12 Ways to Bring Movement into the Secondary ELA Classroom
If you’re looking for way to bring engagement to your secondary ELA classroom, sometimes you just need to get your kids out of their seat with some movement!
Even middle school and high school classes (ok, especially these students) can benefit from lessons and activities that keep them moving.
Keep reading for 12 ways to bring movement into the secondary ELA classroom.
Kinesthetic Sensory Writing
Get your students UP and MOVING with a fun narrative writing activity - Kinesthetic Sensory Writing!
Samantha from Samantha in Secondary loves a great narrative writing activity and what better way to get those brains moving in a creative direction than to add in some movement?
Enter: Kinesthetic Sensory Writing. Set up five stations- one for each of the senses. At each station, add items that will help students explore those senses. (Think coffee beans for smell, a stuffed animal for touch, candy for taste, etc.) Then, encourage students to describe the experience using their best detailed writing. (Encourage figurative language as much as possible!)
Want a FREE activity to help guide you through this process? Sign up for my email list and you’ll get the lesson plan and printable worksheet to accompany this activity! Click here to get yours!
Meet-the-Characters Speed Dating
What does speed dating have to do with a secondary English class?? Well, Krista from @whimsyandrigor uses this classic dating method to get students up and mingling with characters from novels, history, or other common texts.
Here’s how she does it:
First, Krista chooses an end goal for the students. For example, after the speed dating activity, will they write a character analysis essay on someone they meet or will they do a deep dive into an important person from history?
Next students each receive a character/person they must become for the next 15 minutes. This can be someone from the novel the class is reading or a person from history if you are doing a nonfiction unit. (Krista has used this activity when students were learning about civil rights activists and it worked perfectly!)
Students independently read about their assigned person, annotate as needed, and then write from the person’s POV for 5 minutes.
Krista asks each student to stand up, mingle around the room, and find someone to chat with. She reminds students that they must use first person POV to talk about themselves (in character).
At the end of a few speed dating rounds, Krista asks students who they would “Swipe Right” on and that is the person the student will learn and write about for the final project you had in mind.
This activity is so engaging because bringing speed dating into the classroom is so cringe-y and therefore memorable. Plus the fact they are asked to swipe right on someone always makes them giggle, which, again, makes it memorable.
You can easily create your own template for students to use while mingling or you could download the whole thing right here.
Happy dating!
Outdoor Learning
Molly from The Littlest Teacher found that she simply does not enjoy being cooped up indoors in a classroom all day. When the weather is beautiful, she loves to find an excuse to take her students outdoors to bring movement and variety to her ELA classes.
Of course, we have WAY too much to do in ELA to be wasting time frolicking in the flowers, so finding academic activities to do outdoors is a must. The possibilities are endless, but some of Molly’s favorites are review games that require lots of movement, practicing concepts on the sidewalk using chalk, or simply allowing students to take their independent work outside for a change of pace and some serotonin from the sunshine. For more details, check out this post with ideas for outdoor activities you can do with your students any time the weather allows.
Human Value Line
Lesa from SmithTeaches9to12 likes to get students up and moving in different collaborative activities, including a human value line. Similar to four corners where students share their opinions about statements you can do the same with a value line.
1. Read a statement to the class; it could be about current events, a preview activity for a text, or anything that requires students to consider an opinion. Lesa loves using these career-focused task cards for this very purpose!
2. Then students place themselves on a value line from totally agree to totally disagree with variations throughout the middle.
3. A next step to this is to fold the number line so students can discuss their opinion and rationale with someone at the other end of the spectrum.
4. A further step is to move to a debate where one end of the spectrum debates the other end. Anyone in the middle can act as observers in order to choose a winner of the debate.
5. Re-pose the question after the debate and see if anyone chooses to move their place on the human value line.
Grammar Games
Looking for ways to make your grammar lessons more memorable and fun? Simple! Gamify your grammar!
Katie from Mochas and Markbooks loves to engage students in grammar lessons by finding ways to practice the concepts through games and competitions. Even the most reluctant or struggling students will be eager to participate in a game where comprehension questions feel fun, rather than stressful.
Some of Katie’s favorite ways to gamify her grammar lessons include:
Relay Races: Split your class into teams and have students race one at a time to an activity like a word sort or matching game, Teams win when all of their players have finished the activity.
Mingle Mingle: Hand out strips of paper with corresponding sentence parts, like subjects and predicates, or independent and subordinate clauses. Ask students to mingle around the room while music plays and find a partner to make a complete sentence.
Runaway Run-On Sentence: Create a run-on sentence and then print it out in a larger sized font, gluing or taping the papers together to make one long roll of paper that you can literally run down the hallway. Print off commas, end punctuation, and conjunction cards and challenge students to fix the sentence by placing their cards in the correct spots.
For more ways to add movement to your classroom through gamification, check out this post for more!
Gallery Walk
Students spend much of their time at school sitting at their desk working or taking notes. Carolyn from Middle School Cafe knows that getting students up and moving around is a great way to bring (constructed) energy to your lessons!
One teaching strategy that is easy to implement and provides opportunities for movement is the gallery walk. A gallery walk is a strategy that can be used with students at any grade level. It involves placing texts or images around the room and having students move from one to the other, exploring the content as they go, similar to stations.
