What do you think are essential student skills?
Depending on where you teach, your administration might have asked you to wait to teach curriculum content until the second week of school. They might have asked you to spend the first week of school community building in your classroom.
While this is needed, you can only spend so much time during the first week of school playing warm-up games. I am all for get-to-know-you activities and waiting to jump into the curriculum, but let’s be honest – we teach middle school students; there is only so much unstructured time they can have.
Here is my hot take that fulfills your admin’s requirement that the curriculum not be taught until week two: Explicitly teach email writing skills and what constitutes plagiarism.
You can still sprinkle your fantastic back-to-school activities between these email and plagiarism lessons.
Two Essential Student Skills to Teach the First Week of School
How many times have you gotten an unprofessional email from a student?
Or maybe last year, someone handed in an assignment that looked like an AI program wrote it?
This year, let’s try something different: Front-load the skills they need to be successful. Then, if an issue arises, you can share that they know the difference between paraphrasing versus copying and pasting.
Why is email etiquette important?
Email etiquette is essential for many reasons, and we may think that since our students have grown up with computers, they may already know the etiquette. However, that is sometimes far from the truth. You may have already gotten emails from students written entirely in lowercase letters or with texting shorthand sprinkled throughout. Or even–and I hope this hasn’t happened to you!–an email addressed to “Bruh.”
This is a skill that needs to be taught, not only for future academic and career success but also because it teaches professionalism and respect and prepares them for the future.
To learn more about why teaching students how to write proper emails is important, check out this blog post: 7 Reasons To Teach Email Writing Skills in Middle School.
Email Etiquette Unit
This Email Etiquette Unit will equip your students with the essential student skills to navigate the online world confidently and professionally. In six lessons, students will learn email and LMS etiquette and basic email skills such as CC/BCC, file attachments, inbox organization and when to “Reply,” “Reply All,” and Forward an email. This resource will help your students gain some of the essential student skills they need.
Learn more about this Email Etiquette Unit on Shopify CAD or Teachers Pay Teachers USD.
Why is plagiarism education important?
You should pay special attention to plagiarism when teaching digital citizenship lessons. When students use the Internet for research, copying and pasting information into assignments can be very tempting, which is why students need to learn the importance of plagiarism, how to recognize it, and the appropriate ways to use AI. Plagiarism education is crucial as artificial intelligence tools have risen in popularity. Educating students about plagiarism is an essential student skill.
In this Plagiarism Unit, students will learn the meaning of plagiarism and how to recognize plagiarism. They might even be surprised to learn of the many things they might not even have thought were considered plagiarism.
Plagiarism Unit
This middle school Plagiarism Unit contains nine high-interest lessons to help students understand plagiarism and its consequences. You can start with a few of these lessons during the first two weeks and then use the remaining lessons as needed throughout the year. Use this resource to help your students gain those essential student skills they need.
Check out what lessons this resource contains:
- What Is Plagiarism?
- Identifying Plagiarism
- Plagiarism and AI Tools
- How To Avoid Plagiarism When Summarizing
- How To Avoid Plagiarism When Paraphrasing
- How To Avoid Plagiarism When Using Direct Quotes
- Plagiarism Stations
- Creating A Works Cited Page
- Creating In-Text Citations
Learn more about this Plagiarism Unit on Shopify CAD or Teachers Pay Teachers USD.
The Ultimate Teacher’s Guide to Back-to-School Success
Returning to school can feel daunting and overwhelming, no matter how many years you’ve been teaching. Sometimes, it might feel like you don’t have the brain space to remember everything you need to know before the year starts! That’s why you need to check out this huge back-to-school post, The Ultimate Teacher’s Guide to Back-to-School Success, with everything you need to know to set you up for back-to-school success.
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