My 5 Favorite Beginning-of-the-Year Resources
Finally all in one place—with free links to create/adapt for your classroom
Over recent months, I’ve shared out several different individual tools and resources that I use to begin the school year—but I figured that it made more sense to have them all in one place going forward, including with links to “create a copy” for anyone who finds them helpful!
As with everything we share via The Broken Copier, you are welcome to copy, add to, or revise any of these materials for your students. (Just please don’t repurpose them for TPT or anything for profit, please and thank you!)
Additionally, if you have specific questions about any of them, feel free to reach out via comments on this post, on Twitter (I think I’ll keep calling it that for now) or email at marcus.luther@gmail.com—and I’ll respond when I get a chance! —Marcus
Learning Student Values Slide Deck
This has been a staple of my opening week as a teacher for many years—usually on the first day: giving students a chance to narrow down their “top values” not only to share with peers but also for me to know as well, including for a classmate roster that each student gets for their in-class spiral.
In my eyes, classroom community is everything—so building it right away is a clear priority for me when beginning the school year. I also include in this slide deck the five-question “index card survey” we open with, an intentionally-brief set of questions that allow me to read/respond right away in getting to know students and how they need/want to be supported.
Diving-Into-Poetry Slide Deck
Though I’m sure this is mostly helpful for ELA folks, another way I love to begin the year alongside culture setting is to begin Day 1 (or Day 2, sometimes) with a poem.
Yes, that’s right: reading a poem on Day 1. Imagine the reaction from students!
This 45-minute(-ish) lesson is built around Ezra Pounds “In a Station of a Metro,” a two-line poem that uniquely captures how a single moment in a single place can brilliantly speak to the human condition.
I also love this lesson since it typically stands out from syllabus overviews and icebreakers—offering students a chance to introduce themselves to peers through content, including a chance to write their own poem to close the lesson! (Which then becomes a great getting-to-know-students tool for you as a teacher, too.)
Assessment Reflection Document
I’ve shared this out before—including a post about what this tool can become as an end-of-semester activity—but I wanted to make sure to include this here as well as it is such a cool foundational system to begin the year with.
Seriously—check out what some of samples from my classroom ended up looking like last year! Not only was this important for students; it also allowed me insight into how students themselves saw their own learning as the year progressed. (And of course you can edit it to fit your schedule/assessment type, as ours were typically built around writing in our ELA classroom.)
“Read Like an Octopus” Slide Deck
This is one of my favorite tools as an ELA teacher—though I think it could be helpful for any teacher looking to build close-reading skills in an authentic way. Adapted from the amazing Marisa Thompson’s TQE Method, this fits into our classroom “octopus theme” with an eight-step process of close-reading, one that is also visually displayed in our classroom, too, with the iceberg analogy.
In our room, we use this as an opening framing of what critical reading will look like and then as an ongoing tool for students to access at any time.
Preview of the Full Slide Deck here (revised version for 23-24 here)
Link to Create Your Own Copy here (revised version for 23-24 here)
Interactive TQE Document
This is a new one for me this year—but I hope it will quickly become a steadfast part of our learning environment. Building off the previous resource and Marisa Thompson’s system, this template allows me to paste a brief excerpt into the blank space and then allow students to annotate their own copy of it for thoughts/questions (see sample here) along with a deeper reflection on how that excerpt (or page within the novel) contributes to the meaning of the overall text.
I have lots of ideas in mind of how this could be used—including a potential whole-class annotation guide of different pages of Their Eyes Were Watching God!—but I also know this could be used within individual texts in any context, which is why I wanted to include it in this post!
Thank you so much for sharing these great resources! Would you be willing to share a "make-your-own-copy" version of the updated 2023-2024 Octopus reading activity?
I used the values activity with my classes and they had such a great time with it! Thank you so much for providing such amazing resources.