Random Acts of Kindness: Real World ELA

If you're interested in outreach, real-world extensions of ELA, or character development, then you might be interested in random acts of kindness! {Scroll down for pics.}

I first did this project last year, during my unit on A Christmas Carol, when I wanted to talk to students about the importance of NOT being like Scrooge! Students couldn't decide how they felt about it at first, but in their reflections afterward, they were almost unanimously glad that they did it! 

Teaching Students to Analyze Evidence (at last!)

Does the following story sound familiar to you?
For years, the Social Studies teacher and I banged our heads against a wall with getting our students to fully explain their answers, support their ideas with evidence, and then explain and/or analyze that evidence. We used witty acronyms, taught it consistently across the curriculum, modeled examples... and yet, students still under-performed.