Each month, we share five things we love as part of our Footnotes Newsletter. Take a look at some of our favorite English language arts resources, articles, podcasts, and more we found in August!

1. Grammar and Reading

While reading Olive Ann Burns’s Cold Sassy Tree as a class, teacher Deborah Dean noticed her students weren’t picking up on the use of dialect and how it affected the book’s message. Now, Deborah makes sure students learn about the elements of language as part of their literature units. See how she approaches language study in this post for the NCTE blog.

2. 10 Strategies to Increase Student Reading Comprehension

Every student, regardless of skill level, will run into reading comprehension issues from time to time. A student may be able to read a text but might not actually understand what’s being discussed. This article for ThoughtCo outlines ten different reading strategies students can try when confronting a difficult text.

3. 6 Simple Strategies for Handling Overwhelm When You’re a Teacher

As a teacher, it seems as if there’s always a million things to do at any given time. Feeling overwhelmed by everything on your plate is completely understandable. In this blog post, educator Alison reflects on times she felt this way and offers practical ways to reframe your mindset and tackle tasks with confidence.

4. Teach Digital Literacy With Cartoon Network’s We Bare Bears

In a media-saturated world, students need to develop strong digital literacy skills to effectively evaluate what they see and do online. But sometimes it’s hard to teach these skills in a way that will really stick. Using video clips from the popular Cartoon Network series We Bare Bears, this online lesson plan asks students to explore the impacts of social media usage and what it means to be a responsible digital citizen.

5. reThink ELA #017: Project VOICE: Showing Students the Relevance of Writing

Have you ever wanted to take student writing to the next level? This episode of the reThink ELA podcast is for you! Jamie Hinds and Savanna Payne join the show to discuss Project VOICE, a writing workshop that gives students the opportunity to write and publish their own creative works.