The gallery walk is a versatile strategy that can be used in a variety of ways. Here are a few examples:
Have students make observations of images that depict the setting of the next book you'll be reading
Use the gallery walk to have students share their writing with peers
A gallery walk is a great way to have students look at multiple pieces of text quickly. You could have students study and respond to a collection of quotes about a character.
There are many benefits of using a gallery walk in your classroom. One of the most significant benefits is that it promotes student engagement. A gallery walk requires students to physically move around the room, which can be especially engaging for students who need to move or are simply bored from sitting all day.
Scavenger Hunts
Behind the blinds, peeking out from a pencil sharpener, or even high up on a ceiling fan! These are all places that make great “hiding” places to tape content around the room! Sometimes adding movement to your classroom can be as simple as a scavenger hunt around the room to find questions or examples to answer or analyze.
Staci from Donut Lovin’ Teacher says that hiding content questions around the room gets students up and moving, plus they can work with one another to talk through their thinking. The best thing about it, is you likely already have the content! Take those theme task cards and tape them around the room. Have a punctuation handout for students to practice? Enlarge the font and put them all around the room. Provide students with a recording sheet, and you’re done! Plus, if you turn this scavenger hunt into a race against teams, or even individuals, the engagement instantly increases!
A few tips from Staci:
Some students will naturally finish earlier, so it can be helpful to provide an extension for them to complete on their recording sheet.
Make sure that there isn’t a clear order for students to answer the questions so students can work all around the room rather than crowd one set location.
At the end of the activity, ask each class to hide one task card for the next class!
Staci says that the movement isn’t the only great thing about a scavenger hunt, but she also hears students having richer conversations about differing perspectives which for her is *chef’s kiss.*
Bowling in the Classroom
Bowling in the classroom, say what?
Your students will enjoy getting up and moving around with bowling in the classroom for body paragraphs.
Sharena, The Humble Bird Teacher, uses this activity in her class every year to review writing body paragraphs.
First, you will place your students into teams. Then you will go over the introduction paragraph, “Designing a Neighborhood,” with your class. You will explain to the students that they will be bowling to determine who will write which body paragraph. The team with the most points gets to select which body paragraph they will write (1, 2, or 3). If the first team selects body paragraph two then the second team can select body paragraph one or three. The team with the least points writes whatever body paragraph is leftover.
Afterwards, the entire class copies the thesis statement from the introduction, but all of the class writes a body paragraph depending on their team as stated above. Lastly, the teacher takes the introduction and combines all three paragraphs from each group and reads it to the class to see if the paper is organized and flows.
As an additional task, the teacher could write a conclusion paragraph with the students for a completed paper that can be used as a model/mentor text.
For more information on this assignment, you can check out the blog post here.
Learning Stations
Yaddy from Yaddy’s Room played around with the idea of stations before. But honestly, it seemed a bit juvenile to her. Could it be that simple to get students engaged and get some buy-in? In high school?
Apparently, yes!
She tested out the station idea with essay revision, breaking down the process into aspects that she felt were important, like the thesis statement, claims, evidence, commentary, and conclusion.
And it worked like a dream.
By having students work in stations, it chunked down the process into sections that were more tangible to students. Her stragglers were able to ask for help and focus on a single task at a time instead of being overwhelmed by the whole essay at once, and the students who were above grade level got to reinforce their understanding of the concepts by helping identify ways to improve others’ essays.
You can check out a blog post on essay revision stations here, or you can look at the product at this link here.
Character Dance Challenge
Do you ever find yourself wondering what your favorite book characters would do if they had to bust a move? Well, wonder no more! In this fun and engaging activity, students get to use their imagination and critical thinking skills to come up with TikTok-worthy dance moves for their favorite book characters.
First, students will need to choose a character from a book they are currently reading. Next, they will look for evidence to show what that character's dance moves might look like. This can get pretty silly! For example, if the character has an emotional moment while picking apples in the orchard, the student might create an "apple-picking" move, with their hand reaching up and swinging back down. If their character is known for falling hopelessly in love, your student might literally "fall" to the floor as a part of their dance.
Your students can record their dances in short videos to submit, OR you can have a dance party right there in class. Use these free handouts to help your students support their choices with textual evidence. This activity is rigorous AND fun!
Using Goosechase to Elevate Text Review
Controlled chaos in the classroom can be a beautiful thing and if there is one platform Simply Ana P can’t stop raving about for this, it is Goosechase Edu. She uses it at least three times a semester and her favorite way to use it is as a text or unit recap.
Basically, it’s a scavenger hunt-esque activity where you can create various missions for students to accomplish individually or in teams - engagement guaranteed - and there is a free and paid version available.
Goosechase is available as an Android or Apple app (free to download), but the teacher set up part can be done on a desktop. Students upload photos and videos to complete missions and you can set whatever point value you’d like for each mission. Ana usually assigns higher point values for video submissions.
There are truly endless possibilities when it comes to mission tasks and these have been some of Ana’s favorites:
Chalkisms reviewing figurative language in the text
Video diary entries
Recreate a scene from the text
Write and recite a rap that relates to the text
It’s a beautiful space for both teacher and student creativity, and there’s even a leaderboard section in case you want to make it a competition. Ana swears by it - once you use it the first time in your classroom, the kids will be begging for more.
If you’re looking for the perfect activity to balance critical and creative thinking, movement, and fun, Goosechase Edu is for you.
If your students are bouncing off the walls (or if you’re just looking to increase engagement) adding movement is definitely the way to go. Give these activities a try, and watch your secondary students’ engagement soar!