Walk into any secondary ELA classroom, especially during Back to School season, and you’ll find teachers juggling a thousand priorities. We want students to become stronger readers, more confident writers and, of course, thoughtful speakers and critical thinkers, too. The challenge isn’t knowing what matters… it’s deciding how to do it in the most efficient way. Setting up the school year with strategic lessons to build expectations and routines means you’re setting yourself up for success.

The most effective ELA classrooms aren’t built on random activities or isolated lessons. They’re built on intentional routines and systems that support literacy every single day. When students know what to expect and they have consistent opportunities to practice skills and engage with meaningful texts, their learning becomes deeper and more sustainable. 

In this post, I’m teaming up with Kara from @rileyreadsya to share some Back to School activities and structures that we believe every secondary ELA teacher should consider. Whether you’re setting up a brand new classroom or refining your existing routines, these activities are meant to help create engaged readers and classrooms where literacy can thrive.

Systematic Vocabulary Instruction: 

Having a strong vocabulary is one of the biggest facilitators of reading comprehension but it is also something that needs to be really intentionally strengthened. Effective vocabulary instruction needs to be embedded into daily classroom routines. Rather than relying on word lists that students memorize and then forget, a systematic approach gives students repeated opportunities to interact with new words over time. Students need practice using context clues and revisiting words constantly. This type of structured instruction helps students retain vocabulary, improve reading comprehension and become confident enough to tackle unfamiliar words in complex texts. 

A strong vocabulary routine should also include explicit instruction in how words work. Teaching spelling patterns, morphology, and other linguistic features alongside vocabulary strengthens students’ orthographic mapping, no matter what age they are! By combining vocabulary with spelling and context clues, we can help students build their word knowledge. And these routines don’t have to consume entire class periods. Even just a few minutes of consistent, purposeful vocabulary each day or once a week can have a lasting impact over the course of the school year.

Grammar in Context

Grammar instruction is really more effective when students can see it as a tool to understand what they’re reading and communicating better. Instead of teaching grammar as an isolated set of rules to memorize, try embedding it into the novels and texts that you’re already using in class. Mentor sentences from class texts allow students to see how authors use language. But, sometimes, the mentor sentences that we need don’t exist in the text that we’re reading. That is where the idea for these Grammar in Context resources came from.

Practice with mentor sentences ABOUT your class text to help students focus on how the language works and scaffold their comprehension. This contextual approach helps students build both syntactic awareness and reading comprehension. As they manipulate sentences and experiment with structure, they develop a deeper understanding of both language and the text itself.

Intentional Seating and Flexible Grouping

Where students sit… and who they work with… can have a surprising impact on classroom culture. We KNOW that but it is also such a pain to create seating charts, at least it is for me! Rather than assigning seats randomly or letting students choose, consider using a more purposeful seating routine that helps you learn about your students while building a little community. Strategic seating and grouping activities encourage students to interact with classmates and practice following directions. With a little creativity, something as simple as assigning seats can become an engaging routine that supports both relationship building and effective instruction.

If you’re not feeling the whole seating chart challenge idea, but also don’t want to just say “Sit Anywhere,” try this Author Matching Game to point students to a seat intentionally, get books in their hands on Day 1, AND do a little bit of pre-assessment on their research and writing skills.

Kara, always starts the school year with these three activities to establish my classroom culture and set expectations! 

1. First, she ditches awkward ice breakers and boring lectures, and instead establishes the student-centered approach she takes for most lessons throughout the year. Using this (editable) classroom scavenger hunt, Kara gets kids up and moving and exploring the classroom space for themselves. It’s a welcome break from talking (for her) and sitting (for students) at the beginning of the year. 

2. Next, she makes sure to set expectations for the kind of written responses she wants from students throughout the year. Using some basic getting-to-know you questions, Kara asks students to practice writing thorough responses. The best part of this resource is the included rubric and pre-written feedback comments. The key to making this assignment meaningful is commenting on students’ Google Slides quickly (in class!) and having them revise their responses until they meet expectations. No more one-word answers or unexplained answers! 

3. Lastly, Kara teaches students how to write a proper email. She has received one too many rude, incomplete, and improperly formatted emails, so she decided to do something about it! This email etiquette lesson is so much fun, but also highly effective in teaching all the components of a clear and well-written email. By popular demand, she even created a Halloween version of the same lesson. 

What routines do you prioritize at the beginning of the school year? We’d love to hear from you!