESL Activities for High School

    Amber D. Walker Teaching English as a second language (ESL) to high school students can be challenging. Many activities are available for beginning students, but it can be harder to come up with activities for advanced ESL students that are appropriate to their ages and language levels.

  12. 9 New Year's Activities for High School English

    9 New Year's Activities for High School English. November 29, 2023. AP Literature, English 11. Starting school again in January is hard. Most of us have had a long (ish) break. In my part of the country it can be anywhere from a 6 days to two full weeks depending on where the holidays fall. In other parts of the country, the break is ...

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    By teaching a few highly-engaging grammar lessons this first week of school, you will set your students up for a clear path toward powerful writing for the rest of the school year. Teach vivid verbs on third day of school. Verbs are familiar to your students, but most students don't realize the power of using action verbs instead of linking ...

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    Use Rhetoric to introduce Yourself on the first day. 1. Introduce yourself using rhetoric: Rhetoric is something that English teachers teach regularly, yet it might not occur to you how powerful pathos, logos, and ethos can be when it comes to introducing yourself to your students on your first day. While we sometimes think of rhetoric as a ...

  16. English Activities For High School Teaching Resources

    PDF This resource includes worksheets that use poetry to help students reflect about the new year! This resource is geared toward high school students, and is perfect for any high school English class! This activity can be completed by students individually or as a group.

  17. 6 Super Fun Games For High School Students

    1: Thumbs Up Game 2: The Liar Game 3: Word Association Game 4: The Chain Game 5: The Hula Skirt Game 6: The Mafia Game More Games Fun Games For High School Students 1: Thumbs Up Game This first activity is a classic classroom game that high school students love to play! To play, first, choose three students to come up to the front of the class.

  18. 10 ESL Activities for Busy Teachers

    10 ESL Activities for Your Teaching Toolbox. 1. Two Truths and a Lie. Level: Mid or high. Players: Whole class. Grammar Point: Used to, daily routines, present perfect, etc. Time: 15-25 min. How to Play: Students think of three facts about themselves, 2 that are true and one lie.

  19. 5 First Day of School Activities for High School English

    For this activity, have students identify a few core memories of their experience with reading. This can be particular moments, books, etc. They choose the memories and then create a timeline with images to share with the class. This can be done digitally using Google Slides or on paper with some coloring supplies.

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  21. 5 Engaging Back-to-School Activities for High School Students

    Back-To-School Activities #1: Classroom Scavenger Hunt This is my favorite first day of school activity and you can use it for any high school class-not just English. Save yourself some prep time with these FREE and EDITABLE Back-to-School Scavenger Hunt labels and worksheet! The Classroom Scavenger Hunt requires a little bit of prep work.

  22. 5 End-of-School-Year Activities for High School English

    End of School Year Activities for High School English #3: Have Students Write a Letter. Writing a letter is an essential skill that not many students actually practice. Teens today just don't have much reason to write them, but that doesn't mean they won't need to know how later in life. You can use the last few weeks of the year to teach ...

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    L et's explore alternative and engaging listening activity ideas for English practice that you can do with your adult learners. These activities and techniques encourage students to connect with real-life situations, enhance comprehension and promote interaction. Using clips from movies and series

  24. 15 Back-to-School Activities for Middle and High School

    Here are 15 engaging and fun first-day and first-week school activities for middle and high school students. 1. Student survey. Having students complete a classroom survey during the first week of school is a great way to get to know your new students. I've used this free back-to-school survey for years, and it is such a valuable tool because ...